President Obama breaks from reality in final budget proposal

Today, President Obama released his administration’s final budget request. Instead of making a serious proposal to address our national debt and fund vital programs, Obama has given us a completely unrealistic list of new spending programs and a crippling energy tax that would raise prices at the pump and harm families.

• Obama’s budget calls for a $10-per-barrel tax on crude oil, which at current prices amounts to more than a 30% levy and would raise the price of gasoline by an estimated 25-cents-per-gallon.
  • This proposal was widely praised by extreme environmentalists, leaving House Democrats with a choice between supporting a proposal that would raise prices at the pump by an estimated 25-cents-per-gallon or risk angering liberal activists and donors.
• Despite already strong public disapproval of Obamacare, Obama’s budget would double down on the failed health care law, further expanding Medicaid.
  • House Democrats have routinely voted against the repeal of Obamacare, but Obama’s new proposal will give them a chance to go on the record with whether they support its expansion.
• Instead of tackling our $19 trillion national debt, President Obama has decided to propose a laundry list of new spending proposals and new taxes.
• Obama’s budget has already been called “aggressively liberal” and “legislatively irrelevant.”

NRCC COMMENT: “President Obama has seemingly lost all interest in governing in his final year in office. Instead of proposing a realistic budget to address the real problems facing our nation, like our $19 trillion national debt, President Obama has proposed a crippling energy tax, further expansion of his failed health care law, and billions in new spending. Will Congressional Democrats support his extreme new proposals or abandon the President in his lame duck year?” – Bob Salera, NRCC Spokesman

Background:

Obama’s go-for-broke budget. “Even as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders quarrel over who’s a “progressive” and who’s not, the president will propose a sweepingly progressive policy agenda that includes a $10-a-barrel oil tax, an expensive Medicaid expansion, a $4 billion initiative to promote computer science in public schools and the first down payment on a “moon shot” research initiative to cure cancer led by Vice President Joe Biden.” (Timothy Noah, Politico, 2/8/16)

Obama is proposing a $10-a-barrel oil tax, but GOP says it’s ‘dead on arrival.’ “President Obama is proposing a $10-a-barrel oil tax meant to discourage oil consumption, just one example in his final budget proposal that describes a vision of government he likely will never be able to enact. Even before the proposals are rolled out Tuesday, Republicans who control Congress have pronounced the oil tax ‘dead on arrival,’ a prognosis that applies not only to the rest of his 2017 budget plan, but to his legislative aspirations in general.” (Christi Parsons and Lisa Mascaro, Los Angeles Times, 2/6/16)

President Obama’s 2017 budget proposal

Public Approval of Health Care Law: Real Clear Politics Average

Energy and Oil Prices: Bloomberg Business