Obama Wants to Boost Spending, End Sequester

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(PHILADELPHIA) — Continuing to defy the GOP’s wishes for smaller government and less spending, President Obama instead is proposing a seven percent increase in his $1.1 trillion 2016 fiscal budget proposal.

Obama’s plan, which he outlined to House Democrats at their annual retreat in Philadelphia Thursday, would end sequestration, the automatic across-the-board spending cuts affecting both defense and domestic programs for nearly two years.

Although the sequester has sliced the federal deficit in half from its height of $1 trillion, the president feels that these spending cuts will hurt the military and have a negative impact on the economy, which has been growing steadily after years of stagnation.

Republicans have no intention of passing Obama’s budget proposal as is, although a number of them would like to end the sequester and find other ways to reduce spending.

The president told House Democrats that he has no intention of sitting on the sidelines during the last two years of his second term, contending that the party needs to fight for the middle class, millions of whom still haven’t benefited from the economic resurgence.

Obama also rattled off his administration’s accomplishments and took some digs at Republicans, particularly Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP standard bearer who is thinking about another run at the White House.

Without mentioning Romney by name, the president mused how a “former presidential candidate” is “suddenly deeply concerned about poverty.”

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