Promising to help America's middle class, President Barack Obama on Monday sent Congress a record $4 trillion budget that would hammer corporate profits overseas and raise taxes on the wealthy while boosting tax credits for families and the working poor.
Obama's proposal would also steer hundreds of billions of dollars to the nation's crumbling infrastructure of roads and bridges, help provide two years of free community college and reverse the across-the-board, automatic budget cuts that have slammed the Pentagon and nearly every government department.
The presidents budget, which will set off months of wrangling in Congress, proposes spending $4 trillion — $3.999 trillion before rounding — in the budget year that begins Oct. 1. That's a 6.4 percent increase over projected spending this year. It projects the deficit will decline to $474 billion in 2016.
In a message accompanying the massive budget books, Obama says his proposals are "practical, not partisan." But even before the books were delivered, Republicans found plenty to criticize in tax hikes trillion.
