For its final budget, the Obama administration released a $4.15 billion-plan for 2017, packed with spending for infrastructure programs and the anticipated cancer “moonshot”.
The Office of Management and Budget released the 2017 plan on Feb. 9, with President Barack Obama touting his record on job creation, including adding 14 million jobs over the past seven years.
“When I took office, our Nation was in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression. The economy was shedding 800,000 jobs a month,” Obama said in his message to Congress.
“But thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, we rescued our economy from the depths of the recession, revitalized our auto industry and laid down new rules to safeguard our economy from recklessness on Wall Street. We made the largest investment in clean energy in our history, and made health care reform a reality. And today, our economy is the strongest, most durable on Earth.”
The 2017 budget focuses several big ticket items, including adding $320 billion over 10 years to build a clean transportation system, $152 billion for research and development, $7.7 billion for clean energy research—a 20 percent bump from 2016— and the signature cancer “Moonshot” that includes for $1 billion for medical research.
The 2017 budget boosts spending by $223 billion over 2016 and projects a $503 billion deficit for the year.
Obama said plan is in the spirit of the 2016 agreement, which passed in December and moves the country past the spending caps of sequestration while including savings on health care spending as well as budget cuts.
“My Budget makes critical investments while adhering to the bipartisan budget agreement I signed into law last fall, and it lifts sequestration in future years so that we continue to invest in our economic future and our national security,” he said. “It also drives down deficits and maintains our fiscal progress through smart savings from health care, immigration and tax reforms. And, it focuses on meeting our greatest challenges not only for the year ahead, but for decades to come.”
