WASHINGTON (AP) — Striving for unity among Democrats rather than compromise with Republicans, President Barack Obama will unveil an election-year budget on Tuesday that drops earlier proposals to cut future Social Security benefits and seeks new money for infrastructure, education and job training.
But Obama’s almost $4 trillion budget plan is likely to have a short shelf life. It comes just three months after Congress and the White House agreed to a two-year, bipartisan budget pact that has already set the parameters for this election year’s budget work. Democrats controlling the Senate have already announced they won’t advance a budget this year and will instead skip ahead to the annual appropriations bills for 2015, relying on new spending “caps” set by December’s budget deal that provide $56 billion less than what Obama wants in 2015.
