The Final State of the Union
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Summary:
President Obama talks about his budget for the 2013 fiscal year -- and how it will boost job creation to speed our economic recovery.
President Barack Obama delivers remarks to students on the FY 2013 Budget at the Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), Annandale, Va., campus, Feb. 13, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
President Obama traveled to Annadale in northern Virginia this morning to talk about his budget for the 2013 fiscal year -- and how it will boost job creation to speed our economic recovery.
A core set of themes helps to define this budget, and in talking to the crowd, the President laid out those ideas:
[An] economy built to last demands that we keep doing everything we can to help students learn the skills that businesses are looking for. It means we have to keep strengthening American manufacturing. It means we’ve got to keep investing in American energy. We've got to double down on the clean energy that’s creating jobs. But it also means we've got to renew the American values of fair play and shared responsibility.
To help reflect that shared responsibility, the President is proposing a new set of reforms that guarantees that millionaires don't pay a lower rate in taxes than the middle class. He said:
Right now, we’re scheduled to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was intended to be a temporary tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. We’ve already spent about that much. Now we’re scheduled to spend another trillion. Keep in mind, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. You’ve heard me say it -- Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. That’s not fair. It doesn’t make sense at a time when we've got to pull together to get the country moving.
If you want to read the complete budget, you can download the PDF, or get a copy for your Barnes & Noble Nook. We'll have a version for Amazon Kindle and Apple iBooks soon.
Learn more:
- For a complete overview of the budget, check out this post Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jeff Zients.
