President Obama released his budget proposal Tuesday morning. The circles show the amount requested and the color reflects the changes from last year’s discretionary funding levels for each department. This page will be updated with new information throughout the day. Read related article or more agency coverage.
Note: Agency breakdowns of discretionary spending sometimes vary from year-to-year comparisons because of adjustments for mandatory amounts.
Defense
$495.6 billion in discretionary funds (0.1% less than last year)
The Pentagon’s budget for 2015 represents a major turning point for the military, which is moving from more than a decade of massive growth to a significantly smaller force that will be more dependent on technology. The Obama administration plans to spend $495.6 billion on defense in 2015 or about $113 billion less than had been expected in last year’s budget. The biggest savings will come from cuts to personnel, particularly in the Army, which will be gradually pared back to its smallest size in 74 years. The Pentagon also plans to rein in healthcare costs and cut some of its older weapons systems.
Health & Human Services
$73.7 billion in discretionary funds (7.6% less than last year)
The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed a $73.7 billion budget for the Health and Human Services department, representing a slight decrease from 2014. The budget includes new funding for doctor training, Head Start and mental health services, as well as initiatives to target antibiotic resistance.
But it does not include a major increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health, despite warnings from the agency’s director that it needs a significant infusion to remain on the cutting edge of research.
The budget also continues to fund the president’s signature health-care law, which had many of its key provisions implemented this year. It includes money to continue operating the state and federal health insurance marketplaces, as well as to provide subsidies to help low- and middle-income people pay for health insurance. Most Americans must carry health insurance starting this year, or they face a fine.
Correction: This item was updated to correct the size of the budget request. A previous version mistakenly used the fiscal year 2014 number.
Education
$68.6 billion in discretionary funds (1.9% more than last year)
The White House budget proposal shows that the president wants to increase discretionary spending for the Department of Education by $1.3 billion to $68.6 billion. That’s in addition to $14.4 billion the federal government gives to states to help educate poor children and another $11.5 billion it provides for disabled students who require special education.
Obama is again seeking funding for his “Preschool for All” plan to expand early childhood education to most low and middle-income four-year-olds across the country - a 10-year, $76 billion program that would be funded with an increase in the federal tobacco tax.
Veterans Affairs
$65.3 billion in discretionary funds (3.0% more than last year)
The 2015 White House budget would provide $65.3 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The enacted 2014 federal budget gave $63.4 billion to the agency, which provides benefits to veterans and their families. The VA has accumulated a massive backlog of claims waiting to be processed, which they trimmed from 600,000 to 400,000 from March to November 2013. Obama announced that “slashing that backlog” was a White House priority in his 2014 State of the Union address, and his proposed 2015 budget includes a $138.7 million investment in the Veterans Claims Intake Program in an effort to reform and speed up the process.
The White House’s budget also proposes a $1.6 billion investment in helping homeless and at-risk veterans, including $500 million for homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing, $321 million for a supportive housing program for veterans and $75 million for 10,000 new housing vouchers through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
2015 Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative
$55.4 billion in discretionary funds
The budget plan includes funds for investments in early-childhood education, more teachers in elementary school, clean-energy research, advanced manufacturing, federal employee training, government customer service.
State and Other International Programs
$42.6 billion in discretionary funds (0.2% less than last year)
The Obama administration is seeking $46.2 billion for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, just $1.6 billion less than it requested for fiscal 2014. The figure includes $5.9 billion for “overseas contingency operations,” which serves as the base budget for operations in Afghanistan. Under the budget proposal, $1.5 billion would be dedicated to address the humanitarian crisis in war-torn Syria and to “support transitions and reforms” in the Middle East and North Africa, regions still being reshaped more than three years after the start of the Arab Spring. The fiscal blueprint would invest $4.6 billion to secure diplomatic facilities overseas and would support additional security construction – efforts that were largely driven by the fallout from the 2012 attacks on the U.S. compounds in the Libyan city of Benghazi.
Homeland Security
$38.2 billion in discretionary funds (2.8% less than last year)
The department would receive $38.2 billion in non-disaster funding under President Obama’s budget proposal, which would reduce spending for the organization by nearly 3 percent compared to the 2014 enacted level but roughly the same as it was in 2013.
Obama’s fiscal plan calls for 4,000 additional Customs and Border Protection officers, as well as $549 million to protect federal computer networks from cybersecurity threats, $1 billion in assistance to state and local governments for firefighters and emergency-management personnel and $10 million to help immigrants on the path to citizenship.
Housing and Urban Development
$32.6 billion in discretionary funds (3.3% less than last year)
The president’s proposed budget includes $46.7 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, about $1.2 billion more than what Congress approved for fiscal 2014.
The administration proposed about $20 billion for the Housing Choice Voucher program. Those funds would restore cuts imposed on assisted housing units by the 2013 sequestration, and support all existing vouchers. Another $9.7 billion would go toward the Project-Based Rental Assistance Program, slightly less than the previously enacted level.
The president also requested $6.5 billion for preserving affordable public housing and $2.4 billion for Homeless Assistance Grants, slightly more than the levels approved in fiscal 2014 in both cases.
Energy
$27.9 billion in discretionary funds (2.6% more than last year)
President Obama’s proposed budget asks for $27.9 billion in discretionary spending, a 2.6 percent increase, for the Energy Department, featuring boosts in spending on basic research and costs associated with maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.
The administration is asking for $627 million in additional funds, a third more than the current fiscal year, for managing the nuclear stockpile. Overall the proposed budget includes $11.7 billion for nuclear security, a 4 percent increase over the 2014 enacted level.
Justice
$27.4 billion in discretionary funds (0.7% more than last year)
The Justice Department’s proposed $27.4 billion budget reflects Attorney General Eric H. Holder’s priority of criminal justice and prison reform. Holder’s budget--$122 million above the 2014 enacted level--includes $173 million in targeted investments for criminal justice reform efforts.
The DOJ budget requests funding for Holder’s “Smart on Crime” initiative to reduce the number of low-level drug offenders in prison and reduce recidivism rates by expanding drug treatment programs. It requests $15 million for U.S. Attorneys, including prevention and reentry work and promoting alternatives to incarceration such as the establishment of drug courts and veteran courts. Another $15 million would go towards expanding the federal Residential Drug Abuse program and $14 million would assist inmates with reentering society and reducing the population of individuals who return to prison after being released. An additional $14 million would expand the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment program at the state and local levels. The DOJ budget also requests $115 million for the Second Chance Act Grant program to reduce recidivism and help ex-offenders return to productive lives.
Agriculture
$22.2 billion in discretionary funds (7.9% less than last year)
The department would lose roughly $938 million this year under the president's proposal, receiving $23.7 billion in discretionary funding. The administration is pressing for reduced crop insurance subsidies for farmers and insurance companies “to more reasonable levels,” changes that would save the government $14 billion over 10 years, the budget says.
Other Agencies
$19.2 billion in discretionary funds
National Aeronautics & Space Administration
$17.5 billion in discretionary funds (0.6% less than last year)
The administration is asking $17.5 billion for NASA, another tight budget for an agency that peaked at $18.7 billion in 2010. The 2015 request is down $185 million from the enacted 2013 budget. NASA can also tap $900 million in the administration’s Opportunity initiative if Congress provides the funding. NASA officials view this as a “continuity-driven” budget that will make almost all major programs go forward as planned.
Transportation
$14 billion in discretionary funds (2.2% more than last year)
The hub of the president’s budget proposal for transportation is a $302-billion, four-year surface transportation reauthorization. It emphasizes a fix-it-first approach that would give funding priority to salvaging existing roads, bridges and transit systems rather than expanding their network.
The administration wants to invest $1.25 billion a year in the popular TIGER grant program to states and cities. It would create a new $10-billion, four-year program to address freight transportation bottlenecks that experts say impede U.S. competition in the global economy. The White House plan would almost double funding — from $12.3 billion to $22.3 billion — for transit systems and intercity passenger rail.
Treasury
$12.4 billion in discretionary funds (1.6% less than last year)
The White House's proposed 2015 budget would provide $13.8 billion to the Treasury Department, representing a downgrade of about 1.6 percent compared to the spending level for this year. Most of the funding, $12 billion, would go toward the Internal Revenue Service, boosting the agency's budget by 6.3 percent compared to 2014. The proposals include $165 million for an initiative that partly aims to help IRS call centers boost their response rates from 60 to 80 percent, as well as $480 million to support additional tax enforcement and compliance functions.
The budget blueprint also calls for $1.5 billion to help spur lending for small businesses, $225 million for a fund to encourage job growth and healthier communities in underserved areas and plans for assessing the production and use of coins, including the penny.
Labor
$11.8 billion in discretionary funds (1.7% less than last year)
The administration’s proposed budget for the Department of Labor includes one of President Obama’s top priorities this year, a boost in the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from $7.25, where it has been since 2009. The president recently raised the minimum wage for federal contractors by executive order; House Republicans oppose a broader increase.
The White House is seeking $11.8 billion in discretionary funding for the agency. The money would support new efforts to reach unemployed workers and recently separated veterans with in-person “reemployment” services; assist states in launching new paid leave programs for employees who need to take time off from work to care for a child or family member; and boost efforts to enforce laws that workers from being denied wages and overtime pay.
Interior
$11.5 billion in discretionary funds (unchanged from last year)
The Interior Department would get a 4 percent budget increase to $11.7 billion in fiscal 2015, its first full year under Secretary Sally Jewell, under the Obama administration’s budget proposal.
Some of that increase provides more money for ecological sustainability of waterways such as the Chesapeake Bay and the Everglades National Park, while there is no major increase for forest fire protection
Social Security Administration
$9.1 billion in discretionary funds (2.2% more than last year)
The White House budget increases spending to improve customer service through modernized online and in-person operations.
Commerce
$8.8 billion in discretionary funds (6.0% more than last year)
The White House is requesting a discretionary budget of $8.8 billion for the Department of Commerce, the federal agency charged with promoting economic growth, conducting the Census and issuing patents, among other responsibilities. The 2014 budget gave the department $8.3 billion for discretionary spending. The Obama administration’s budget would give $210 million to the Economic Development Administration, and $25 million to the Regional Innovation Strategies Program, both initiatives geared toward helping regional and small businesses – a group the president often gets slammed for ignoring.
Environmental Protection Agency
$7.9 billion in discretionary funds (3.7% less than last year)
President Obama on Thursday proposed a $7.9 billion fiscal 2015 budget for the Environmental Protection Agency, a spending plan that focuses on reducing carbon output from vehicles and power plants and preparing the country “for the unavoidable impacts of climate change.”
The proposal is a $300 million reduction from the EPA’s 2014 budget of $8.2 billion, though the plan would increase the agency’s funding in coming years. One major cut is $581 million from a fund that helps states build wastewater and drinking water projects.
National Science Foundation
$7.3 billion in discretionary funds (1.4% more than last year)
The plan includes a small increase in funding aimed at research to improve economic growth through advanced manufacturing and clean energy.
Corps of Engineers
$4.5 billion in discretionary funds (18.2% less than last year)
The budget blueprint would cut spending for the Army Corps of Engineers and focus on projects with an environmental return. It also proposes increased fees for use of inland waterways, and streamlined procedures so that state and local governments can do more waterway maintenance.
Corporation for National & Community Service
$1.1 billion in discretionary funds (unchanged from last year)
The proposal maintains funding for 114,000 AmeriCorps volunteers across the country and other projects.
Small Business Administration
$0.7 billion in discretionary funds (22.2% less than last year)
General Services Administration
$0.2 billion in discretionary funds (88.9% less than last year)
SOURCE: Office of Management and Budget. GRAPHIC: The Washington Post. Published March 4, 2014.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/presidential-budget-2015/
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