News / Military

Obama to unveil largest base military budget in history

Thursday, 29 January 2015 1:25 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 29 January 2015 1:26 PM ]

Barack Obama speaks at Joint Base Fort Myer-Henderson in Virginia, on Jan. 28. (AFP photo)

US President Barack Obama will unveil his fiscal 2016 budget proposal, reversing many of the cuts instituted in 2013 and requesting the largest base military budget in American history.

Obama is scheduled to address a meeting of House Democrats on Thursday in Philadelphia to lay out details of his budget proposal, set for release on February 2, which would give a major boost to both domestic programs and the military.

The new spending blueprint would increase federal caps on military spending by $35 billion, hitting a base Pentagon budget of $534 billion for 2016, the largest in American history.

Obama will also ask for nearly $51 billion in funding for the war in Afghanistan as well as the military campaign against the ISIL terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.

The new budget will undo the spending cuts, known as the sequester, which were put in place in 2011 following a fierce budget battle that triggered across-the-board cuts to domestic and military spending if a bipartisan “supper-committee” could not agree to slash the budget by $1.5 trillion over a decade.

The congressional panel failed to agree on budget cuts, and the sequester went into effect to the tune of $85 billion in 2013.

Obama's new budget would reverse the sequester cuts by trimming "inefficient spending programs" and eliminating tax loopholes, a White House official told the Reuters news agency.

"The president will propose to end the across-the-board sequester cuts that threaten our economy and our military," the official said. "The ... budget will fully reverse those cuts for domestic priorities, and match those investments dollar-for-dollar with the resources our troops need to keep America safe."

President Obama will officially release his budget to the public on Monday. Republican leaders are unlikely to support many aspects of the president’s budget proposal.

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