Senator Criticises Obama’s Budget Proposal for Lack of ‘Fiscal Discipline’

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The 2016 US federal budget proposed by US President Barack Obama is not helpful to the US national debt, US Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Senator Thad Cochran said in statement.

“U.S. Senator Thad Cochran chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, today said President Obama’s FY [fiscal year] 2016 budget lacks the fiscal discipline needed by a nation still recovering from a long economic downturn,” according to senator’s statement published on Monday.

The Mississippi Senator warned that a Republican-led Congress would “insist on great budget discipline,” and argued that US President Barack Obama’s budget request would “increase our debt by trillions of dollars over the next 10 years.”

Cochran said that the Appropriations Committee would “scrutinize” the proposals that it could while looking closely at which programs are working well “and which need to be improved or eliminated.”

Under President Obama’s 2016 federal budget, interest payments on the US national debt would “accelerate” and become as much as spending sought for national defense, Medicaid “or the combined total of all non-defense agency spending,” according to Senator Cochran’s the statement.

On Monday President Obama proposed a nearly $4 trillion budget for fiscal year 2016, which seeks to help middle-class US citizens, targets improvement of US infrastructure, ending of spending cuts known as sequestration, but also suggests tax increases on businesses and the wealthy, according to a statement released by the White House on Monday.

The president is required to submit a budget proposal to Congress each year, although it legally amounts to guidance on spending because only Congress holds the authority to determine how to spend taxpayer dollars. In response to Obama’s proposal, Congress will send its version of a budget to the White House, which the president then has to sign-off on.