Obama's proposals: From healthy to dead on arrival
President Barack Obamaâs budget may seem like a $4 trillion exercise in wishful thinking, given that the Republicans who control Congress have their own ideas for shaping the nationâs spending. But a deep dive into the document, proposed Monday, pulls up a smattering of proposals that could well earn bipartisan support â as well as others that are unlikely to be enacted but still have the power to shape debate. Story Continued Below Hereâs a guide to several of the most intriguing proposals, from those with life in them to those that are dead on arrival. Tax reform  Rating: Has a pulse Obama already had to beat an embarrassing retreat on one of his ideas â taxing 529 college savings accounts. But Republicans, led by Rep. Paul Ryan, have said repeatedly that theyâd like to work across the aisle on tax reform. Â  Ryan has expressed particular interest in expanding the earned income tax credit. Obama is trying to do just that; he wants to expand the credit to workers without children and to noncustodial parents, which would benefit more than 13 million people. Â  Â  Obama also wants to drop the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent. Republicans can definitely get on board with that. The catch? Obama wants to pair the cut with a new 19 percent minimum tax on global profits. And heâs seeking to impose a 14 percent tax on corporate profits stashed abroad. Those ideas will be hard to sell to the GOP, which revolted against a more modest repatriation tax proposed last year by one of its own, former Rep. Dave Camp. The presidentâs proposal for a higher capital gains tax, meanwhile, will go nowhere on the Hill. A deal is far from certain. But it is possible. Medical research  Rating: Hale and hearty Disease doesnât discriminate by political party. And lawmakers of all stripes seem poised to embrace one of the flashiest proposals in Obamaâs budget: a $215 million Precision Medicine Initiative, which aims to harness the power of genetics research to accelerate the development of treatments and cures. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, attended the White House announcement of the initiative. Rep. Fred Upton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has also signaled his support. The initiative doesnât cost a lot â not in the context of a $4 trillion budget â and advocates say the payoffs could be big, both for improving basic scientific knowledge and finding ways to personalize medical treatments for diseases such as cancer. Look for this proposal to survive and lead to a boost in appropriations for the National Institutes of Health. And while weâre talking health: The president may also find bipartisan support for his proposal to invest $100 million to combat abuse of prescription opioids and heroin. Thatâs a growing problem in both red and blue states â it leads to an estimated 20,000 deaths a year â and many lawmakers have heard an earful about the issue from state legislators and governors, as well as grieving parents. Among other things, the added funds would support distribution of naloxone, an opioid antidote increasingly carried by first responders. Bolstering manufacturing  Rating: Alive and kicking Obama seeks to build on his National Network of Manufacturing Institutes by adding seven new sites to the nine already in the works. The president sees supporting the manufacturing industry as a key to economic recovery; he envisions the network as a catalyst for innovation, accelerating the development and adoption of new manufacturing techniques. Republicans have been skeptical, mostly because of the cost, but in the appropriations deal cut late last year, they did agree to fund the network through the fall of 2015. They may want to wait to see how the institutes perform before adding more, but this is clearly an issue with some bipartisan appeal. Obama also wants to expand opportunities for workers through a $200 million American Technical Training Fund. It would support programs that train workers for high-demand fields â and that give those workers plenty of hands-on practice with local employers in addition to classroom instruction. A similar program funded through last year drew a lot of support from (and spurred partnerships with) local Chambers of Commerce across the country. So it wouldnât be surprising if business interests nudged Republicans to back it. Expanding preschool  Rating: Critical condition On its face, this looks like a sure-fire winner: Both Republican and Democratic governors have moved aggressively in recent years to expand access to early child care, and itâs an issue with broad populist appeal. Itâs also one of the rare initiatives backed by labor unions, law enforcement and business interests. But donât get your hopes up too high. Congressional Republicans have historically been skeptical of using federal dollars to expand preschool access, viewing it as more of a local responsibility. Theyâve firmly rejected Obamaâs past attempts to pay for expansions through tax hikes. And many arenât sold on the value of Head Start programs for low-income families. Plus, theyâve made clear that theyâre dead set against raising tobacco taxes to pay for early childhood programs, as the president proposes. So itâs not clear Obama will be able to find support for his goal of tripling the Education Departmentâs Preschool Development Grants funding to $750 million. The grants currently help 18 states develop high-quality pre-K in needy communities; the president wants to reach at least 40 states in the coming year. Another big goal with uncertain prospects: adding $1 billion in new funding to Head Start, with a focus on expanding full-day, year-round programs. Obama also wants to triple the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for families with children under 5 and make it available to families with incomes up to $120,000. The administration estimates his proposals would help cover child care costs for 6.7 million children. Even if these proposals arenât enacted, expect them to spur debate on the Hill â and perhaps in the 2016 presidential campaign as well, especially since Hillary Clinton has been a big fan of expanding pre-K. Obama might have more luck with another education proposal: investing in building K-12 schools and boosting college access for Native American youths. Both parties have long sought reforms to the Bureau of Indian Education, and these initiatives could fit the bill. Addressing climate change  Rating: Extremely critical condition Obamaâs budget doubles down on his climate-change agenda â and most of it is dead on arrival. The president wants to make the first $500 million payment to the global Green Climate Fund, as a down payment on his pledge of $3 billion to help poor countries adapt to the effects of global warming. Republicans have already said no way. Obama also wants to launch a $4 billion Clean Power State Incentive Fund, which would be distributed to states that go beyond the minimum requirements of the Environmental Protection Agencyâs greenhouse gas regulations. Given how vehemently Republicans have attacked those regulations, itâs a safe bet theyâre going to oppose this fund. The president could, however, possibly win some Republican votes for a series of proposed investments aimed at boosting Americaâs ability to adapt to a changing climate. He wants to spend several hundred million dollars on initiatives such as protecting communities in the path of wildfires, assessing and addressing vulnerability to coastal flooding and boosting the National Flood Insurance Programâs risk mapping efforts. Those initiatives arenât highly likely to be enacted. But they have a better chance than the presidentâs other environmental proposals. Bolstering national security  Rating: In surgery The president has proposed additional funding for a lot of hardware, including a big ramp-up in spending on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The budget calls for funding 57 of the fighters for the next fiscal year, up from 38 this year. Other weapons programs in line for a boost: the long-range bomber program, the KC-46A tankers, the U-2 spy plane and assorted Army vehicles and helicopters. Congress is likely to go along happily with all that spending. The budget also includes hundreds of millions to refuel the USS George Washington aircraft carrier. The Pentagon didnât request that funding last year, but Congress added it during the appropriations process nonetheless â and members will most likely approve it again this year. But other budget proposals are going to draw fire. Congress has time and again rejected administration efforts to close some military bases. Expect another big ânoâ this time around. And Congress is likely to push back hard against Air Force proposals to retire the A-10 Warthog attack plane and a Navy proposal to halt procurement of the Boeing EA-18G Growler. Whatâs more, Republicans are expected to resist Obamaâs proposal to save money by increasing some health care fees for military insurance and slowing the growth of housing allowances. Congress did OK some modest cost savings last year but rejected others. Strengthening cybersecurity  Rating: Still ambulatory This is another issue thatâs become a national priority, even more so in recent months after the hacking of Sony Pictures reminded everyone of our vulnerabilities. Obama wants to boost the unclassified cybersecurity budget by $1 billion, or nearly 8 percent. A significant chunk would go to the Pentagon to staff up its Cyber Mission Force and continue construction of U.S. Cyber Commandâs Joint Operations Center at Fort Meade, Maryland. Itâs hard to see Congress pushing back on this spending. But there is a potential flash point: Some of the cybersecurity spending runs through the Department of Homeland Security. And Republicans are intent on crimping the DHS budget in order to cut off its ability to carry out Obamaâs executive orders on immigration. So the boost in cyber funding could potentially get caught up in the broader DHS debate. Redesigning food safety  Rating: Dead on arrival One of the most intriguing ideas in the budget has gotten very little press so far: Obama is proposing the creation of a single federal agency to oversee all food safety. Responsibility for food safety is currently scattered among about 20 federal agencies, with the bulk of duties falling to the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration. Obamaâs budget argues that consolidating the functions would make oversight more efficient and effective. The proposal has been floated on the Hill before. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Sen. Dick Durbin are its biggest champions; they introduced a bill to consolidate food safety oversight back in 1999 â and again in 2004, 2005, 2007 and just last week â but have never gotten it to a vote. Major industry and food safety advocacy groups are wary of the change, and the concept has never caught fire in Congress. So itâs likely dead on arrival. But the presidentâs unexpected use of the budget to support the idea could at least spark debate. Â