Top 10 Winners in President Obama’s FY16 Budget

IMG_0533President Obama unveiled his 2016 BCA busting budget on Monday at the DHS Headquarters. The President extolled the virtues of his budget cutting, stating that he reduced annual deficits by two thirds since coming into office. Let’s examine that statement.

  • President Obama’s starting point was the largest deficit in American, and probably world, history, at over $1.4T in 2009.
  • In absolute terms, he signed the largest tax increase in American History, so he did raise more money by taking it from the American people.
  • Despite the ever-growing threats to our national security, he did substantially cut the US Military.
  • He also increased spending in many social programs and wealth redistribution programs, which more than compensated for defense cuts. The Budget Control Act of 2011 capped his spending increases. The BCA was the real control on spending, and it was thrust upon him when the American voters gave the GOP control of the House.

Now let’s take a look at where the budget increased the most. The Top 10 Largest Increases in FY16 (based upon dollars) – Where possible, color-coding has remained consistent with analysis of Social Programs/Wealth Redistribution.

– The 2015-2016 Delta column is a pure dollar comparison between FY15 and FY16. The % Delta column is added to show the magnitude of the increase compared to total program costs. Similar data is also presented for these same Top Ten comparing growth from 2007 (President Bush’s last pure budget) in purple to President Obama’s 2016 budget. What’s startling is that the combined growth of the top 5 programs in Chart 1 equals nearly $1.1T. That amount of annual growth alone is equal to the entire discretionary portion of the Federal Budget, including the Department of Defense.

2016 Predbud Top 10 Largest Growth Programs

Not surprisingly, the largest FY15 to FY16 increases are, interest and social programs. The defense increase follows two years of significant budget cuts despite an ever more dangerous world.

Also, Immigration Reform (highlighted in Red), totaling $8B, never existed before in the Federal Budget. The President is adding a brand new subfunction, despite the uproar and accusations of illegality over his executive amnesty. Without question it’s an in your face message to the new GOP majority, and unlikely to survive congressional budget hearings.