A look at Obama's final budget proposal


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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama proposed a record $4.1 trillion budget on Tuesday. Here's a look at each agency and department:

AGRICULTURE

Up or down? Down 5.3 percent

Highlight:

—Obama's budget for the Agriculture Department includes a proposed $12 billion over 10 years to help feed schoolchildren from low-income families during the summer. Nearly 22 million low-income children receive free and reduced-price meals during the school year, but just a fraction of those kids receive meals when school is out. Benefits under the proposed program would be loaded onto a debit card that can only be used for food at grocery stores.

The numbers:

Total spending: $155.4 billion, including spending already required by law for food stamps, other government nutrition programs and farm subsidies.

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $24.2 billion.

___

COMMERCE

Up or down? Up 19.7 percent

Highlight:

—The budget proposes $521 million for the International Trade Administration, which tries to attract exports to the U.S. and foreign investments in this country. That includes money to lure companies to the U.S. that would create jobs here, plus money to help American companies find customers overseas and to enforce trade laws.

The numbers:

Total spending: $12.1 billion

Spending that needs Congress' approval: $9.7 billion.

___

DEFENSE

Up or down? Up .6 percent

Highlight:

—The Pentagon's proposed 2017 budget, while largely flat, includes increased spending to support European and Eastern European nations against Russian aggression and beefs up spending to counter Islamic State and affiliated militants across Iraq, Syria and Africa.

The proposal would quadruple the amount spent to reassure European nations, with $3.4 billion earmarked for increased military exercises, troop rotations and pre-positioning of equipment. The department also is asking for $200 million to fund counterterror operations in North and West Africa, including Libya.

The budget would slow plans to buy fighter jets, Army helicopters and Marine vehicles, but would increase money for cybersecurity and cutting edge technologies. It would fund a 1.6 percent pay raise for troops and civilians.

The numbers:

Total spending: $649.9 billion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $582 billion, including $58.8 billion for military operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Africa.

___

EDUCATION

Up or down? Up 1.9 percent

Highlight:

—The budget calls for $4 billion in mandatory funding over three years to expand computer science from kindergarten through high school and to boost access, help train teachers and build regional partnerships. The proposed budget also would give the Education Department $24.4 billion to help put into place the new education law Obama signed late last year, replacing No Child Left Behind.

The numbers:

Total spending: $79.4 billion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $69.4 billion

___

ENERGY DEPARTMENT

Up or down? Up 6.8 percent

Highlight:

— As part of a pledge following the 2015 Paris climate summit to double spending on clean energy research and development by 2021, the budget would spend $7.7 billion government-wide for a range of clean energy investments, including $5.8 billion in the Energy Department. The figure is a 20 percent increase over current spending money and includes more than $2 billion to boost energy efficiency and renewable energy such as wind, solar and geothermal power.

The numbers:

Total spending: $30.8 billion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $30.2 billion

___

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Up or down? Up 5.5 percent

Highlight:

—In the aftermath of the water-contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, Obama's proposed budget shifts money intended for water infrastructure projects. Overall, the budget cuts $257 million from the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Funds, reducing total funding to $2 billion for 2017. However, within that larger pool of money, the funds available to provide financial assistance to public water systems is going up $158 million, or about 20 percent. The White House also said it would support earmarking money specifically to help Flint fix its poisoned water in the upcoming energy bill.

The numbers:

Total spending: $8.6 billion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $8.3 billion.

___

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Up or down? Up 3 percent

Highlight:

—Responding to an epidemic of heroin addiction and abuse of prescription painkillers, Obama's budget would provide $1 billion in new funding over the next two years for states to help more people get and complete treatment. The money would be allocated to states based on the severity of the epidemic and the strength of their strategy. The budget also includes $500 million in new funding to increase access to treatment for people with serious mental health problems.

The numbers:

Total spending: $1.15 trillion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $78 billion.

__

HOMELAND SECURITY

Up or down? Up 0.2 percent

Highlight:

—The budget would provide as much as an extra $23 million for Customs and Border Protection if the number of unaccompanied immigrant children caught crossing the border illegally exceeds the total number of children apprehended during the 2016 budget year. The exact amount of additional funding would depend on how many child immigrants are arrested.

The numbers:

Total spending: $47 billion.

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $47.3

___

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Up or down? Up 0.7 percent

Highlight:

—Obama is seeking nearly $21 billion for the Housing Choice Voucher program, which provides vouchers to 2.2 million low-income families to help them afford paying rent. That would be a $1.2 billion increase for the program over this year. The program is aimed at helping lower-earning families afford rental housing, and move to safer neighborhoods with better schools and more job opportunities.

The numbers:

Total spending: $48.2 billion.

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $38 billion.

___

INTERIOR

Up or down? Up 13.6 percent

Highlight:

—The budget would double— to $900 million — spending for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program that allows governments at all levels to buy land for parks and recreation and protect public lands, historic sites and battlefields. The budget calls for spending on the conservation fund to be mandatory starting in the budget year that begins in October 2017. The president's plan is likely to face opposition from congressional Republicans who have long argued that the federal government struggles to adequately maintain land it already owns.

The numbers:

Total spending: $15.9 billion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $13.2 billion

___

JUSTICE

Up or down? Down 4.8 percent.

Highlight:

—The proposal includes hiring 200 new special agents and investigators for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to step up enforcement of existing gun laws. Addressing concerns about young adults attracted to the Islamic State, the spending plan calls for $6 million in funding for locally developed programs aimed at combating violent extremism, and $4 million to fund research to better understand radical ideologies.

An additional $246.9 million would be invested in the department's Smart on Crime program, which encourage prosecutors to consider alternatives to prison for low-level and non-violent offenders.

The administration also seeks funds to consolidate FBI headquarters staff into a new location, and more than $38 million to help develop forensic tools and electronic device analysis to address concerns about encrypted communication among criminal suspects.

The Justice Department maintains that its budget is actually up by $265 million above the 2016 enacted level when accounting adjustments related to the crime victims compensation fund are taken into account.

The numbers:

Total spending: $33 billion.

Spending that needs congressional approval: $18.1 billion.

___

LABOR

Up or down? Up 38.5 percent

Highlight:

The budget proposes a range of programs aimed at improving job training. These include $2 billion to help people find apprenticeships that pay salaries; $3 billion for partnerships between employers, local development organizations and community colleges to train half a million workers; and $1.5 billion to help states find people out of work for over six months or who've given up job hunting and steer them toward employment.

The numbers:

Total spending: $64.9 billion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $12.8 billion

___

NASA

Up or down? Down 1.3 percent

Highlight:

—Obama's proposed NASA budget includes a 17 percent cut in spending on human exploration from $4 billion to $3.3 billion. It includes $100 million in a proposed new program to reduce heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from airplanes.

The numbers:

Total spending: $19 billion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $18.3 billion

___

STATE

Up or down? Down 3.7 percent

Highlight:

—Much of the money is reserved for major State Department efforts such as fighting the Islamic State and meeting the security and humanitarian needs stemming from Syria's civil war. This includes more than $4 billion to stabilize communities liberated from the extremists and to counter IS terrorist plots, financing and recruiting. Other priorities include stemming illegal immigration from Central America, and various global health and climate change initiatives. Embassy security gets $6.1 billion. Almost $1 billion is devoted to countering "Russian aggression."

The numbers:

Total spending: $57.4 billion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $52.2 billion.

___

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Up or down? Up 11 percent

Highlight:

—Obama's trying one last time to boost the budget of a primary Wall Street regulator, allowing it to inspect investment advisers more frequently and pursue more enforcement actions. Though the SEC's budgets come out of Wall Street user fees and end up earning the government money in the form of fines, Congress has regularly stymied budget increases for both the SEC and its fellow regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The numbers:

Total spending: $1.8 billion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $1.8 billion

___

TRANSPORTATION

Up or down? Up 25.8 percent

Highlight:

—Obama's 21st Century Clean Transportation Plan includes $200 million in fiscal year 2017 to help speed the deployment of self-driving vehicles and calls for spending an average of $400 million annually over 10 years on the program. The plan also includes $10 billion a year to boost construction of new transit projects and $7 billion a year for rail improvement and high-speed rail projects. Congress has previously rejected new money for high-speed rail.

The numbers:

Total spending: $95.4 billion, including spending already required by law on highway and transit aid to states

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $12 billion

___

TREASURY

Up or down? Up 17.3 percent

Highlight:

—Obama's proposed Treasury budget would provide $530 million in additional support for the Internal Revenue Service, which has seen its budget restrained since 2010. The increase would allow the IRS to make further progress in answering taxpayers' questions after the response rate fell as low as only 40 percent of calls answered. The agency has boosted that to 60 percent, but IRS officials say that is still unacceptable. The extra money would also boost IRS resources to enforce tax laws, which the administration estimates will reap a return of $6 for each dollar invested in the new efforts.

The numbers:

Total spending: $622.4 billion, including interest paid on the national debt.

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $13.1 billion.

___

VETERANS AFFAIRS

Up or down? Up 9.1 percent

Highlight:

—The budget proposes $65 billion for medical care at nearly 1,300 VA facilities nationwide serving about 9.1 million enrolled veterans. The figure represents a 6.3 percent increase over current spending. The plan also would authorize $7.2 billion for medical care for veterans treated by local doctors, as directed by the 2014 Veterans Choice Act. Non-VA providers are expected to perform about 15.6 million medical procedures for veterans in the budget year that begins in October.

The numbers:

Total spending: $178.7 billion

Spending that needs Congress' annual approval: $75.1 billion

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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