国际英语新闻:Obama unveils budget plan, looking for deficit-reduction deal

WASHINGTON, April 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled his 2014 budget Wednesday, aiming to rein in the deficit by raising taxes on the affluent and curbing government spending on programs including Social Security and Medicare.

The blueprint, which continued the Democratic preference for taxing the rich, also included "some difficult cuts" Obama said he didn't like. He made the concession to win over some rank-and-file Republicans in the budget battle which could be coupled with a fight to hike the debt-ceiling later this year.

BALANCED APPROACH

Obama proposed 3.78 trillion dollars in spending for the 2014 fiscal year and a 1.8 trillion deficit reduction over the next decade.

"Nothing shrinks the deficits faster than a growing economy," he said at the White House as he introduced his plan.

In the new budget outlined on Wednesday for the fiscal year starting October 1, Obama stuck to his balanced stance to reduce the red ink and put forward a fiscal mix of new investments in infrastructure and education along with deficit reduction through tax increases and spending cuts.

According to the budget coming two months late to the Capitol Hill, the federal deficit would be 744 billion dollars for fiscal year 2014, or 4.4 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). By 2023, the ratio of deficit to GDP would fall further to 1.7 percent.

In the budget, Obama proposed a total of 1.8 trillion dollars in deficit reduction over 10 years, mainly through a combination of nearly 600 billion additional tax revenues and 1.2 trillion dollars in spending savings.

A 28 percent cap would be applied to itemized deductions for top earners, and the so-called Buffett Rule, the idea of requiring millionaires to pay no less than 30 percent of their income, was once again incorporated.