Obama presents budget plan

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IANS/EFE | 14 Feb, 2012
President Barack Obama presented Monday his budget plan for 2013, which calls for nearly USD 4 trillion in spending and aims to reduce the deficit from 8.5 percent of US gross domestic product to 5.5 percent.

The US economy should concentrate on developing the manufacturing sector, renewable energy and in making education accessible for training qualified workers, he said in a speech at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale.

Obama, who will face the voters in November, said that the budget presented Monday aims to cut future debts by USD 4 trillion up to 2022.

"I'm proposing some difficult cuts that, frankly, I wouldn't normally make if they weren't absolutely necessary. But they are. And the truth is we're going to have to make some tough choices in order to put this country back on a more sustainable fiscal path," he said.

About a budget that projects GDP growth of 2.7 percent for this year and 3 percent next year, the president said that we can't repeat the mistakes that brought on the economic crisis and because of which "a few people do really, really well, and everybody else struggles to get by".

Before an audience of community college students, Obama said that the budget also contemplates lower interest on student loans.

Obama's plan calls for a total expenditure in 2013 of USD 3.8 million, with a tax increase on the highest incomes and the end of tax cuts approved during the George W. Bush administration on annual income higher than USD 250,000.

The administration hopes to close 2012 with a deficit of USD 1.3 trillion, equivalent to 8.5 percent of GDP, and hopes to cut the shortfall to USD 901 billion, or 5.5 percent of GDP, in 2013.