Obama wants to give transportation a $50 billion budget bump in 2014

President Barack Obama has proposed a $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2014 that aims to slash the deficit by a net $600 billion over 10 years, raise taxes and trim popular benefit programs, including Social Security and Medicare.

The White House claims deficit reductions of $1.8 trillion, but Obama’s proposal would negate more than $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts that started in March. Those cuts average 5 percent for domestic agencies and 8 percent for the Defense Department this year.

We’ve extracted the Transportation highlights below:

Total spending: $127 billion
Percentage change from 2013: 50.2 percent increase
Discretionary spending: $16.3 billion
Mandatory Spending: $110.8 billion

Obama’s proposed transportation budget includes a significant funding increase — $50 billion — to pay for improving the nation’s roads, bridges, transit systems, border crossings, railways and runways. It’s similar to proposals that he has called for before, and something that Congress has not been willing to provide.

Forty billion dollars would be used for “Fix-it-First” investments under a program Obama highlighted in his State of the Union address. The program, Obama said, would not only put people to work but it would support critical infrastructure projects — such as urgent repairs to roads and fixing nearly 70,000 structurally deficient bridges across the country. The other $10 billion would help spur state and local innovation in infrastructure development.

Transportation Deputy Secretary John Porcari said at a briefing Wednesday that the $50 billion program would be paid for with savings offsets elsewhere but would not elaborate.

As for the rest of the department’s budget, the president proposed a five-year, $40 billion rail reauthorization program. It would upgrade existing intercity passenger rail services, develop new high speed rail corridors, and aim to strengthen the overall competitiveness of the freight rail system.

The budget proposal would also provide money to modernize the nation’s aviation system by boosting safety and capacity, with $1 billion for the Next Generation Air Transport System.

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.