The President's Budget in year 2017
The President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2017
Under the President’s leadership, we have turned our economy around and
created 14 million jobs. Our unemployment rate is below five percent for
the first time in almost eight years.
Nearly 18 million people have gained health coverage as the Affordable
Care Act has taken effect. And we have dramatically cut our deficits by
almost three-quarters and set our Nation on a more sustainable fiscal
path.Yet while it is important to take stock of our progress, this
Budget is not about looking back at the road we have traveled. It is
about looking forward and making sure our economy works for everybody,
not just those at the top. It is about choosing investments that not
only make us stronger today, but also reflect the kind of country we
aspire to be – the kind of country we want to pass on to our children
and grandchildren.
The Budget makes critical investments in our domestic and national
security priorities while adhering to the bipartisan budget agreement
signed into law last fall, and it lifts sequestration in future years so
that we continue to invest in our economic future and our national
security. It also drives down deficits and maintains our fiscal progress
through smart savings from health care, immigration, and tax reforms.
The Budget shows that the President and the Administration remain
focused on meeting our greatest challenges – including accelerating the
pace of innovation to tackle climate change and find new treatments for
devastating diseases; giving everyone a fair shot at opportunity and
economic security; and advancing our national security and global
leadership – not only for the year ahead, but for decades to come.
BUILDING ON OUR ECONOMIC AND FISCAL PROGRESS
The Budget makes critical investments while adhering to the bipartisan
budget agreement signed into law last fall. It lifts sequestration in
2018 and beyond so that we continue to invest in our economic future and
our national security. It also drives down deficits and maintains our
fiscal progress through smart savings from health
care, immigration, and tax reforms.
A Record of Job Growth and Economic Expansion. Under
the President’s leadership, the U.S. economy has become an engine of
job growth and economic expansion, outpacing other advanced economies in
recovery from the Great Recession. American businesses have added 14
million jobs over the past 71 months – the longest streak of job growth
on record. Our unemployment rate is below five percent for the first
time in almost eight years. And the economy added 903,000 new
manufacturing jobs in the last six years – the first sustained job
growth in the sector since the 1990s. Nearly 18 million Americans have
gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and our high
school graduation rate is at an all-time high.
Reflecting on Our Fiscal Progress. We have made remarkable
economic and fiscal progress, showing what’s possible when strategic
investment to grow our economy is paired with smart reforms, for example
to our health care system, that address the true drivers of our
long-term fiscal challenges. Since 2009, under the President’s
leadership, Federal deficits have fallen by nearly three-quarters – the
most rapid sustained deficit reduction since just after World War II.
The annual deficit in 2015 fell to 2.5 percent of the Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), the lowest level since 2007, and well below the average
of the last 40 years.
Building on Our Success for a Stronger Economy. The
President’s Budget continues that approach, investing in America’s
future and laying out a path to address our greatest challenges. It
builds on the bipartisan budget agreement secured last fall, adhering to
the discretionary levels provided for 2017, while also putting forward
paid-for mandatory investments that are critical to building durable
economic growth in the future and maintaining America’s edge as the
leader in innovation and cutting-edge science. The Budget proposes a
number of reforms – including a detailed international tax reform plan –
that would modernize the business tax code to make it fairer and more
efficient, and to create jobs. The Budget also finishes the job the past
two bipartisan agreements started by preventing the return of harmful
sequestration funding levels in 2018 and beyond, replacing the savings
by closing tax loopholes and reforming tax expenditures, and with smart
spending reforms.
Investing in Economic Growth While Maintaining Fiscal Responsibility.
The Budget more than pays for all new investments, achieving $2.9
trillion of deficit reduction over 10 years, from health, tax, and
immigration reforms, and other proposals. The Budget includes roughly
$375 billion of health savings that grow over time and builds on the ACA
with incentives to improve quality and control health care cost
growth. The Budget achieves more than $955 billion in deficit reduction
from reducing tax benefits for high-income households, helping to bring
in sufficient revenues to make vital investments while also helping to
meet our promises to seniors. The Budget reflects the President’s
support for commonsense, comprehensive immigration reform along the
lines of the 2013 bipartisan Senate-passed bill, which CBO has estimated
would reduce the deficit by about $170 billion over 10 years and by
almost $1 trillion over two decades.
The Budget keeps deficits below three percent of GDP stabilizing debt
and putting it on a declining path for most of the next decade – key
measures of fiscal progress – showing that investments in growth and
opportunity are compatible with putting the Nation’s finances on a
strong and sustainable path.
INNOVATION TO FORGE A BETTER FUTURE
The Budget invests in accelerating the pace of American innovation, so
we can create jobs and build the economy of the future while tackling
our greatest challenges, including addressing climate change and finding
new treatments and cures for devastating diseases. The Budget includes
investments in:
Building a 21st Century Transportation System. The Budget invests $320 billion over 10 years in a multi-agency initiative to build a clean transportation system for the 21st Century
that speeds goods to market while reducing America’s reliance on oil,
cutting carbon pollution, and strengthening our resilience to the
effects of the changing climate. Overall, the 21st Century
Clean Transportation Plan will increase American investments in clean
transportation infrastructure by roughly 50 percent above current levels
while reforming the transportation investments already being made to
move America to more sustainable, low-carbon investments.
Prioritizing Research and Development. The Budget sustains the
Administration’s consistent prioritization of R&D with an
investment of $152 billion for R&D overall through both
discretionary and mandatory funding proposals, a four percent increase
from 2016.
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Doubling Clean Energy R&D. Since the President took office,
the Administration has made the largest investments in clean energy in
American history. The Budget provides $7.7 billion government-wide, a 20
percent increase over 2016, for fundamental and transformative clean
energy R&D across 12 agencies, a first step in support of Mission
Innovation, the landmark agreement currently among 20 countries to
double government funding for clean energy R&D over five years.
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Supporting Basic Research. The Budget provides $14.6 billion in
2017, an increase of over $900 million over the 2016 enacted level, for
the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of
Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which
invest in basic research – the type of R&D that is most likely to
have spillover impacts to multiple endeavors and in which the private
sector typically underinvests.
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Supporting a Cancer Moonshot. During his 2016 State of the
Union Address, President Obama called on Vice President Biden to lead a
new, national “Moonshot” initiative to eliminate cancer as we know it.
The Budget supports this effort with a $1 billion initiative to provide
the funding necessary for researchers to accelerate the development of
new cancer detection and treatments. This includes $195 million in new
cancer activities at the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) in Fiscal Year 2016, $755 million in mandatory funds in the 2017
Budget for new cancer-related research activities at both NIH and the
Food and Drug Administration, and support from other agencies such as
the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.
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Advancing Biomedical Research. The Budget provides $33.1
billion to support biomedical research at the National Institutes of
Health (NIH), providing about 10,000 new and competing NIH grants that
will help us better understand the fundamental causes and mechanisms of
disease, like the BRAIN Initiative and Precision Medicine.
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Revitalizing American Manufacturing. The Budget invests in
coordinated, cutting-edge manufacturing R&D, while also
expanding industry-driven workforce training and providing additional
resources through the Manufacturing Extension Partnership to help
America’s small manufacturers access the technology and expertise they
need to expand. It includes investments to grow the National Network of
Manufacturing Innovation, a national network of innovative R&D
centers to help keep U.S. manufacturing in the lead on technology.
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Creating the Industries and Jobs of the Future. The Budget
invests in R&D that can help create the industries and jobs of the
future, such as supercomputing, Big Data, robotics, advanced materials,
nanotechnology, and synthetic biology. In addition, the Budget makes new
investments to sustain America’s leading edge in the development of
autonomous vehicle technologies and self-driving cars.
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Investing in Civil Space Activities. The Budget provides robust
funding to support space exploration, monitor the
Earth’s weather and climate from space, develop new space technologies,
and partner with the private sector to reinforce the Nation’s leadership
and take the next step on the journey to Mars.
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Addressing Challenges in Agriculture through R&D. Recognizing
the importance of science and technology to meet challenges in
agriculture, the Budget invests in three major areas of
agriculturalR&D: the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative
competitive research grants; the Agricultural Research Service
intramural research; and construction and renovation of key
infrastructure investments based on the Department of Agriculture’s
facility modernization plan.
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Simplifying and Expanding the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit. The
Research and Experimentation (R&E) Tax Credit is an important
Federal incentive for private-sector research investments, and last
year, the President signed legislation to make the credit permanent and
expand the incentive for R&D investments by small businesses. The
Budget simplifies and expands the tax credit for companies investing in
innovation.
Protecting and Expanding the Nation’s Water Supply. The Budget
supports the Administration’s two-part water innovation strategy to
boost water sustainability and reduce the price and energy costs of new
water supply technology to increase the resilience of our Nation’s water
supplies to stressors like climate change and population growth,among
others.
Supporting Adoption of Clean Energy. In addition to Mission
Innovation funding, the Budget provides over $1.3 billion to accelerate
the adoption of clean energy sources such as solar, wind, and low-carbon
fossil fuels, and energy-efficiency technologies.
Partnering with Communities to Tackle Climate Risk. The Budget
invests in programs that advance our scientific understanding of
projected climate impacts, including changes in droughts, wildland
fires, and coastal and inland flooding; assist communities in planning
and preparing for future risks; and support risk-reduction and
adaptation projects on the ground.
Protecting and Preserving Public Lands and Oceans. The Budget
includes robust funding to support proven programs like the Land and
Water Conservation Fund that allow Federal agencies and their partners
to enhance the resilience of our lands and waters, and continue to
preserve and share our cultural and historical identity.
Leading Global Efforts to Cut Carbon Pollution and Enhance Climate Change Resilience. In
support of the President’s Climate Action Plan, the Budget provides
$1.3 billion to advance the goals of the Global Climate Change
Initiative (GCCI) through important multilateral and bilateral
engagement with major and emerging economies. This amount includes $750
million in U.S. funding for the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which will
help developing countries leverage public and private financing to
invest in reducing carbon pollution and strengthening resilience to
climate change.
OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL
As the President stated in the 2016 State of the Union Address, one of
the Nation’s key challenges is how to give everyone a fair shot at
opportunity and economic security. In today’s global economy, our
competitiveness depends on tapping the full potential of all Americans.
To address this challenge, the Budget supports education; training and
support for workers and their families; access to health care; and other
investments to ensure that all Americans contribute to and benefit from
our economic growth.
Improving Access to High-Quality Child Care and Early Education. High-quality
child care and early education for young children support parents in
the workforce and help foster healthy child development and school
readiness. The Budget aims to ensure that children have access to
high-quality learning starting at birth by:
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Expanding access to quality child care for working families. The
Budget ensures that all low- and moderate-income working families with
young children have access to quality, affordable child care, as opposed
to the small share of children who receive this help today. Overall,
this will expand access to high-quality care for more than 1.1 million
additional children under age four by 2026.
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Cutting taxes for families paying for child care with a credit of up to $3,000 per child. The
Budget triples the maximum Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC)
for families with children under age five and makes the full CDCTC
available to families with incomes of up to $120,000, benefiting
families with young children, older children, and dependents who are
elderly or have disabilities.
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Increasing the duration of Head Start programs, while maintaining access to Head Start.
The Budget includes $9.6 billion for Head Start, an increase of $434
million over 2016 enacted. Within this total, the Budget provides an
additional $292 million in 2017 to increase the number of children
attending Head Start in a full school-day and -year program, which
research shows is more effective than programs of shorter duration and
also helps meet the needs of working parents.
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Supporting universal preschool. The Preschool for All
initiative, in partnership with the States, provides all four-year-olds
from low- and moderate-income families with access to high-quality
preschool, while encouraging States to expand those programs to reach
additional children from middle-class families and establish full-day
kindergarten policies. The Budget increases funding for Preschool
Development Grants (PDGs), which lay the groundwork for universal
preschool. With the support of Federal funding made available through
the PDG program, 18 States are currently developing and
expanding high-quality preschool programs in targeted, high-need
communities.
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Investing in voluntary, evidence-based home visiting. The
Budget extends and expands evidence-based, voluntary home visiting
programs, which enable nurses, social workers, and other professionals
to connect families to services to support children's healthy
development and learning.
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Invests in early learning for children with disabilities.
The Budget provides increased funding for the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Preschools Grants and the IDEA Infants
and Families program, an increase of $80 million compared to 2016,
including funding to help identify, develop and scale-up evidence-based
practices for early identification of and intervention for learning and
developmental delays.
Putting All Students on a Path to College and Careers. We have
made significant progress in expanding educational opportunities and we
are getting results: high school graduation rates are up, drop-out rates
are down, and far more students are attending college than in 2008. But
there's more we must do to ensure that all children get a high-quality
education that allows them to reach their full potential. The Budget
focuses on providing equity and opportunity for all students in
elementary and secondary education and expanding college opportunity and
quality by:
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Helping Students Prepare for College and Careers. The Budget
increases funding for Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies, the
cornerstone of Federal efforts to ensure that all students, including
poor and minority students, students with disabilities, and English
learners, graduate from high school prepared for college and careers.
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Supporting Computer Science for All. The Budget invests $4
billion in mandatory funding over three years for the new Computer
Science for All initiative, which would support State efforts to expand
access for all students to computer science instruction and programs of
study. The Budget invests discretionary resources in a Computer Science
for All Development Grants program for school districts to promote
innovative strategies to provide high-quality instruction and other
learning opportunities in computer science.
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Providing Tuition-Free Community College for Responsible Students. The
Budget funds America's College Promise (ACP), which would create a new
partnership with States to make two years of community college free for
responsible students, letting students earn the first half of a
bachelor’s degree or an associate’s degree and acquire skills needed in
the workforce at no cost. America’s College Promise would also provide
grants to four-year HBCUs and MSIs to provide first-time low-income
students, including community college transfers, with up to two years of
college at zero or significantly reduced tuition.
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Strengthening Pell Grants. Pell Grants are central to our
efforts to help low- and moderate- income students afford college. The
Budget supports and encourages on-time and accelerated completion
through year-round Pell availability to low-income students who have
completed a full-time course load and through a $300 increase in the
maximum Pell Grant for students who take 15 or more credits. The Budget
also continues to index the grant to inflation indefinitely for future
generations. The Second Chance Pell proposal expands opportunity to
incarcerated individuals eligible for release with the goals of helping
them get jobs and strengthen their communities.
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Simplifying the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
The Budget eliminates burdensome and unnecessarily complex student aid
application questions to make it easier for students and families to
access Federal student aid and afford a college education.
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Simplifying and expanding education tax benefits. The Budget
streamlines and expands education tax benefits by consolidating the
Lifetime Learning Credit into an expanded American Opportunity Tax
Credit (AOTC), which would be available for five years and refundable up
to $1,500; exempting Pell Grants from taxation and the AOTC
calculation; and eliminating tax on student loan debt forgiveness, while
repealing the complicated student loan interest deduction for new
borrowers.
Helping Workers Get the Skills They Need for the 21st Century Economy. A
nation’s ability to ensure a steady and consistent pipeline of highly
skilled workers is one key ingredient to helping its economy grow and
thrive. One of the surest paths to ensuring that the economy works for
everyone is to expand access to job training and education for in-demand
skills. The Budget supports this agenda by:
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Expanding Technical Training Programs for Middle Class Jobs. The
Budget proposes a new American Technical Training Fund to provide
competitive grants to support evidence-based, tuition-free job training
programs in high-demand fields.
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Expanding the Proven Learn-and-Earn Strategy of Apprenticeship. The
Budget establishes a $2 billion mandatory Apprenticeship Training Fund
to help meet the President’s goal to double the number of apprentices
across the United States, giving more workers the opportunity to develop
job-relevant skills while earning a paycheck.
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Creating a Talent Compact to Keep and Attract Jobs to the United States. The
Budget includes $3 billion in competitive funding to create more than
50 “Talent Hotspots” across the United States that would prioritize a
sector and make a commitment to recruit and train the workforce to help
local businesses grow and thrive, attract more jobs from overseas, and
fuel the talent needs of entrepreneurs. This proposal would produce a
pipeline of about half a million skilled workers over the next five
years.
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Empowering Workers, Training Providers, and Employers with Better Information on Jobs, Skills and Training.
The Budget proposes a new Workforce Data Science and Innovation Fund
that would recruit to the Department of Labor (DOL) a best-in-class team
to help States find new ways to use technology and data analytics to
improve training programs and consumer choice. And similar to HHS’s Open
Health Data Initiative, DOL would partner with the Department of
Commerce to develop new open source data on jobs and skills to spur the
creation of new products to help match workers to better jobs.
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Opening Doors to a First Job for More Young Americans.
The Budget invests $5.5 billion in mandatory funding to help more than
one million young people gain the work experience, skills and networks
that come from having a first job.
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Creating Pathways to High-Growth Jobs. The Budget builds on
the progress in the bipartisan Workforce Innovation and
Opportunity Act (WIOA) by funding the core DOL WIOA formula grants at
their full authorized level and by investing $3 billion in mandatory
competitive funding for regional partnerships that bring together
employers, education and training providers, and workforce boards with
the goal of training a half million people and placing them into jobs in
high-demand sectors.
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Investing in Health Professions Education to Improve Access to Health Care Providers and Services. The
Budget invests in growing the health care workforce, including
expanding and extending funding for the National Health Service Corps
through FY 2020 to increase the number of providers serving in the areas
across the country that need them most.
Helping Americans Thrive in the 21st Century Economy. The Budget invests in programs that help ensure workers in the 21st century
economy can balance work and family obligations, stay healthy, save for
retirement, and are protected during temporary periods of unemployment
and upon return to work. The Budget also supports evidence-based efforts
to reduce poverty and help those who are struggling to get back on
their feet.
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Tax Reform that Promotes Growth and Opportunity. The Budget’s
tax proposals support work by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for
workers without qualifying children, and creating a Second Earner Tax
Credit for married couples in which both spouses work.
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Strengthening Efforts to Help Low-Income Families Succeed. The
Budget funds proposals designed to reduce poverty, assist families in
deep poverty or experiencing a financial crisis, and improve efforts
tohelp parents find and keep jobs. These proposals include establishing
an Emergency Aid and Service Connection Grants program, strengthening
the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF), creating a
permanent Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children program,
expanding opportunity for Native American Youth, and building on current
efforts to better serve Native youth.
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Expanding Paid Leave. The Budget encourages States to
establish paid leave programs, providing more than $2 billion for the
Paid Leave Partnership Initiative to help up to five States launch paid
family and medical leave programs, as well as small grants to help
States and localities conduct analyses to inform the development of paid
family and medical leave programs. These investments complement the
President’s executive actions to expand paid sick leave for employees of
Federal contractors.
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Modernizing the Unemployment Insurance Safety Net. The Budget
proposes a cost-neutral set of reforms to strengthen and modernize the
Unemployment Insurance (UI) program to reflect the modern economy and
workforce. These reforms ensure more hardworking Americans have access
to UI if they lose a job, provide new protections for workers who take a
pay cut in order to get back into work, strengthen the program’s
connection to work, make the program more responsive to economic
downturns, and ensure State programs have enough resources to protect
workers in the midst of a recession.
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Helping All Workers Save for Retirement. The Budget includes a
package of proposals aimed at increasing access to retirement plans and
increasing the portability of retirement savings and benefits. These
proposals aim to ensure near-universal access to workplace retirement
savings accounts and test new approaches to making retirement benefits
more portable across jobs.
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Partnering with Communities to Expand Opportunity. Initiatives
such as Promise Zones, Investing in Manufacturing Communities
Partnership, Partnership for Sustainable Communities, and Performance
Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth have supported holistic, local
responses to pressing issues. The Budget continues the Administration’s
place-based approach to coordinating programs that help create jobs and
opportunity, promote resilience and sustainability, and implement local
visions in communities across the Nation.
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Ending Homelessness. The Budget sustains funding to support
programs dedicated to ending veteran homelessness, while also funding
housing vouchers and rapid rehousing over the next ten years toreach and
maintain the goal of ending homelessness among all of America’s
families in 2020. This significant investment is based on recent
rigorous research that found that families who utilized vouchers –
compared to alternative forms of assistance to the homeless – had fewer
incidents of homelessness, child separations, intimate partner violence
and school moves, less food insecurity, and generally less economic
stress.
Ensuring Access to Quality, Affordable Health Care. The Budget
supports the Affordable Care Act, which is already providing coverage
for millions of Americans through the Health Insurance Marketplaces, the
delivery of financial assistance to make coverage affordable, and the
expansion of Medicaid. It also supports:
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Expanding Access to Mental Health Care. One in five American
adults experience a mental health issue at some point in their life,
yet millions do not receive the care they need. The Budget includes $500
million in new mandatory funding to help engage individuals with
serious mental illness in care, improve access to care by increasing
service capacity and the behavioral health workforce, and ensure that
behavioral health care systems work for everyone.
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Addressing the Prescription Drug and Heroin Overdose Epidemic. More
Americans now die every year from drug overdoses than they do in motor
vehicle crashes. The Budget takes a two-pronged approach to address this
epidemic. First, it includes $1 billion in new mandatory funding over
two years to expand access to treatment for prescription drug abuse and
heroin use and help ensure that every American who wants treatment can
access it and get the help they need. Second, it includes funding to
continue and increase current efforts to expand State-level prescription
drug overdose prevention strategies, increase the availability of
medication-assisted treatment programs, improve access to the
overdose-reversal drug naloxone, and support targeted enforcement
activities.
Incentivizing Justice Reform with the 21st Century Justice Initiative. The
Administration continues to support criminal justice reform that
enhances public safety, avoids excessive punishment and unnecessary
incarceration, and builds trust between the justice system and the
community. The Budget includes a $5 billion investment for a new 21st
Century Justice Initiative that will focus on achieving three
objectives: reducing crime, reversing practices that have led to
unnecessarily long sentences and unnecessary incarceration, and building
community trust.
NATIONAL SECURITY AND GLOBAL LEADERSHIP
Economic growth and opportunity can only be achieved if America is safe
and secure. The Budget provides the resources to address security
threats wherever they arise and continue to demonstrate American
leadership around the world.
Destroying ISIL. The President’s highest priority is keeping the
American people safe. That is why the United States is leading the
global coalition that will destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant (ISIL). The Budget provides over $11 billion for the Department
of Defense (DOD) and the Department of State to support U.S. efforts to
continue to hunt down terrorists; provide training and equipment to
forces fighting ISIL on the ground; help stabilizecommunities liberated
from ISIL in Syria and Iraq; disrupt ISIL’s financing and recruitment;
strengthen our regional partners, provide humanitarian assistance to
those impacted by the conflict; and support a political solution to the
Syrian civil war.
Countering Violent Extremism. The President’s Budget includes
funding for innovative, community-based approaches that seek to
discourage violent extremism and to improve the ability of communities
to identify potential extremists and intervene where necessary to thwart
radical behavior that may lead to violence.
Securing the Digital Economy for All Americans Through Strengthened Cybersecurity.
The Budget invests $19 billion in overall Federal resources for
cybersecurity to support a broad-based cybersecurity strategy for
securing the Government, enhancing the security of critical
infrastructure and important technologies, investing in next-generation
tools and workforce, and empowering Americans. In particular, this
funding will support the Cybersecurity National Action Plan, which takes
near-term actions and puts in place a long-term strategy to enhance
cybersecurity awareness and protections, protect privacy, maintain
public safety as well as economic and national security, and empower
Americans to take better control of their digital security.
Supporting the Transition in Afghanistan. The Budget includes
resources to reinforce Afghanistan’s security and development by
supporting military training and assistance, as well as health,
education, justice, economic growth, governance, and other civilian
assistance programs necessary to promote stability and strengthen
diplomatic ties with the international community. The Budget also
supports the U.S. military mission to train, advise, and assist the
Afghan National Security Forces and maintain a counterterrorism
capability.
Countering Russian Aggression and Supporting European Allies. The
Budget includes $4.3 billion for political, economic, public diplomacy,
and military support to build resilience and reduce vulnerabilities to
Russian aggression among NATO allies and partner states in Europe,
Eurasia, and Central Asia. As part of that effort the Budget includes
$3.4 billion for the Department of Defense’s European Reassurance
Initiative (ERI).
Providing Further Support for the Central American Regional Strategy. The
Budget provides necessary resources to further support the U.S.
Strategy for Engagement in Central America by investing in a long-term,
comprehensive approach designed to address the root causes of migration
of unaccompanied children and families from the region.
Advancing the Rebalance to Asia and the Pacific. The Budget
supports the Administration’s commitment to a comprehensive regional
strategy in Asia and the Pacific that reinforces a rules-based order and
advances security, prosperity, and human dignity across the region. For
instance, the Budget provides the necessary resources to implement the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — a historic, high-standard trade
agreement with 11 countries of the region that levels the playing field
for American workers and American businesses.
Growing Partnerships in Africa. The Budget provides funding to
ensure United States will uphold the commitments it made during the
U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in 2014, including with respect to Power
Africa, Trade Africa, the Security Governance Initiative (SGI), the
Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), the African Peacekeeping Rapid
Response Partnership (APRRP), and the Early Warning and Response
Partnership (EWARP). It also provides resources for implementing the
peace agreement in South Sudan.
Preparing for the Future. In addition to addressing today’s
changing security environment, the Budget makes significant investments
to maintain our military’s superiority and ensure the United States
always has an operational advantage over any potential adversary. The
Budget does this by driving smart and essential innovation: pursuing new
research and technology development; supporting updates and refinements
to operational concepts and warfighting strategies; supporting
capacity building among local partners; building the Force of the
Future; and pursuing additional enterprise reform.
Sustaining the President’s Development and Democracy Agenda. The
Budget continues to advance the Administration’s development and
democracy initiatives and activities as it seeks to reduce extreme
poverty, encourage broad-based economic growth, and support democratic
governance and human rights – and to drive progress toward meeting the
global development vision and priorities adopted in the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development. This includes investments in Feed the Future,
the President’s food security initiative; development programs that
mobilize the private sector to deliver tangible results and advance U.S.
interests; food aid and other humanitarian assistance programs; the
First Lady’s Let Girls Learn Initiative; and effective global health
programs, including for the President’s Malaria Initiative and the
President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
Honoring Our Commitment to Veterans. The Budget ensures continued
investment in the five pillars the President has
outlined for supporting the Nation’s veterans: providing the resources
and funding they deserve; ensuring high-quality and timely health care;
getting veterans their earned benefits quickly and efficiently; ending
veteran homelessness; and helping veterans and their families get good
jobs, an education, and access to affordable housing. It also puts
forward a proposal to fundamentally reform the broken appeals process
for disability claims so that it can best serve our veterans.
A GOVERNMENT OF THE FUTURE
The President is committed to driving lasting change in how Government
works – change that makes a significant, tangible, and
positive difference in the economy and the lives of the American people.
Over the past seven years, the Administration has launched successful
efforts to modernize and improve citizen-facing services, eliminate
wasteful spending, reduce the Federal real property footprint, improve
the use of evidence to improve program performance, and spur innovation
in the private sector by opening to the public tens of thousands of
Federal data sets and innovation assets at the national labs.
Supporting the President’s Management Agenda. The Budget includes
investments to continue driving the President’s
Management Agenda by improving the service we provide to the American
public; leveraging the Federal Government’s buying power to bring more
value and efficiency to how we use taxpayer dollars; opening Government
data and research to the private sector to drive innovation and economic
growth; promoting smarter information technology; modernizing
permitting and environmental review processes; creating new Idea Labs to
support employees with promising ideas; and, attracting and retaining
the best talent in the Federal workforce.
Supporting Digital Service Delivery for Citizens. In 2014 the
Administration piloted the U.S. Digital Service, a unit of innovators,
entrepreneurs, and engineers. This team of America’s best digital
experts has worked in collaboration with Federal agencies to implement
streamlined and effective digital technology practices on the Nation’s
highest priority programs. This work includes collaborating with the
Department of Education to launch the new College Scorecard to give
students, parents, and their advisors most reliable national data to
help with college choice and supporting the U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services (USCIS) transition to launch the new myUSCIS which
makes it easier for users to access information about the mmigration
process and immigration services. To institutionalize the dramatic
improvements that this approach has demonstrated, the Budget supports
the Administration’s aggressive goal of hiring and placing 500 top
technology and design experts to serve in the overnment by January 2017.
Strengthening Federal Cybersecurity. As outlined above, the
Budget provides $19 billion in resources for cybersecurity. This
includes the creation of a new $3.1 billion revolving fund, the
Information Technology Modernization Fund (ITMF), to retire the
Government’s antiquated IT systems and transition to more secure and
efficient modern IT systems, funding to streamline governance and secure
Federal networks, and investments to strengthen the cybersecurity
workforce and cybersecurity education across society.
Building Evidence and Encouraging Innovation. The
President has made it clear that policy decisions should be driven by
evidence so that the Federal government can do more of what works and
less of what does not. The Administration's evidence-based approaches
have resulted in important gains in areas ranging from reducing
veteranhomelessness, to improving educational outcomes, to enhancing the
effectiveness of international development programs. The Budget invests
in expanding evidence-based approaches, developing and testing effective
practices, and enhancing government’s capacity to build and use
evidence, in particular by expanding access to administrative data and
further developing Federal, State, local, and tribal data
infrastructure.
Reorganizing Government to Succeed in the Global Economy. The
Budget also includes proposals to consolidate and reorganize Government
agencies to make them leaner and more efficient, and it increases the
use of evidence and evaluation to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent
wisely on programs that work.
