US President Barack Obama has unveiled a $3.77tn (£2.4tn) budget that proposes fresh taxes on the wealthy along with cuts to benefit programmes.
The White House is offering to trim pensions and healthcare costs, but only in return for $700bn in new revenue.
However, the Obama plan is viewed as having no chance of being fully enacted by the deadlocked Congress.
Republicans Senate leader Mitch McConnell branded the budget a “left-wing wish list”.
The Democratic president will host a dinner for senior Republicans on Wednesday evening to sell his proposals.
Conservatives have refused to agree to new revenue after passing tax rises on earnings over $400,000 in January.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have balked at Mr Obama’s compromise offer to cut Social Security pension payments.
Mr Obama’s budget aims to reduce the US deficit by an additional $1.8tn over 10 years, bringing total potential reductions to $4.3tn, according to administration estimates.
Cuts in the plan include about $400bn in government health spending, and about $130bn from Social Security, by changing the way cost-of-living adjustments are calculated.
Elderly and disabled recipients with the lowest incomes would be shielded from the changes.
The cost-of-living adjustments would also raise $100bn in revenue over 10 years through changes to tax brackets.
Additional cuts would include $100bn each from military and domestic programmes as well as reductions in farm subsidies and federal employee pension programmes.
Mr Obama proposes raising revenue by eliminating income deductions for the top 2% of earnings and includes the president’s oft-repeated Buffett Rule, requiring households with incomes of more than $1m to pay at least 30% in taxes.
The plan also includes some new spending aimed at improving the US economy, including $50bn in infrastructure and $1bn for 15 manufacturing institutes across the country.
Mr Obama has previously cited infrastructure spending as the best possible investment to propel an economic recovery.
His blueprint would replace automatic, across-the-board cuts – known as sequestration – to both military and domestic programmes that began on 1 March.
Those cuts took effect after Democrats and Republicans failed to agree to another plan to cut spending and reduce the US budget deficit.
Negotiations over the next US budget are expected to run into the summer, but the White House says the document released on Wednesday is not a opening offer.
“We don’t view this budget as a starting point in the negotiations,” a senior administration official said on Tuesday. “This is an offer where the president came more than halfway toward the Republicans.”
But House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan argued that Republicans had made enough concessions.
Mr Ryan’s budget proposal, already passed in the Republican-controlled House, sets out $4.6tn in deficit reduction.
Most of the savings would be found from healthcare spending and domestic programmes, without additional tax revenue, according to his plan.
Source-BBC
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