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Obama's Budget Sparks Debate Among Florida Lawmakers

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Budgets are said to embody values, and President Barack Obama’s budget surely shows his legislative values. The $3.9 trillion budget would levy new taxes on the wealthiest Americans to pay for things to help low and middle income families, like free community college.

That’s not sitting well with Republicans in the region. South Florida Congressman Carlos Curbelo says it’s a political document.

“Well look as someone in my 30s, I’m very concerned that the president’s budget continues just kicking the can down the road on our debt and deficit issues - the budget never balances,” says Curbelo, who represents the 26th district.

The budget also includes measures to combat climate change. It would create a $4 billion fund to entice states to move more quickly to curb carbon emissions. It also includes more than $1 billion to help states like Florida deal with the effects of climate change, like sea-level rise.

Curbelo is still reviewing those sections, but says he’s open to proposals to clean up the environment.

“Look I try to really find a healthy balance when it comes to the environment. I represent the Florida Keys,” he says. “We all know in the Florida Keys how important the environment is to our economy, to our livelihoods. So the way I see it we have to find the right balance between being responsible stewards of our environment and not destroying our economy and reducing our competitiveness.”

The president also wants to increase the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by about $500 million, so the agency can continue its attempts to combat climate change.

While Republicans are already preparing to cut the EPA’s budget, South Florida Democratic Congresswoman Lois Frankel of the 22nd district says her party is firmly behind the president in this political battle.

“For those of us in South Florida it’s real because we are very concerned about the rise in sea levels,” Frankel says. It’s not going to affect only the coast, she says. “It’s going to affect our inlands, too. There’s a real potential of flooding, losing a lot of property values, hurting our water supply.”

Florida lawmakers are also cheering the president’s focus on the Everglades. South Florida Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy says the president’s budget shows the region is a priority for this White House.

“Last year we got about $60 million,” for the Everglades. “This year we got $124 million. And another $67 million for Everglades National Parks,” Murphy says. “Over $200 million when you put all of the projects together for the Everglades."

Murphy and a bipartisan group of lawmakers are cheering an infrastructure plan the president is now embracing. The budget calls for offering a temporary tax holiday – called repatriation – to companies so they can bring overseas earnings back to U.S. soil to pay for infrastructure. Murphy, of district 18, was an early sponsor of that proposal and says he thinks it has a decent chance of becoming law.

“There’s no perfect solution but it’s getting that money back and incentivizing people in a lot of businesses that do want to invest in our infrastructure,” Murphy says. “Right now, there’s been nothing but short term, silly, kick-the-can-down-the-road solutions to infrastructure in my opinion. This might be one that’s realistic and might have some longevity to it.”

President Obama also wants to invest more money in job training programs to increase U.S. manufacturing in the global marketplace. Rep. Frankel says it’s good the White House sees education and jobs as two sides of the same coin.

“Manufacturing does give good jobs. Building infrastructure, not only does it give good jobs it advances your transportation,” Frankel says. “It really modernizes your whole infrastructure that also helps with your economy in the future. And of course you really can’t do any of that without education.”

But Republicans now control the Senate and they’re not happy. Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio says the president should have proposed changes to Medicare and Social Security, which he says are pinching other parts of the budget, like defense.

“The No.1 responsibility of the federal government is to provide for our national defense but as long as we continue to put off reforms to our entitlement programs we’re going to continue face draconian-style cuts, unfortunately, to some of our discretionary programs,” Rubio says.

Rep. Curbelo also says the president missed an opportunity to work with the GOP.

“But all-in-all I think the budget is just unrealistic. It’s going to fall flat here in Congress. It doesn’t demonstrate that the president wants to work with us. It just shows that he kind of wants to go it alone and get into another confrontation with Congress,” Curbelo says.

President Obama’s budget marks the start of this year’s budget war. Next up should be the House and Senate budgets, which will give Republicans the chance to outline their priorities for the nation.

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