Obama ties foreign profits tax to big public works spending

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama unveils a $4 trillion spending plan Monday, a budget that calls for huge spending on infrastructure funded by a one-time tax on profits U.S. companies have amassed overseas. The business-friendly Republican-controlled Congress is all but certain to say no.

The foreign earnings tax would be part of a broader administration plan to overhaul corporate taxes by ending certain tax breaks and lowering rates, a challenging task that Obama and Republican congressional leaders insist they are poised to tackle this year.

The spending document for the 2016 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 also reflects goals Obama set out in his State of the Union speech, particularly higher taxes on wealthy Americans to shrink the growing gap between high income and middle class citizens.

The question is what kind of negotiated middle ground, if any, will emerge in a climate of the overwhelming partisan divide separating Obama and his Democrats from Republicans, many of whom have made their goal to stop or reverse virtually all of the president's domestic initiatives.

Obama, in an NBC interview before the Super Bowl, disputed a suggestion that he and the Republican-led Congress are so far apart that his budget proposals have no chance of winning approval.

"I think Republicans believe that we should be building our infrastructure," Obama said. "The question is how do we pay for it? That's a negotiation we should have."

Obama's new budget offers an array of spending programs and tax increases on the wealthy that the Republican lawmakers now running Congress have already rejected.

"What I think the president is trying to do here is to, again, exploit envy economics," Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the new chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said Sunday.

Nevertheless, Ryan, speaking on a Sunday TV news talk show, said he was willing "to work with this administration to see if we can find common ground on certain aspects of tax reform."

The likely meeting ground is the tax rate on U.S. companies. The current 35 percent top tax rate for corporations in the United States, the highest among major economies, serves as a disincentive and many U.S. companies with overseas holdings simply keep their foreign earnings abroad and avoid the U.S. tax.

The question remains: Will there be sufficient give in negotiations to keep Obama from vetoing the budget, a move that would force, yet again, last minute emergency talks, a possible government shutdown or a so-called continuing resolution that would fund the government at current levels.

Under Obama's plan, the top corporate tax rate for company profits earned in the U.S. would drop to 28 percent. While past foreign profits would be taxed immediately at the 14 percent rate, going forward new foreign profits would be taxed immediately at 19 percent, with companies getting a credit for foreign taxes paid.

Republicans are opposed virtually across the board to anything that would increase taxes, such as closing loopholes. They also are against taxing foreign profits and will likely block that avenue for funding Obama's infrastructure plans.

The White House believes it has some leverage on taxing foreign earnings by linking the revenue to construction projects that could potentially benefit the home districts of every member of Congress.

The budget will call for the one-time 14 percent mandatory tax on the up to $2 trillion in estimated U.S. corporate earnings that have accumulated overseas. That would generate about $238 billion, by White House calculations. The remaining $240 billion would come from the federal Highway Trust Fund, which is financed with a gasoline tax.

White House officials were not authorized to discuss the budget by name and described the proposal to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Obama is releasing his budget as the federal deficit drops and his poll numbers inch higher. Although Republicans will march ahead on their own, they ultimately must come to terms with the Democratic president, who wields a veto.

Ahead loom big challenges. Obama is proposing to ease automatic cuts to the Pentagon and domestic agencies with a 7 percent increase in annual appropriations. He wants a $38 billion increase for the Pentagon that Republicans probably will want to match. But his demand for a nearly equal amount for domestic programs sets up a showdown with Republicans.

Another centerpiece of the president's tax proposal is an increase in the capital gains rate on couples making more than $500,000 a year. The rate would climb from 23.8 percent to 28 percent. Obama wants to require estates to pay capital gains taxes on securities at the time they are inherited. He also is trying to impose a 0.07 percent fee on the roughly 100 U.S. financial companies with assets of more than $50 billion.