CBO estimates Obama jobs bill would add $175B in new spending

Congressional budget examiners have projected President Obama’s jobs bill will increase spending by $175 billion over 10 years. 

That’s less than the White House’s $447 billion price tag, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office did not include the major tax cuts in Obama’s proposal when it offered its score. 

The figures released by CBO on Wednesday represent a preliminary estimate of the increased stimulus spending in President Obama’s jobs proposal. CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation are still working out the comprehensive cost of the bill, which would include Obama’s tax proposals. 

Obama has proposed that the measure be paid for by a number of tax hikes on the rich and on businesses, but Senate Democrats plan to go in a different direction.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday said they would revise the president’s bill in order to change the way it is paid for. Instead of increasing taxes on the upper-middle class, people earning above $250,000 a year, the Senate bill proposed a 5 percent surcharge on millionaires.  

Immediate transportation spending would cost $49 billion and extending unemployment benefits would cost some $44 billion. Some reduced spending is found in the wireless program, a reduction of $15 billion.

This post originally overstated the cost of a wireless program Obama has proposed and was corrected.