President Barack Obama proposed a record $3.99 trillion budget in the White House on Monday which would be drawn from new taxes for large corporations and the rich to fund education, infrastructure construction, and work force development but which would seek common ground with Republicans in increased military spending.

Obama maintains that his plan best represents the interests of middle-income Americans, but he has drawn a lot of criticism from Republicans, who fear his proposed tax increases of up to $2 trillion in an economy which has not yet fully recovered.

The plan would incur a 6.4 percent increase over estimated spending from the current year, but President Obama maintains that the federal deficit would still drop to $475 billion in 2016, 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product.

“We’ve got to pass a budget that funds our national security policies at home and abroad and gives middle class families the security they need to get ahead in the new economy,” stated the President.

Under the plan, social security spending would grow from $891 billion to $1.6 trillion in 2025. Medicare would increase from $529 billion to over $1 trillion, consuming 14.8 percent of the economy in a decade.

The president also wants to spend $478 billion on transportation and infrastructure over six years, and to instill a 76 percent increase for mass transit. Half of the money would come from taxes on gasoline and other fuels.

The plan has staunch opposition from Republicans. A six-year, 14 percent tax on corporate overseas earnings might be impossible to bargain outside of a broader agreement on taxes. The budget also assumes that an immigration law would pass which has been consistently blocked in the House.

The budget “contains no solutions to address the drivers of our debt, and no plan to fix our entire tax code to help foster growth and create jobs,” said house speaker John Boehner.

Nevertheless, Obama does have leverage with which he has room to bargain. One is the release of the military from automatic spending constraints, known as sequestration, which had been approved in 2011 under Obama’s economic relief agenda. This would entail a 4.5 percent raise in military spending at a time when the Republicans are stressing the need for a military boost.

The second is Obama’s emphasis on investing the proposed taxes in a long-term revitalization of the nation’s infrastructure to build roads, bridges, ports, and other key transportation nodes to replace the Highway Trust Fund, an imperative both parties recognize.