(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will ask Congress for as much as $68 billion more than current budget limits in fiscal 2016, according to two people familiar with the administration’s proposal. That amounts to an almost 7 percent increase over discretionary-spending levels prescribed by automatic cuts known as sequestration voted into law in 2011. The additional funding would put the bottom line for discretionary spending at about $1.08 trillion for fiscal 2016. Discretionary funds are the portion of the budget that the president and Congress agree to each year, as opposed to mandatory spending that generally funds long-term programs, such as Medicare and Social Security. Money for those programs is distributed based on the eligibility of participants rather than limited to an annually negotiated sum.
The 2016 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.
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