INGHAM COUNTY - President Barack Obama proposed a $4 trillion budget for the 2016 fiscal year. The budget includes a plan for $478 billion dollars to go into a public works infrastructure program.

The program, called "Grow America" looks to improve roads, bridges, and transit over a six year time span. The plan is to modernize the nations highways, bridges, and mass transit systems.

If the budget is passed it would only indirectly affect Meridian Township through the Ingham County Road Department (ICRD).

Currently the Surface Transportation Program funds most of the county road federal aid projects.

Under the proposal, this program would only increase about 3%, which according to Bill Conklin, Managing Director of ICRD is equal to the annual inflation in road construction costs we have been experiencing.

Conklin says, "I see little improvement in this program for County roads. There is mention of some safety programs, but not much detail on how these proposed programs compare to existing safety programs or how this would affect county roads."

Ray Severy, Director of the Meridian Township Public Works and Engineering Department, also believes the proposed balance would affect roads indirectly.

Severy says, "Any time there's a project that gets Federal funds through the county, that helps us out because it helps our roads, but that money doesn't come directly to us. As far as the public works department, we really haven't gotten any federal funds directly."

The budget, which was submitted to Congress early February, would potentially increase discretionary spending by 7 percent. It would be partly funded by taxes to the wealthy and would include a one time 14 percent tax on overseas profits.

However because Republicans have a majority in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate many of the president's proposals will most likely not be approved.