WASHINGTON — President Obama delivered to Congress yesterday a $3.6 trillion spending plan that would finance vast new investments in healthcare, energy independence and education by raising taxes on the oil and gas industry, hedge-fund managers, multinational corporations and more than 2 million of the nation's top earners.

The blueprint, meanwhile, would overhaul programs across the federal bureaucracy to strengthen assistance for millions of people who have borne the consequences of what Obama called "an era of profound irresponsibility," helping them pay for college, train for better jobs and save for retirement while taking less of their earnings in taxes.

The ambitious agenda for the fiscal year that begins in October would not come cheap. This year's budget deficit, swollen by spending to combat a severe recession, would hit a record $1.75 trillion, or 12.3 percent of the overall economy, under the president's plan, the highest since 1945. While Obama inherited the bulk of that gap, his budget would make room for a fresh round of spending to prop up troubled financial institutions that could hit $750 billion.

Next year's deficit would approach $1.2 trillion. But Obama proposes to cut that figure in half by the end of his first term, in large part by levying nearly $1 trillion in new taxes on the nation's highest earners, defined as families with gross income of more than $250,000 a year.

In unveiling the 134-page volume that outlines his spending priorities, Obama acknowledged that his proposal would "add to our deficits in the short term to provide immediate relief to families and get our economy moving." But he argued that the economic crisis should not be used as an excuse to delay costly investments intended to modernize the nation's economy, enhance its workforce and, ultimately, reduce government spending.

"What I won't do is sacrifice investments that will make America stronger, more competitive, and more prosperous in the 21st century — investments that have been neglected for too long," Obama said.

Citing the need to "break free" from foreign oil, reduce "crushing healthcare costs," and improve public education, Obama said: "These investments must be America's priorities and that's what they will be when I sign this budget into law."

REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH

With its immense scope and bold prescriptions, Obama's agenda seeks to foster a redistribution of wealth, with the government taking an active role in narrowing the growing gap between rich and poor.

Republicans quickly attacked the document as a recipe for economic disaster, saying it would raise taxes on businesses and consumers in the middle of a recession to bankroll a massive government expansion.

"The era of big government is back, and Democrats are asking you to pay for it," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "The administration's plan, I think, is a job killer, plain and simple."

White House budget director Peter Orszag rejected that analysis, saying none of the tax increases would take effect until 2011. But some economists worry that, even in 2011, the economy may be too fragile to absorb a tax increase.

Meanwhile, some Democrats joined Republicans in complaining that the budget plan does not go far enough to narrow the yawning budget gap. While Obama predicts the deficit would fall to $533 billion by the end of his first term, it would quickly begin to rise again and the national debt would remain elevated throughout the next decade.

Obama is expected to send a complete budget plan to Congress in April, and Democratic leaders said they hope to approve it later this spring. But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., predicted that finding the votes will be "tough." With Democrats in control of both the White House and Congress, their budget will have real meaning for the first time in 15 years, he said, and lawmakers will fight hard to advance favored causes.

"These are real votes, real consequences," Hoyer said. "You're playing with real money."

PROPOSAL DETAILS

Obama's spending proposal contains plenty to fight over.

It calls on lawmakers to enact major new programs across the government, including one that would establish a national infrastructure bank to prioritize federal investments and another that would set new mandates on employers to enroll millions of workers for the first time in voluntary retirement savings accounts.

The budget seeks approval of a cap-and-trade program aimed at reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 14 percent by 2020. The program, similar to one used to slash emissions that cause acid rain, would auction off permits to companies that emit greenhouse gases and allow them to trade those allowances.

The administration is counting on the program to produce a big new stream of revenue, amounting to $646 billion over the next decade. About $15 billion a year would be set aside to pay for "clean energy technologies" while the rest would go toward making Obama's signature "Making Work Pay" tax credit permanent. The tax credit, worth as much as $800 a year to low- and middle-income workers, was enacted as part of the recent stimulus package.

In what the president called a "historic commitment to comprehensive healthcare reform," the budget proposes to create a $634 billion reserve fund that lawmakers could use to finance a major expansion of health coverage for the uninsured. The fund would include savings from proposed efficiencies in Medicare and Medicaid, the federal health programs for the elderly and the poor, as well as $318 billion in new taxes on families in the highest income brackets, who would see new limits on the value of the tax breaks they get from itemized deductions.

That proposal is just a fraction of the new taxes Obama proposes to heap on the nation's highest earners. Individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year and families who make more than $250,000 would also lose the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration, meaning their top income tax rate would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, their investment income would be taxed at 20 percent rather than 15 percent and their deductions for mortgage interest, state and local taxes and charitable contributions would be reduced.

If Obama's tax plan is approved, a family making $500,000 a year would see its annual tax bill soar from about $120,000 to nearly $132,000, a 10 percent increase, said Clint Stretch, managing principal of tax policy at Deloitte Tax.

Hedge-fund managers would take an even bigger hit. Much of their multimillion-dollar earnings would be taxed as regular income rather than capital gains, causing their tax rate to rise from 15 percent to as much as 39.6 percent. Oil and gas companies would be asked to pay an extra $31 billion over the next 10 years through an excise tax on offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico and new fees for drilling on federal land. And corporations that operate overseas could expect to pay $210 billion more over the next 10 years as a result of new, unspecified limits on their ability to defer taxation on foreign earnings.