Obama's election-year budget to target rich

President Barack Obama will argue for tax increases on the wealthy and new spending on roads and other infrastructure projects as he lays out a campaign-year budget on Monday that will draw a populist battle line with his Republicans opponents.

For the fourth year in a row, the annual US budget deficit is expected to exceed USD 1 trillion but the White House will project an easing of the shortfall next year in the fiscal 2013 budget Obama will unveil at 11:15 a.m. EST (1615 GMT).

Obama, vulnerable over the weak economy as he campaigns for re-election in November, will call for deferring major deficit cuts until the economic recovery is securely back on track and will outline steps to decrease it over time.

"I think there is pretty broad agreement that the time for austerity is not today," White House chief of staff Jack Lew told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

Republicans, in control of the House of Representatives, have already declared the budget a non-starter and plan to seize on it to try to paint the president as a tax-and-spend liberal. They warn that tax hikes will kill jobs while doing nothing to halt the climb in the crushing level of national debt.

"The nation is just drowning in red ink," said Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Republican from Texas.

"I look forward to seeing the details, but I'm afraid it may be more of the same, and that is: red ink, fewer jobs, less employment, and less opportunity," Hensarling said.

Mitt Romney, the frontrunner in the Republican race to challenge Obama in November, called Obama's budget an "insult to the American taxpayer."

The announcement of the budget grants Obama one of his biggest platforms before the November 6 election to lay out his vision for America's future, casting Republicans as the party of the rich as he tries to convince voters that he would do more to protect their interests.

In a push for spending on popular programs like education, Obama will visit a community college in Virginia to deliver remarks on the budget at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT).

Polls consistently show that even as the economy has demonstrated surprising strength in recent weeks, Americans are still unsure of Obama's economic stewardship, a major problem for him as he seeks to persuade them to give him a second term.