Biden unveils $7.3 trillion budget as campaign pitch for spending, tax goals
US President Joe Biden outlined his policy vision for a possible second four-year term on Monday, unveiling a $7.3 trillion election-year budget aimed at convincing skeptical Americans that he will manage the economy. Can run the country better than Donald Trump.
Biden wants to raise taxes by trillions on corporations and high earners, as shown in his budget wish-list, to cut the deficit and pay for new programs to help those who earn less afford higher housing. And face the costs of child care. Congress is unlikely to adopt the proposed measures.
Biden’s budget includes raising the corporate income tax rate from 21% to 28% for the 2025 fiscal year starting this October, forcing those with wealth up to $100 million to pay at least 25% of their income in taxes. Doing it and allowing the government to do it. Negotiate to reduce high drug costs.
Meanwhile, the government would bring back the child tax credit for low- and moderate-income people, fund child care programs, spend $258 billion to build housing, provide 12 weeks of paid family leave for workers and expand funding to law enforcement. Will spend billions.
“Do you really think the rich and the big corporations need $2 trillion in tax breaks, because that’s what he (Trump) wants to do,” Biden said of Trump at an event in the competitive electoral state of New Hampshire. ” “I will continue to fight tooth and nail to make this fair.”
Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson immediately rejected the proposal, saying it reflected an “insatiable appetite for reckless spending” and a “disregard for fiscal responsibility.”
The budget was released days after the Democratic president’s fiery State of the Union address, where he attacked the values of Trump, his expected Republican opponent in the November election.
Biden’s campaign has struggled to address voters’ concerns about high prices and the direction of the US economy. Forty percent of Americans think Trump would handle the economy best, according to a January Reuters/Ipsos poll, while 31% chose Biden and 28% either didn’t know or declined to answer.
Trump, whose legislative accomplishment as president was a major tax cut in 2017, wants to sharply increase tariffs on imported foreign goods and cut regulations on energy producers.
Democrats blamed the Trump tax cuts for increasing the deficit and tilting it toward the rich, but they won’t repeal it once they control Congress in 2021-2023. Key provisions expire next year, leading to a major clash over tax policy.
The US Treasury said on Monday that Biden’s proposed budget would increase tax receipts by $4.951 trillion over 10 years, including more than $2.7 trillion in tax increases on businesses and nearly $2 trillion on wealthy individuals and estates.
The proposal to reduce deficit spending by $3 trillion over 10 years would slow but not stop the growth of the national debt to $34.5 trillion. The White House estimates the deficit will total $1.8 trillion in the 2025 fiscal year, or 6.1% of GDP, before falling to less than 4% over a decade.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a deficit-reduction advocacy group, called the proposal a “welcome start” but said it “doesn’t go far enough.”
The White House projects that real GDP growth will be 1.7% in 2024 and 1.8% in 2025, rising to 2.2% by 2030. Consumer price inflation was projected to be 2.9% for 2024 and 2.3% in 2025, with 4% unemployment, a figure that falls to 3.8% later in the decade.
The forecasts were set in November, and officials said the figures would be more optimistic if they were decided today.
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The White House budget is always part of the president’s wish list, but even more so in the current political climate.
US agencies are operating without a budget for the entire year 2024, after hardline Republicans rejected agreed spending levels. The US government spends more than it needs each year, and much of it goes to so-called essential programs and military programs, which lawmakers are unlikely to cut.
A House Republican plan unveiled last week, quickly rejected by the White House, aims to slash the federal budget within a decade by sharply cutting the scope of the federal government and relying on optimistic, outside-the-consensus growth forecasts. Had to balance.
Last year’s standoff between Biden and hardline Republicans resulted in a two-year deal to limit spending, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster and credit rating agency Fitch stripping the country of its AAA rating.
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