WASHINGTON- US President Joe Biden on Monday submitted a $5.79 trillion budget plan to Congress that calls for record peacetime military spending and further aid for Ukraine, while raising taxes for billionaires and companies and lowering government deficits.
The budget proposal for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, lays out Biden’s priorities, including campaign promises to make the wealthy and companies pay more tax. It is merely a wish list as lawmakers on Capitol Hill make the final decisions on budget matters.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress looked forward to working on Biden’s “bold fiscal blueprint,” even as some fellow Democrats chafed at Biden’s pledge to boost military spending. Biden’s plan drew immediate criticism from Republicans, who together with moderate Democrats, killed similar tax proposals in the 2022 budget.
“The budget I am releasing today sends a clear message to the American people (about) what we value: first, fiscal responsibility, second, safety and security, and thirdly … the investments needed to build a better America,” Biden told reporters at the White House.
The Democratic president said he was calling for higher defense spending to strengthen the US military and “forcefully respond to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s aggression against Ukraine” with $1 billion in additional US support for Ukraine’s economic, humanitarian, and security needs.
The document, based on economic projections locked in before the war in Ukraine, offers fresh insight into Biden’s thinking as he prepares for a Nov. 8 midterm election that could see his Democratic Party lose control of Congress.
Biden told reporters his administration is “making real headway cleaning up the fiscal mess I inherited”, and will reduce the federal deficit by more than $1.3 trillion this year with $1 trillion in further cuts planned over the next decade.
“For most Americans the last few years were very hard, stretching them to the breaking point. But billionaires and large corporations got richer than ever,” he said, adding, “That’s not fair … Just pay your fair share.”
The US federal government, on the hook for rising healthcare and social spending, especially for older Americans, has spent more money than it has taken in for each of the last 20 years.
House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, a Democrat, predicted a “contentious” battle among Democrats over Biden’s call for big hikes in the already mammoth US military budget. Republicans said it didn’t raise military spending enough.
With a razor-thin majority in the House, Yarmouth warned that Democrats could lose no more than three to five votes within the party and still pass a budget opposed by Republicans.
Yarmuth said the entire process could drag out again as it did last year, when Congress did not approve a budget until August, long after the House wrote its appropriations bills.
Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said Biden’s tax hikes would harm US workers and the overall economy, while increasing deficits.
Under Biden’s policies, deficits would fall to 5.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year and stay below 5 percent over the next decade. That compares to 14.9 percent of GDP in 2020, the last year of the Trump administration, the White House said.
