President Biden’s 2024 budget released. Boosts taxes on the rich, cuts the national deficit; live updates
released his proposed budget on Thursday, kicking off what is expected to be months of intense negotiations with congressional Republicans over the nation’s pocketbook.
Here’s the latest:
- Top-line items: The budget blueprint, which calls for new taxes on wealthy Americans and promises to trim the federal deficit by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade, will almost certainly be dead on arrival on Capitol Hill.
- Defense spending: $26 billion increase in Pentagon spending to $842 billion, a 3.2% increase over 2023 as the Defense Department seeks to confront a variety of challenges from boosting troops’ pay to confronting China.
- Border security: Nearly $25 billion to strengthen border security, almost an $800 million increase over the 2023s.
- No date yet on GOP budget: Republicans have yet to release their own budget but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., blasted the president’s proposal as “completely unserious,” in his first public statement on Biden’s budget.
Congress is in charge of writing the federal budget, and Republicans who now control the House have said they have no intention of going along with any plan to raise taxes. The budget negotiations come amid a battle over raising the limit on how much money the federal government can borrow. GOP leaders say they won’t raise the debt ceiling unless Biden agrees to cut spending.
White House officials acknowledged the stakes but urged caution.
“We’re saying don’t wreck this economy over politics,” said Shalanda Young, the White House budget director.
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy blasts Biden’s budget
In his first public statement on Biden’s budget, Speaker Kevin McCarthy blasted the president’s proposal as “completely unserious.”
Social Security: Biden budget release silent on how to keep Social Security afloat long-term
Biden calls for 25% ‘billionaires’ tax’
Wealthy Americans will pay higher taxes under Biden’s proposed budget.
Biden is a calling for a 25% minimum income tax to be imposed on wealthiest 0.01 percent of Americans. The so-called “billionaires’ tax” is similar to a plan that Biden pushed last year, when he called for a 20% minimum tax on multimillionaires and billionaires.
Biden says the new tax would lead to a fairer tax code and would prevent the nation’s highest earners from paying a smaller share than middle-class Americans.
– Michael Collins
Biden boosts Pentagon budget 3.2% to $842 billion
Biden’s budget calls for a $26 billion increase in Pentagon spending to $842 billion, a 3.2% increase over 2023 as the Defense Department seeks to confront a variety of challenges from boosting troops’ pay to confronting China.
Among the budget’s priorities is a 5.2% pay raise for troops, funding to match the threat posed by China and modernizing nuclear weaponry. The Pentagon would receive $9.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative to enable U.S. and allied troops to operate in the Indo-Pacific region where China and North Korea are the chief adversaries. The budget includes $37 billion to modernize the missiles, submarines and bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
The budget outline is short on detail for conventional weaponry, but Pentagon officials have stressed the need to restock its arsenal of anti-tank, anti-aircraft and artillery weapons that have been rushed to Ukrainian troops resisting the Russian invasion.
– Tom Vanden Brook
DOJ would get more funding to fight violent crime: White House
The Justice Department would get millions in additional funding to combat gun violence and other violent crime, according to the White House.
The proposal includes $17.8 billion, an increase of $1.2 billion from last year, for law enforcement. The figure includes $1.9 billion for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to expand gun trafficking strike forces. The U.S. Marshals Service would get $1.9 billion to support personnel fighting violent crime including catching fugitives. And the FBI would get $51 million to enhance background checks for gun buyers.
Overall, the department would get $39.7 billion, a $2.2 billion or 5.9% increase from last year.
– Bart Jansen
No release date for GOP budget
McCarthy said Wednesday Republicans will release their budget “as soon as we can get it done.”
“We want to analyze (the president’s) budget…and then we’ll get to work on our budget,” he told reporters.
Potential spending cuts the House Budget Committee floated last month include work requirements for food stamps, deep slashes to the Environmental Protection Agency, stopping “woke waste,” rescinding unspent COVID-19 rescue funds, reducing Obamacare subsidies and halting Biden’s plan to forgive student loan debt.
Their framework said Republicans want to “save and strengthen” Social and Medicare but didn’t say how.
Biden to lay out budget in Philadelphia
Underscoring the role Democrats think their fiscal fight with Republicans will play in the next election, Biden is traveling to a union hall in Philadelphia to discuss his budget.
“It’s an opportunity for the president to talk directly to the American people,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Biden has repeatedly turned to Philadelphia, a city in a critical battleground state, for major political moments including the rollout of his 2020 presidential campaign and a primetime speech on the fate of democracy.
Biden to propose reducing deficit by nearly $3 trillion
After promising a path to reduce the deficit by at least $2 trillion over the next decade, the White House said Wednesday it found a way to reduce the gap in revenues and spending by nearly $3 trillion.
Deficits would have to be reduced by $5 trillion over ten years to “nearly stabilize” the growth of the federal debt, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Without changes, the debt will become larger than the size of the economy, reaching record levels by 2033.
Biden going after drug companies, oil industry
In addition to new taxes on the wealthy, Biden is also going after “Big Pharma” and “Big Oil” to find new revenues.
As he’s proposed before, Biden wants to eliminate tax incentives for the oil and gas industry, a change the White House says would save $31 billion.
Biden also wants to expand the government’s ability to pay less for prescription drugs for Medicare and Medicaid patients. More limited provisions to do that included in legislation passed last year were fiercely opposed by the pharmaceutical industry. Drug makes argued the changes will hurt their ability to develop new medicines.
Budget part of fight over debt limit
While presidents annually submit a budget request to Congress for the next fiscal year, this year’s proposal comes as Biden and Republicans are locking horns over the government’s ability to pay its existing bills. Unless Congress raises the nation’s borrowing limit, the government could default on its debts this summer, causing economic calamity.
House Republicans say they won’t raise the debt ceiling unless Biden agrees to sharply cut spending. Biden maintains the issues should not be linked to avoid spooking the economy during what could be a protected funding fight.
Go deeper
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