At a White House event to announce the budget, Biden said the proposal consisted of three key tenants: fiscal responsibility, safety and security, and investments to “build a better America.”
On the podium alongside Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, Biden attempted to mark a change in his administration’s approach to federal spending from earlier in the pandemic and urged his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, to federal to manage deficit throughout his tenure.
“Following the fiscal mismanagement of my … predecessor, we are reducing the Trump deficits and putting our financial house back in order,” the president said.
Biden said his proposed $1.3 trillion budget cut will be “the largest one-year deficit reduction in U.S. history.”
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, the proposed budget includes $6.9 billion for the European Deterrence Initiative and NATO, as well as “countering Russian aggression in support of Ukraine.”
The president claimed his budget proposal will be “one of the largest investments in our national security in history.”
The proposal for national security spending has already drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Biden’s budget is “woefully tight on defense spending,” arguing that in times of high inflation, the proposed 4% increase in military spending represents a “real-world dollar cut in funding for our armed forces.” equals House and Senate Liberals, meanwhile, have balked at Biden’s request, with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders arguing that “we don’t need a massive increase in the defense budget” if the US “already spends more on the military than they do.” next 11 countries combined.”
Acknowledging criticism in Washington of the proposal’s defense spending, the president said, “Some people don’t like the increase, but we live in a different world today.” America is more prosperous, more prosperous and more just when it is safer.”
Its budget provides $3.2 billion in “voluntary resources for state and local grants” for communities to hire more police officers and an additional $30 billion in “mandatory resources to support law enforcement, crime prevention and violence intervention.” in the community”.
Biden on Monday dismissed a suggestion that allocating his budget to criminal interventions was a political move.
“Isn’t that fascinating? When I was first elected I was slammed for supporting the police too much for the last 30 years. No, I think so,” Biden said when asked if the additional funding was included because of political pressure from Republicans, who say Democrats are too soft on crime.
“To take a step back, what this budget shows is that we can grow the economy bottom-up and middle and invest in the American people, and we can do it in a smart, fiscally responsible way Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters in a call Monday morning.
“Here at home, it includes important investments to protect our communities, fund crime prevention and response to community violence, deploy more police officers to community policing, combat gun violence and advance criminal justice reform,” she said.
Officials say the inflation estimates reflected in the budget were set in November – ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has weighed on the economy and pushed up prices across the board.
“The invasion is likely to put upward pressure on energy and food prices, which in turn could exacerbate inflation, which was already a problem before the invasion due to pandemic supply chain constraints and demand for goods,” Rouse said. “We would see the economic forecast that we would update today a little differently.”
Among the other requests are $10 billion in new funding for election administration, which she says is needed to “strengthen American democracy” while it faces unprecedented threats. The money for state and local officials, if approved by Congress, would be spent over 10 years.
“Federal funding for the equipment, systems and personnel that make up the nation’s critical electoral infrastructure was episodic or contingent,” the White House budget proposal reads. But the $10 billion request is aimed at “providing state and local election officials with a predictable stream of funding for critical capital investments and increased staffing and services.”
A notable point of the proposal is “postage-free (mail-in) ballots,” which is a priority for left-leaning suffrage groups. Voting by mail is growing in popularity, especially after the pandemic-plagued 2020 election, but it’s up to states to decide whether voters have to pay for their own stamps. Most states that offer it are run by Democrats.
Biden also wants to increase the Justice Department’s civil rights budget by $101 million to a new total of $367 million. These funds would, among other things, support efforts to protect voting rights. Last year, the Justice Department sued GOP-run states like Texas and Georgia over voting rules and card reallocations that allegedly discriminated against minorities.
The budget also includes funding for the president’s renamed “Building a Better America” proposal, which has stalled in Congress, but it “does not include specific items for the investments related to this future legislation,” Young said.
Asked if the funding means stalled negotiations have gotten back on track, Young said which the White House is not “predicting congressional negotiations.”
“The deficit-neutral reserve fund is intended to leave room, particularly revenue, to leave room for congressional negotiators to do what President Biden has asked for. He has asked for legislation that will lower costs for Americans and reduce the deficit,” she said.
To make those investments and reduce the deficit, the budget is calling for a new “minimum tax on billionaires” — which encompasses more than just billionaires and applies to anyone worth more than $100 million — that would protect the richest 0.01 percent of households would pay at least “20 percent of their total income in federal income taxes”. It also increases the rate companies pay on profits and includes “additional measures to ensure multinationals doing business in the United States cannot use tax havens to undercut the global minimum tax,” the White House said .
Council of Economic Advisors Chair Cecilia Rouse told reporters that Biden’s policies would reduce the expected deficit in current fiscal 2022 to “$1.3 trillion less than FY21,” and we believe the policy continuing on this budget will reduce the deficit by another trillion over the next decade.” But much of that deficit reduction has come from temporary programs under the US bailout program that are expiring.
CNN’s Marshall Cohen, Ted Barrett, and Manu Raju contributed to this report.