US President Joe Biden's 2024 budget proposal includes some $6.9 trillion in spending, with a $1.8 trillion deficit.
Earlier this week, he hinted that he would make a move to introduce new tax increases on the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations designed to close much of the deficit over the next decade, amounting to some $2 trillion in new revenues. Biden has long promised such a tax hike, including most recently during his State of the Union address last month.
"No one earning less than $400,000 per year will pay a penny in new taxes," Biden said in remarks released with the budget.
Biden's budget includes $842 billion set aside for the Department of Defense - a 3.2% increase over 2023 levels. That includes $9.1 billion towards the Pentagon's Pacific Deterrence Initiative, an effort to bolster US forces in the region amid increasing tensions with China, and $37.7 billion for modernizing the US nuclear arsenal.
“This budget cements our commitment to confronting global challenges and keeping America safe,” Biden wrote. “It outlines crucial investments to out-compete China globally and to continue support for Ukraine in the face of unprovoked Russian aggression.”
The budget also includes some $6 billion in aid for Ukraine - a paltry sum compared to the more than $100 billion in aid it gave to Kiev last year, much of which has been spent on US weapons manufacturers to buy new weapons. It also includes $753 million in aid to Ukraine "to continue to counter Russian malign influence and to meet emerging needs related to security, energy, cybersecurity, disinformation, macroeconomic stabilization, and civil society resilience."
How have countries' defense budgets changed in 2023?
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The budget also includes a variety of new health and education programs, including expanding coverage of the state-funded Medicare and Medicaid programs; new tax credits for health insurance done via the Affordable Care Act; efforts to limit the prices of prescription drugs, especially for senior citizens; an expansion of early child care and learning; $59 billion in mandatory funding and tax incentives to increase the affordable housing supply, including for extremely low-income households; an expansion of the Pell Grant educational funding program; and additional funding for public schools to buy healthy food for students.
Biden's budget proposal is ultimately just that, though: a proposal, which Congress will have to debate, edit, and ultimately sign off on.
The budget's submission comes amid a standoff between the White House and Republicans in the US House of Representatives, who have refused to vote to increase the debt ceiling and allow the appropriation of new funds until the Democrats agree to steep spending cuts. The Treasury has been using "extraordinary measures" to keep making essential payments since January, and has warned they will only last a couple of months until the US government inevitably defaults on its debt. Such an event would be disastrous, destroying the country's credit rating and plunging it into an economic recession.
Indeed, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) blasted Biden's budget proposal on Thursday as "completely unserious," saying, "Mr. President: Washington has a spending problem, NOT a revenue problem."
“Our debt is one of the greatest threats to America and the time to address this crisis is now. Yet, President Biden is proposing out of control spending and delaying debt negotiations, following his pattern of shrugging and ignoring when faced with a crisis,” McCarthy also said in a separate joint statement with other leading House Republicans.