Biden unveils $7.3 trillion budget as campaign pitch for spending, tax goals

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden sketched his policy vision for the United States on Monday, unveiling a $7.3 trillion spending wish list that is as much an election-year pitch to voters as a policy proposal.

Biden wants to sharply raise taxes on corporations and high earners in his second four-year term, the document showed, to help cut the federal deficit and pay for new programs to assist those who make less cope with high housing and child care costs.

Biden’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year that starts in October includes raising the corporate income tax rate to 28 from 21%, hiking rates on people making over $400,000, forcing those with wealth of $100 million to pay at least 25% of their income in taxes, and letting the government negotiate to bring more drug costs down.

Meanwhile, the government would bring back a child tax credit for low- and middle-income earners, fund childcare programs, funnel $258 billion to building homes, provide paid family leave for workers, and spends billions on violent crime prevention and law enforcement.

It promises to cut annual deficit spending by $3 trillion over 10 years, slowing but not halting the growth of the $34.5 trillion national debt. Deficits would total $1.8 trillion in the 2025 fiscal year, or 6.1% of GDP, before falling to under 4% over the decade, the White House forecast.

Biden also renewed his demand for funding on border security, Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and other national security issues that has been stalled by Republican congressional leadership for months.

The budget was released days after the Democrat’s State of the Union address, where he sharply assailed the values of his expected Republican opponent in November’s election, Donald Trump.

Biden travels to the competitive election state of New Hampshire on Monday. Trump, whose signature legislative accomplishment as president was a major tax cut, has said he wants to sharply increase tariffs on imported foreign goods and cut regulations on energy producers.

The White House forecast 1.7% real GDP growth in 2024, and 1.8% in 2025, rising to 2.2% by 2030. Consumer price inflation for 2025 was forecast at 2.3%, 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 set today.

White House budgets are always something of a presidential wish list, but that is even more so in the current political climate. US agencies are operating without a full-year 2024 budget, after hardline Republicans rejected an agreed-upon spending level, and Republicans and Democrats are sharply divided over how to spend some $6 trillion in annual funding.

Democratic polling shows voters are concerned about debt-fueled government spending, high costs and the economy in general, and illegal border crossings, as well as broad support for taxing the wealthy.