Biden defends $6.9 trillion budget proposal, GOP calls plan for 2024 'misguided'; Recap
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden fired the opening shot in his budget negotiations with congressional Republicans on Thursday, saying he's ready to sit down with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and go through their spending plans line by line.
"Lay it down," Biden urged the House GOP leader, who has yet to release his own budget proposal, during a campaign-style event in Philadelphia.
“We’ll go through it, see what we can agree on, what we disagree on and then fight it out in the Congress.”
Biden spoke just hours after the White House released his proposed budget for the coming year, which calls for tax increases on wealthy Americans and promises to trim the federal deficit by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade. The proposal offers insight into what Biden sees as his priorities as he gears up for his yet-to-be announced re-election campaign.
But the proposal is as much a political document as an actual tax-and-spending plan. Congress is in charge of writing the federal budget, and Biden’s budget will be dead on arrival the minute it lands on Capitol Hill.
Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide
Here's the latest:
- Doubling down on Medicare and Social Security: Biden sought to draw a contrast with Republicans who have not specified which domestic programs they want to cut.
- 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 2023.
- No date yet on GOP budget: Republicans have yet to release their own budget but McCarthy, R-Calif., blasted the president’s proposal as “completely unserious."
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.
Takeaways from Biden's $6.9 trillion budget proposal
GOP budget response: What budget cuts to Republicans want?
U.S. Chamber rejects Biden’s budget plan
Biden’s budget blueprint got a big thumbs down from the U. S. Chamber of Commerce.
Neil Bradley, the business group’s head of policy, called the plan a “recipe for economic and fiscal disaster.”
Instead of proposing new spending and taxes, Bradley said, the administration should work with Congress to cut spending and lower the federal debt.
– Maureen Groppe
Biden budget runs into House roadblock
If early reaction to the president’s budget is any sign, Biden is going to have a tough time getting his agenda past the Republican-controlled House.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise slammed Biden’s budget as “a total joke” and “unacceptable” in a statement Thursday afternoon.
“It doubles down on the same Leftist spending that got us this record inflation and our current debt crisis,” he said.
– Candy Woodall
Biden says he won’t let Social Security, Medicare be ‘gutted’
Biden said his budget protects Social Security and Medicare, seeking to draw a contrast with Republicans who have not specified which domestic programs they want to cut.
"Let's be clear about another key point in my budget," Biden said. "I guarantee you I will protect Social Security and Medicare. I won't allow it to be gutted or eliminated as MAGA Republicans have threatened to do.”
McCarthy has said House Republicans won’t touch either program, leaving this party with few options to achieve its goal to eliminate the deficit over a decade without raising taxes.
Social security and Medicare are major drivers of national debt that's projected to soar by $19 trillion over the next decade.
Biden’s budget seeks to make Medicare solvent beyond 2050 by raising the Medicare tax rate for high-income earners from 3.8% to 5%. But it does not include a similar solvency plan for Social Security.
– Joey Garrison
Joe Biden boxes Republicans into a corner on Social Security, Medicare
House Republicans target Biden’s climate change proposals
There’s a lot House Republicans don’t like about Biden’s proposed budget, especially when it comes to climate change.
Four of the top ten items Republicans on the House Budget Committee highlighted in their response to Biden’s budget relate to climate change, including $5 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to the impacts of extreme weather.
Other Biden proposals Republicans particularly don’t like include those that would raise taxes on businesses, expand gun trafficking strike forces, increase funding for family planning clinics, advance gender equity and equality around the world and promote racial and socioeconomic diversity in schools.
– Maureen Groppe
Biden ready to meet with McCarthy to go ‘line by line’ on budget
Biden says he’s ready to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to find a compromise on a budget.
During remarks in Philadelphia, Biden said that McCarthy is a “very conservative guy” and has a “more conservative group with him,” pointing at Republicans' opposition to the president’s proposed budget.
But Biden said he is ready to meet with McCarthy “anytime, even tomorrow, if he has his budget.”
“We’ll go line by line,” Biden said of his and the GOP budget, which has yet to be released. “We’ll go through it, see what we can agree on, what we disagree on and then fight it out in the Congress.”
– Rebecca Morin
Biden targets gun violence: President's plan boosts money for DOJ
USDA adds on to sweeping climate investments
Biden’s proposed budget includes increased funding for the Department of Agriculture which is aimed at complimenting investments already made through the bipartisan infrastructure bill and Inflation Reduction Act with a swath of provisions meant to fight climate change.
The proposed budget includes additional funding towards wildfire prevention, farmland conservation, clean energy in rural communities and affordable rural housing which are all aimed at “tackling the climate crisis while mitigating its ongoing impacts.”
Also in the budget is increased funding for food assistance programs, with a new $15 billion over the next 10 years to provide free school meals to “an additional nine million children.”
– Ken Tran
More funding for NASA for moon exploration, new space technology
In an effort to further NASA’s exploration of the moon and space, Biden is requesting $27.2 billion in discretionary budget authority for 2024 — a $1.8 billion increase from 2023.
In his proposed budget, the president wants to provide $8.1 billion to the agency’s Artemis Program. That will allow NASA to fully fund the rockets, crew vehicle, lunar landers, space suits, and other systems needed to fly astronauts around the Moon, and eventually have subsequent missions to land astronauts on the moon.
The proposed budget would also provide funding to advance robotic exploration of mars, as well as funding for NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement to engage more students.
– Rebecca Morin
Biden wants an historic increase in Title X funding for family planning
Biden wants to nearly double spending on Title X funding to health care providers for family planning services, a move that comes as abortion services have been curtailed around the country following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
The Title X network was already trying to rebuild after the Biden administration lifted Trump-era restrictions that prohibited federally funded clinics from providing abortion information to patients.
“While contraception cannot replace the need for abortion services, it is vital to ensure people have a path to the health care they choose,” said Clare Coleman, head of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association.
– Maureen Groppe
Proposed HHS budget would expand Medicaid, extend premium subsidies
The bump in funding Biden is seeking for health programs and the Department of Health and Human Services includes making permanent enhanced subsidies for private insurance plans that are set to expire after 2025. The subsidies for Obamacare plans purchased on health exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act were temporarily expanded first through pandemic relief package and then in the Inflation Reduction Act passed last year.
Biden also wants to provide “Medicaid-like coverage” to low-income residents in the 11 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
Both proposals are expensive and are likely to be rejected by the GOP-controlled House, which is looking for ways to cut spending.
– Maureen Groppe
Biden 2024 budget ‘misguided,’ House Appropriations chair says
Biden’s budget is “misguided” and won’t get far in the Republican-controlled House, according to House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger, R-Texas.
Her main point of contention is that the president is spending too much on “unnecessary programs” at the expense of national security.
Congress will review his budget line-by-line to identify waste, and Republicans will insert their own priorities, she said.
– Candy Woodall
Watchdog: Deficit reduction doesn’t go far enough
A nonpartisan watchdog group praised Biden for proposing to trim the federal deficit but warned that his plan doesn’t go far enough.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said Biden deserves “real credit” for proposing $3 trillion in deficit reduction in addition to paying for his new priorities. But $3 trillion is “a minimum savings target,” and future budget deals will be necessary to put the nation’s debt on a sustainable path, said Maya MacGuineas, the group’s president.
The group also slammed what it called “excessive” spending in Biden’s proposed budget and said the absence of a plan to extend the solvency of Social Security is “a glaring omission.”
– Michael Collins
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy blasts White House budget
In his first public statement on Biden’s budget, Speaker Kevin McCarthy blasted the president’s proposal as “completely unserious.”
McCarthy, who has to negotiate a debt limit deal and spending plan with the president, accused Biden of proposing trillions in new taxes through direct and indirect costs.
“Mr. President: Washington has a spending problem, NOT a revenue problem,” he said.
– Candy Woodall
Quadruple tax on corporate stock buybacks
A new tax that took effect in January on corporate stock buybacks would quadruple under Biden’s proposed budget.
Biden is proposing that companies pay a 4% excise tax on purchases of their own stock. A bill that Biden signed last year requires them to pay a 1% excise tax on stock buybacks.
Companies often buy back their own stock as a way to return cash to their CEOs and investors and to push up the price per share. The practice has become an issue as corporate stock buybacks have exploded in recent years and companies have raked in cash from record-high profits.
Biden’s proposal is an effort to discourage the practice and encourage long-term investments that benefit consumers.
– Michael Collins
Biden pushes for 12 weeks of paid leave in budget
Biden is asking Congress to approve up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave as part of his annual budget. He also wants lawmakers to require businesses to give their employees seven days off each year to recuperate from routine illnesses.
In addition, Biden’s plan would allow for time off to handle issues related to a loved one’s military deployment, domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.
His budget also calls for up to three days of paid time off for bereavement.
Americans who utilize the program would see a portion of their missed wages replaced under Biden’s plan. His budget didn't say how much money they could get while indicating that lower income Americans would be eligible for greater amounts of money as a percentage of their income than wealthier ones.
Biden did not specify how the proposed program would be paid for, although he said the Social Security Administration would run it and called for a bevy of new taxes on high earners. He asked for $10 million to help states launch and expand paid leave programs, including through grants.
– Francesca Chambers
Biden capital gains tax rate
Wealthy Americans can expect to pay a higher capital gains tax under Biden’s proposed budget.
Biden is looking to nearly double the capital gains tax to 39.6% for single filers making more than $400,000 a year and married couples making more than $450,000 per year. Those filers currently pay a capital gains rate of 20%.
For Americans with more than $1 million in income, the capital gains would be taxed at the same rate as their wage income. Biden also is looking to close a loophole that allows some wealthy investment fund managers to pay tax at lower rates than their secretaries
– Michael Collins
Biden proposes budget increase for border security
As Biden continues to face challenges at the U.S.- Mexico border, the president is proposing nearly $25 billion to strengthen border security — millions more than was enacted in the last fiscal year.
The proposed budget that would go to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hire more personnel, as well as to increase technology at the border. It’s a nearly $800 million increase over the 2023 enacted level when controlling for border management amounts.
According to the Biden administration, with the proposed budget, CBP would be able to hire an additional 350 Border Patrol agents, $535 million would be allocated for border technology at and between ports of entry, $40 million would be used to combat fentanyl trafficking and disrupt transnational criminal organizations, and there would be funds to hire an additional 460 processing assistants at CBP and ICE.
– Rebecca Morin
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
Social Security: Biden budget release silent on how to keep Social Security afloat long-term
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
Go deeper
Social safety net:Biden budget proposal would increase Medicare tax for Americans earning more than $400K
Higher taxes:President Joe Biden's budget proposal will include tax increases. What are they?
More:Biden's about to unveil his budget proposal. His endgame: Forcing Republicans' hand