US President Joe Biden is expected on Monday to ask Congress for record peacetime military spending while raising taxes for billionaires and projecting lower government deficits.
Biden’s budget proposal for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 lays out his administration’s priorities but it is merely a wish list as lawmakers on Capitol Hill make the final decisions on budget matters.
The document offers fresh insight into Biden’s thinking as he attempts to halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and prepares for a November 8 midterm election that could see his Democratic Party lose its control of Congress.
“The president’s budget will reflect three important values: fiscal responsibility, safety and security at home and abroad, and a commitment to building a better America,” a White House official said.
“The budget will help keep our communities safe by putting more cops on the beat for community policing, fighting gun crime, and investing in crime prevention and community violence interventions,” the official said.
Forced by disagreements within his own party to pump the brakes and instead continue negotiating on vast swathes of his domestic “Build Back Better” agenda, Biden is unlikely to include line items for all of his ideas on how to improve the country’s environment, healthcare, education, housing infrastructure and manufacturing competitiveness.
But he will use the opportunity to throw his explicit public support for the first time behind a new tax requiring billionaires to pay at least 20 per cent of their income in taxes, including on the gains on investments that have not been sold.
The White House says the tax would apply to 0.01 per cent of American households, those worth over $100 million, and that more than half of the new revenue would come from households worth more than $1 billion.
The measure would reduce the government deficit by $360 billion over the next decade, they said.
Biden has long pushed the message that the US tax system rewards the wealthy too much and that the rich should pony up for more social services.
