President Biden
Joe BidenAnne Frank’s Step-Sister: Trump ‘Clearly Admired Hitler’ Biden-GOP Infrastructure Talks Rocky Start We Must Stop Reducing China Climate MORE proposed a $ 1.5 trillion annual budget for the 2022 fiscal year on Friday, $ 118 billion higher than regular 2020 appropriations, with a significant 16 percent increase in non-defense spending.
The $ 769 billion non-defense budget, which covers government departments such as Transportation, Health and Human Services, Justice and Education, is an increase of $ 105.7 billion from current levels.
Government officials, saying the government has underinvested in domestic spending for years, noted that this would be roughly in line with the 30-year average of 3.3 percent of GDP without defense.
Defense spending, which some budget keepers expected to stay flat in the proposal, would increase by $ 12.3 billion, or 1.7 percent, to $ 753 billion, though none of that spending will be through a decades-old ’emergency’ bucket with so many expenses. derided as a budget gimmick and slush fund.
In a stark reversal of four years of budget requests President Trump
Donald Trump First GOP lawmaker calls on Gaetz to resign Katie Hill on Matt Gaetz: ‘I feel betrayed by him’ Anne Frank’s stepsister: Trump ‘clearly admired Hitler’ MORE, which tried to cut funding for major agencies but was routinely rejected by Congress, the Biden proposal bolsters government agencies, including a 40.8 percent increase for education, a 27.7 percent increase for commerce, an increase of 23.1 percent for health and human services, and an increase of 16 percent for agriculture.
It would also boost agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency at 21.3 percent and the National Science Foundation at 19.8 percent.
The level of defense, which rose dramatically under Trump, is likely to be pushed back by the progressive wing of the Democratic party, which has pushed for cuts to a defense budget they believe is bloated.
“This year’s credit process arrives at one of the most difficult times in the nation’s history,” Shalanda Young, acting head of the White House budget, wrote in a letter accompanying the budget request to major lenders in Congress. noting the pandemic and related economic crises. .
Yet this moment of crisis is also a moment of opportunity. Together, America has a chance not to simply go back to the way things were before the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn hit, but to start with it. build a better, stronger, more secure, more inclusive America. “
If passed, the budget would be a change from historical trends, putting more resources into non-defense programs than defense.
The White House pointed to significant proposed spending increases in programs it said would make the country healthier and more equitable, spending $ 8.7 billion on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and $ 10.7 billion on opioid addiction.
It would more than double Title I spending on high-poverty schools, raise the maximum level of Pell scholarships to $ 400, and invest in programs to reduce racial inequalities in housing, maternal health, and policing.
The request kicks off the annual credit process in Congress, which requires both chambers to approve 12 spending accounts to fund the government before the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. Without spending bills or an emergency measure, the government stops.
While the House Appropriations Committee has already announced hearings for next week to review budget requests, the road ahead is expected to be long and contentious.
Republicans, whose votes are needed to approve Senate credit bills, have already begun to raise the alarm about spending levels on big ticket items, such as the most recent $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 emergency and Biden’s proposed $ 1.9 trillion infrastructure bill 2.3 trillion, which is unrelated to the annual expenditures proposed in Friday’s request.
While many budget watchers have endorsed taking on historic deficits to pay billions in COVID-19 emergency relief, they warn that the shortages need to be addressed in the long term.
The White House has not said whether it plans to pay for the increases, which could increase the deficit by more than $ 1.3 trillion over the course of a decade.
In fact, Friday’s request didn’t even match the typical “ meager ” budgets governments often spend to begin the credit process.
Rather than the typical 10-year time frame for spending, it only covered the discretionary budget for 2022 and didn’t include details on tax proposals or mandatory spending programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which make up the lion’s share of annual government spending. Biden will include those details later in the spring as part of a full, formal budget request.
Conservatives are likely to cry over Biden’s proposal to not only rule out funding for Trump’s border wall, but also reclaim previously appropriated funds, as well as his focus on civil rights enforcement and police reform. Proposals about gun safety and increases in Title X family planning are also likely to receive criticism from the right.
The decision to increase defense spending, which government officials said would cover an increase in military wages, could also face backlash from progressives, who have claimed military spending is inflated and not subject to the same scrutiny as other government expenditures.
“It took about 20 years for the Pentagon to do a partial audit, and then they fell off,” said Lindsay Koshgarian, program director of the left-wing National Priorities Project, which has called for a 10 percent cut in defense spending.
“It’s not even a question of whether the money is doing good things, it’s a matter of even knowing where the money is going, and even the Pentagon doesn’t know. You can imagine if that was the case for a social safety net program, it would be kind of bullshit, ”she added.