(CN) — President Joe Biden unveiled the final budget of his term on Monday, laying out lofty goals to expand family leave, reduce the costs of child care, housing and health care and raise taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations.
It’s very unlikely the highlights of the $7.3 trillion spending plan for fiscal 2025, which starts Oct. 1, will even register in Congress. Republican control of the House will lead to a different spending agenda.
Full-year appropriations are also very unlikely: It’s been nearly 30 years since lawmakers passed total budget appropriations on time.
For nearly 50 years, lawmakers have relied on a hodgepodge of short-term resolutions to avert government shutdowns. The current budget process was established in 1977. But since then, Congress has passed appropriations measures on time only four times: fiscal 1977, 1989, 1995 and 1997, according to the Pew Research Center.
Biden announced his goals for the upcoming fiscal year in an event Monday in New Hampshire, hitting many of the same notes from last week’s State of the Union address.
Much of the proposed spending covers mandatory programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which Biden has pledged not to cut. Biden wants to keep those programs funded through an increase on the minimum tax for wealthy Americans and large corporations.
Biden’s spending proposal calls for increasing the lowest tax rates on billion-dollar corporations from 15% to 21% and those on multinationals’ foreign income from 10.5% to 21%, and for eliminating some tax deductions for executive pay.
The budget isn’t drastically different from the plan he unveiled for fiscal 2024.
Some of Biden’s goals for the next fiscal year include universal prekindergarten education, 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave and a new tax break for first-time home buyers.
Biden also called for capping annual prescription drug costs.
“It could be transformational,” he said.
The spending plan was predictably applauded by Democrats and derided by Republicans.
“Once again, President Biden has put forward a budget that keeps our commitments to working families while also charting a fiscally responsible path forward,” said Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat. “As the president has said before, a budget is a statement of values, and this budget proudly values our middle class, our seniors, our veterans, and all of our communities.”
Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat and ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said the proposal “offers a blueprint to lower the cost of living, create higher paying jobs, battle climate change, protect women’s rights, honor our veterans, and protect our national security.”
“The budget proposes critical investments that help keep communities safe and offers a plan to crack down on fraud and close tax loopholes — rewarding work, not wealth,” DeLauro said. “By proposing historic investments in child care, lowering drug prices and health care costs, increasing access to affordable housing and helping people access higher paying jobs, President Biden is focused on helping the middle class and working Americans.”
The Department of Defense’s share of the budget received criticism from Republicans for not being a big enough increase while some progressive organizations, like Public Citizen, said it was too large.
“I have been saying this for some time now — our defense budget should be built with the goal of deterring the threats facing our nation,” said Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican. “Instead, we are forced to build a budget to meet an arbitrary number. I worry about the long-term impact this budget process will have on our national defense.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the proposal is in line with funding levels required under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
Under the caps, the Pentagon had to make “difficult but responsible decisions focusing on maintaining our military's readiness and taking care of our personnel.”
“We must continue to invest in cutting-edge defense capabilities and to advance new operational concepts across domains, from advanced cyber systems and enhanced space capabilities to a modernized nuclear triad,” Austin said in a statement. “This budget request also reflects a deep commitment to our people, who will always be the Department's greatest strategic asset; we hope to raise basic pay, boost quality-of-life initiatives, and promote safety and accountability.”
While Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen, largely applauded the budget, she said the president should direct the Pentagon’s funding to programs that would benefit Americans domestically.
“War hawks squealing that a 1% increase to defense spending is ‘meager’ or ‘catastrophic’ lack perspective altogether,” Gilbert said. “The true catastrophe is the existing scale of U.S. military spending. … Reallocating billions away from the Pentagon and into direct human needs instead would benefit everyday Americans far more.”
The budget also includes $482 million to support Ukraine, part of $1.5 billion the State Department requested “for countering the Kremlin’s aggression.”
“The president’s budget proposal will enable us to continue using our diplomacy, assistance, and accountability tools to advance our vision of a free, open, secure, and prosperous world and to deliver on the issues that matter most to the lives and livelihoods of the American people,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a press release.
The spending plan calls for $4.7 billion for resources to address border security at the U.S.-Mexico border. The White House has been trying to get a sweeping border security bill, package with foreign aid, passed in Congress. But the legislation has stalled among Republican pushback.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called for Congress to pass the border legislation and the president’s budget.
“This budget invests in our homeland security today and lays the groundwork to protect the American people well into the future,” Mayorkas said in a press release. “The President's Budget continues to invest in the security of our borders, even as we continue to call on Congress to pass the February bipartisan border security legislation to provide urgently needed resources and tools to our frontline personnel.”
Follow @TheNolanStout
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
