WASHINGTON: The White House sent Congress a $6 trillion budget plan that would ramp up spending on infrastructure, education and combating climate change, arguing it makes good fiscal sense to invest now, when the cost of borrowing is cheap, and reduce deficits later.
The first comprehensive budget offered by Democratic President Joe Biden faces strong opposition from Republican lawmakers, who want to tamp down US government spending and reject his plans to hike taxes on the rich and big corporations.
Biden’s plan for fiscal year 2022 calls for $6.01 trillion in spending and $4.17 trillion in revenues, a 36.6 per cent increase from 2019 outlays, before the coronavirus pandemic bumped up spending. It projects a $1.84 trillion deficit, a sharp decrease from the past two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but up from 2019’s $984 billion.
The blueprint builds on a partial “skinny budget” the White House released last month that mapped out $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending. read more
The plan drew praise from Democrats and criticism from Republicans and some progressive groups, who said it should have scaled back military spending.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders called Biden’s budget “the most significant agenda for working families in the modern history of our country,” and said it would create millions of good-paying jobs, while reducing poverty.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell heaped scorn on the plan, and warned Democrats to “move beyond the socialist daydream and the go-it-alone partisanship.”
“President Biden’s proposal would drown American families in debt, deficits, and inflation,” McConnell said in a tweet.
White House officials said Biden’s $4 trillion plans to address historic US inequality, climate change and provide four more years of free public education would be completely paid for in 15 years, with tax increases starting to chip away at deficits after 2030. — Reuters
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