President Biden's budget proposal for the coming fiscal year includes a new minimum tax on billionaires and increased funding for police and gun violence prevention.
It also calls for additional defense spending and ongoing support for Ukraine's effort to repel Russia. And it includes elements of Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda, which is stalled in Congress.
In essence, the 157-page budget — not including its hundreds of pages of tables and graphics — is a bigger, numbers-heavy version of the vision Biden laid out in his State of the Union address earlier this month.
"Budgets are statements of values, and the budget I am releasing today sends a clear message that we value fiscal responsibility, safety and security at home and around the world, and the investments needed to continue our equitable growth and build a better America," Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
Presidential budgets are vision documents that almost never become reality, certainly not in whole. In recent years, even when the president's own party controlled Congress, the president's budget failed even to get a vote.
Biden's $5.8 trillion fiscal year 2023 budget includes items that were part of his "Build Back Better" agenda, including reducing energy costs and combating climate change, cutting prescription drug costs, funding free community college, continuing the enhanced child tax credit and high quality preschool. But it doesn't include precise information about how much any of that would cost.
"Because those discussions with Congress are ongoing, the budget does not include specific line items for the investments associated with that future legislation," said Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Instead, there is a "deficit neutral reserve fund to account for a future agreement," according to a White House document.
As Democrats face a challenging midterm election environment later this year, this budget document is the kind of thing the president and his party can point to as an expression of their vision for the country. Among the proposals you can expect to hear more about:
The White House emphasized that this budget, based on current economic projections and proposed spending, would cut the deficit to less than half what it was in the 2021 budget year, which included massive pandemic spending and economic contraction.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget praised Biden's budget for proposing to reduce the deficit by a net $1 trillion over the next decade. But, it said ultimately, the White House plan would still set the debt on an "unsustainable path."
"Substantially more deficit reduction will need to be put in place over time, and sooner rather than later," the group said in a release. "We hope that Congress and the President work together to produce such legislation, which could help to tackle near-term inflation and support sustainable long-term growth." Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.