![\"Joe](\"https:\/\/candas365.es\/noticias\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/joe-biden-5837244_640-360x198.jpg\")
Washington (tca\/dpa) \u2014 President Joe Biden on Friday proposed a $6 trillion budget for the coming fiscal year, reflecting both ambitious goals for reinvigorating the economy through government action and a head-on challenge to his Republican opponents in Congress.<\/p>\n
By seeking billions of additional dollars for new infrastructure, aid to education, help for middle-class families, new environmental programs and a host of other domestic initiatives for fiscal year 2022, which begins Oct. 1, Biden promises to ramp up economic growth and make the United States more competitive globally, boost the long-stagnant incomes of most American workers and combat climate change.<\/p>\n
And by proposing the largest annual federal budget in constant dollars since World War II, including widely popular domestic programs, he is laying down a political gauntlet to Republicans who are betting they can obstruct his initiatives and break Democrats\u2019 shaky majorities in Congress in next year\u2019s midterm election.<\/p>\n
Shalanda Young, Biden\u2019s acting budget director, said the initiatives, if enacted, would be \u201ctransformational,\u201d telling reporters Friday, \u201cThis budget will grow the economy, create jobs and do so responsibly by requiring the wealthiest Americans and big corporations to pay their fair share.\u201d<\/p>\n
Any president\u2019s budget request to Congress is primarily a political document, a fiscal blueprint spelling out the administration\u2019s priorities.<\/p>\n
For example, the president\u2019s budget includes a $14 billion increase to tackle the climate crisis; $10.7-billion more to combat the opioid epidemic; an additional $20 billion for schools in high-poverty areas; and an $8.7-billion increase for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to boost its ability to detect and respond to global health crises like the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
Biden is not, however, requesting funding for expanding health care coverage beyond the tax credits and enhanced subsidies that were part of the temporary $1.9-trillion pandemic relief law he signed in March. Instead, he calls on Congress to pass legislation this year to expand in-home care, to lower the cost of prescription drugs, long a priority for Democrats, and to reduce the age of Medicare eligibility to 60.<\/p>\n
Biden is the first president in more than two decades not to include the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortions, in his budget. The move made good on a campaign promise, but with Democrats\u2019 narrow majorities in Congress, actually eliminating the law is unlikely.<\/p>\n
Under Biden\u2019s budget proposal, the federal deficit for the next fiscal year would hit $1.8 trillion, considerably more than the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected in February based on current spending and taxes. That deficit would be less than the $2.3-trillion shortfall expected for the current fiscal year, however, or the $3.1-trillion deficit for fiscal 2020 \u2014 periods when the economic downturn amid the pandemic, along with the tax cuts President Donald Trump signed into law in 2017, contributed to much-reduced government revenues.<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s plan to increase taxes on corporations and the very wealthy would offset the cost of infrastructure and social programs over 15 years, the administration has projected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president\u2019s budget improves the long-term fiscal outlook because his policies are paid for over the long run,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n
Republicans, however, are calling the higher taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans a \u201cred line\u201d in any negotiations. While they\u2019re assailing Biden for proposing to raise taxes, most Americans would see tax cuts. Republicans also are criticizing Biden for his budget\u2019s projection of yearly deficits exceeding $1 trillion, yet they said little when red ink hit that level under Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Biden\u2019s proposal would drown American families in debt, deficits and inflation,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, called the proposal \u201cdead on arrival.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the $6 trillion in spending Biden is proposing for next year, more than half is for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other mandatory federal obligations that are set in law. Much of the rest maintains funding for existing military and domestic programs.<\/p>\n
Yet Biden\u2019s proposed additions are significant. The spending for infrastructure and social programs, together with tax breaks for all but the wealthiest Americans, would cost roughly $4.5 trillion spread out over 10 years.<\/p>\n
Biden, speaking at Cleveland Community College Thursday in advance of sending his budget request to Congress, said, \u201cThis is our moment to rebuild an economy from the bottom up and the middle out.\u201d<\/p>\n
He argued that investments in infrastructure, workers and families will make America\u2019s economy fairer and help the country keep pace with global rivals, China in particular. And he continued to push for his proposals to raise taxes on corporations and the richest individuals to pay for the investments and tax breaks for low- and middle-income households, mocking Republicans for opposing those tax increase plans even as they attacked his spending proposals as budget-busters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had no problem passing a $2 trillion tax plan that went to the top 1% that wasn\u2019t paid for at all,\u201d he said, referring to Republicans\u2019 2017 law that drastically lowered tax rates for corporations and the rich. \u201cBut every time I talk about tax cuts for working-class people, it\u2019s, \u2018Oh, my God, what are we going to do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Congress invariably reshuffles White House spending plans, sometimes all but ignoring them. But with Democrats in control of the House and Senate, if narrowly, Biden can expect a respectful hearing for much of his first full-year budget proposal, and some success.<\/p>\n
While polls show the popularity of many of Biden\u2019s proposals, pressing his plans without bipartisan buy-in would be a political gamble given the highly polarized electorate.<\/p>\n
The president and a relatively few Republican lawmakers continue to negotiate on an infrastructure bill. Yet most Republicans have balked at the far more active role Biden envisions for the government, while raising concerns about the risks of inflation and other economic dangers of increasing the nation\u2019s already large debt.<\/p>\n
In this decade, the U.S. would be facing an unprecedented level of debt. One common measure of fiscal sustainability is debt as a share of the nation\u2019s gross domestic output, or economic output. That ratio was about 80% before the pandemic but hit 100% at the end of last year and would rise to 117% by 2031 under the Biden budget \u2014 10 percentage points higher than what the CBO had projected in February in its baseline forecast.<\/p>\n
Economists say that level of debt to GDP would still be manageable as long as the United States, the world\u2019s largest economy, is continuing to grow, the dollar is the world\u2019s reserve currency and interest rates remain very low.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would expect a lot of hype and fearmongering about the debt,\u201d said Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress and a former special assistant to Obama on tax and budget issues.<\/p>\n
But he noted that, over the last decade, many analysts and economists have come to view past hand-wringing over the federal debt as overdone, and to agree that those concerns should not be a priority at a time of crisis and low interest rates.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting bipartisanship is, all things equal, better than not,\u201d Hanlon said. \u201cBut one lesson that was learned from the Obama years, and particularly the drawn-out passage of ACA [the Affordable Care Act] is that the longer you drag it out, the harder it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the centrist Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Obama also sought policies like universal pre-K and community college education, as well as bigger tax increases, but his proposals were less ambitious and his budget \u201cdid tend to take more incremental approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that the Biden budget is directionally similar to the Obama budget but much larger,\u201d Goldwein said.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration\u2019s budget projections are based on its forecast of economic growth of 5.2% this year, 3.2% next year and less than 2% over the long term. Those are consistent with, if slightly more conservative than, forecasts made by the Federal Reserve and many private-sector economists.<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s budget also assumes continued low inflation and interest rates. But some economists, including Obama-era Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, have warned about the risks of rising prices given massive federal spending and the pent-up demand and excess savings from the pandemic. And recent data suggest that the administration may be too sanguine on inflation.<\/p>\n
The government said Friday that the Fed\u2019s preferred measure of core inflation was up 3.1% in April over a year ago, well above the central bank\u2019s target of 2% inflation. Biden\u2019s budget assumes inflation at 2% this year and never exceeding 2.3% over the decade. Fed officials view the recent jump in inflation as \u201ctransitory,\u201d reflecting an economy that is experiencing the ups and downs of getting back to normal after a devastating pandemic.<\/p>\n
However, consumers apparently are getting worried. The University of Michigan\u2019s consumer sentiment index showed a sharp drop in confidence Friday \u201cdue to surging inflation that consumers anticipate will persist in the year ahead.\u201d Higher inflation could, in turn, force the Fed to hit the brakes and push up interest rates, making it much more costly for the government\u2019s borrowing; Biden\u2019s budget assumes 10-year Treasury yields to stay below 3% through the decade, well below the historical rate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds like a budget that could cause inflation to heat up despite their forecast not going appreciably above 2%,\u201d said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS, a financial market research firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe optics of a $6 trillion number is not great, but the market seems to be looking the other way on this right now,\u201d he added, \u201cand I think part of the reason for that is we\u2019ve already been given $6 trillion worth of plans from the Biden administration.<\/p>\n
Economist Mark Zandi of Moody\u2019s Analytics said that he expects that Biden will eventually come away with a $2.5-trillion package of new spending on infrastructure and social programs, plus tax credits, over 10 years \u2014 not $4.5 trillion. And instead of $3.5 trillion in higher taxes over the decade, Zandi expects about $1.5 trillion will end up as law by year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis budget is aspirational. It\u2019s laying out a blueprint for the administration\u2019s objectives, goals and how to get there,\u201d Zandi said. \u201cSo they don\u2019t expect to land on Mars, but they are going to propose and go to the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don Lee and Eli Stokols, Los Angeles Times<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Washington (tca\/dpa) \u2014 President Joe Biden on Friday proposed a $6 trillion budget for the coming fiscal year, reflecting both ambitious goals for reinvigorating the economy through government action and a head-on challenge to his Republican opponents in Congress. By seeking billions of additional dollars for new infrastructure, aid to education, help for middle-class families,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":155153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[343],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-155152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-actualidad"},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t