By CASEY HARPER |THE CENTER SQUARE
President Joe Biden on Monday released his $7.3 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 with $5.5 trillion in tax increases that continues to increase the national debt.
While the budget is only a recommendation from the White House that has almost no chance of becoming an actual budget, it lays out the president’s priorities for spending and which tax increases he is willing to publicly get behind.
“Specifically, the Budget reduces the deficit by around $3 trillion over the next decade, compared to deficits without the President’s policies,” the White House said in a statement. “The deficit reduction in the Budget increases over time, with over $500 billion of deficit reduction in 2034.”
Despite the claims of deficit reduction, the White House’s own numbers say the national debt under the budget plan would rise to $45 trillion by 2034.
The White House plan, though, would increase the debt slower than the existing trajectory and pay for it with several tax increases, including a 25% minimum tax on billionaires, as well as ramping up audits on Americans to increase IRS collection.
“While the level of borrowing under the President’s budget would be unprecedented outside a war or national emergency, it would be $3.3 trillion lower than under OMB’s baseline over the FY 2024 through 2034 budget window,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in its analysis of Biden’s budget.
The budget would also repeal large parts of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax reform legislation.
“[The budget] also proposes taxing capital gains at the same rate as wage income for those with more than $1 million in income, closing the capital gains loophole that allows the wealthy to avoid ever paying tax on their appreciated investments, and finally closing the carried interest loophole that allows some wealthy investment fund managers to pay tax at lower rates than their secretaries,” the White House said in a statement.
Experts have continued to raise serious concerns about the ballooning national debt, which is currently over $34 trillion and quickly growing.
“Over the next decade, we are on pace to grow our debt to an all-time high as a share of GDP, fueling record interest costs,” Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said in a statement responding to the budget. “Meanwhile, critical programs including Social Security and Medicare are in significant danger of automatic cuts for all beneficiaries, and we can’t let that happen. Without action, all Social Security recipients will face a 23% cut in 2033 — that would mean a $17,000 reduction annually for the typical couple. In only 7 years, Medicare faces an 11% cut to providers that would affect more than 77 million enrollees.”
Budget analysts concerned about the soaring national debt welcomed some of the tax increases, but said it is not enough.
“This budget is an important step in the right direction, but it’s still too little,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement. “The budget lacks a plan to put the debt on a downward path, to pay for its proposed tax cut extensions, or to prevent the 23 percent across-the-board Social Security benefit cut – the equivalent of a $17,400 cut for a newly retired couple – scheduled to take effect around 2033.”
Specific provisions of the bill took fire, though the massive budget is still being poured over. Biden’s budget would cut subsidies for oil and gas companies to save money, though critics say those costs will be passed on to consumers.
The plan would also eliminate tax breaks for cryptocurrency and real estate, another of a range of proposals in the large budget plan.
House Republican leadership, including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Whip Tom Emmer, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. released a joint statement blasting the budget.
“While hardworking Americans struggle with crushing inflation and mounting national debt, the President would increase their pain to spend trillions of additional taxpayer dollars to advance his left-wing agenda,” the group said.
The Alaska delegation will surprise no one with an anticipated ‘Yea’ vote, never pass up an opportunity to screw the folks.
The debt is going to collapse the economy. There is no way this is a sustainable method of running an economy.
Wow, democrats figured out a way to increase taxes AND the national debt??? Only the tax and spend mentality could come up with a plan this good. Cripes.
the problem with the leftists is not tax and spend.
It is spend first, then tax to pay for their excessive spending. I equate it to demanding a raise from your employer because you bought a luxury European sedan that you cannot afford.
Or, drastically CUT government spending and QUIT PLUNDERING the fruits of the citizens’ labor.
Since that would never happen though, how about give every taxpayer an actual say in where the money goes because our elected representatives can’t help but lie through their campaign teeth and then spend like drunken sailors on anything and everything once they’ve been elected: add a section to income tax forms that parses tax-dollar spending into say, 5 general categories of government spending, then let every tax-payer decide what percentage of their tax dollar they want to go to those categories of government spending. The amounts get tallied and each category receives a total and that’s what the budget is to spend on those categories for the next fiscal year and no more.
The middle class is going to be taxed into poverty and we’ll all be forced to accept government handouts…or will we? Going to be interesting to see if this nation stands up to O’biden and the illegal foreign regime or if the nation is going to roll over and say, “father.” Be ready to stand your ground, protect your rights and your property and practice being a little hungry.
Democrats never met a dollar they couldn’t spend. This country needs a balanced budget amendment badly before it’s too late. I wonder if the R’s could actually stick together for once and pass it?
We need more fiscally conservatives in power, like Bill Clinton, who was able to produce budget surpluses for the first time in many years. On the other hand, if you want to keep on exploding the debt, keep hiring those like Trump who increased the national debt by $8 trillion in just 4 short years.
Please stop this ride, I would like off.
Biden and his low IQ supporters will commit national suicide. Tax more. Spend more. Devalue the dollar. Increase the service cost on the national debt- now at just under $2 billion per day.
Oh yeah, pro drug, pro crime, pro open border. These people are lunatics.
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