President Joe Biden submitted his budget request for fiscal 2025 on Monday, positioning it as a clear foil to proposals outlined by former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies.
Biden’s budget totals $7.3 trillion, up 4.7% compared to the current budget, and would boost defense funding and discretionary spending by 1% and 2.4%, respectively. White House officials were quick to point out that their requested funding levels comply with the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the budget cap reached by the president and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last summer.
Still, the budget itself includes several new provisions that give a clear indication of where Biden plans to focus his messaging for the next eight months leading up to the 2024 election. Here’s what you need to know.
Bidenomics is back
The White House, and even the president himself, presented their request as a major cost-cutting initiative for American households.
Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Jared Bernstein both briefed reporters on the budget Monday morning, outlining several provisions within the proposal.
In some cases, the plan expands on Biden’s past legislative victories, like renewing the full child tax credit included in his 2021 American Rescue Plan or expanding drug pricing caps won in the Inflation Reduction Act, but in others, it offers totally new proposals to help American families deal with still elevated costs. Some of those include a new, affordable childcare program for households earning less than $200,000 annually and new housing relief programs for first-time home buyers and middle-class families selling a starter home.
The president and White House officials also took pointed shots at former President Donald Trump and Republicans in presenting the budget on Monday, claiming that counterproposals would raise health care costs for Americans and even potentially roll back federal benefits programs, including Medicare and Social Security.
‘Pay your fair share’
Like in years past, Biden’s budget is fueled by raising taxes on the wealthiest people and corporations.
The fiscal 25 request seeks to raise the 2017 corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Furthermore, Biden is seeking an increase in the corporate minimum tax rate included in his Inflation Reduction Act and a 25% minimum “billionaire” tax rate for people worth more than $100 million.
White House officials are adamant that Biden’s proposed reforms would not raise taxes or increase costs for households earning less than $400,000 per year.
“I’m a capitalist, man. Make all the money you want. Just begin to pay your fair share of taxes,” the president said Monday in New Hampshire. “Do you really think the wealthy and big corporations need another $2 trillion tax breaks? Because that’s what [Trump] wants to do. His tax cut is about to expire, and he wants to add another $2 trillion tax cut. Well, I’m going to keep fighting like hell to make it fair.”
Trump oversaw the 2017 tax overhaul, and his 2024 reelection campaign claimed Biden’s proposal would kill jobs.
Supplemental round two
House Republicans dealt Biden a significant blow earlier this year by declining to take up the supplemental funding bill passed by the Senate with bipartisan support. That legislation included billions in security funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, and billions more for staffing and equipment increases pursuant to border security.
Though House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) declined to take up that proposal, its spirit lives on in Biden’s budget request, which includes $92 billion in aid for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and Indo-Pacific partners and an additional $4.7 billion in “contingency” funding to deal with security at the border.
The White House says that the border request would allow the Department of Homeland Security to “use these funds for surge-related encounters only, and would transfer funds to [U.S. Customs and Border Protection], [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], and [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] accounts when appropriate conditions are met.”
Nearly half of the $4.7 billion would directly fund DHS efforts to apprehend, process, and deport migrants who illegally enter the country. The request would also allow DHS to employ new equipment to detect fentanyl being brought into the country at legal ports of entry, which the administration says accounts for 90% of the drug’s flow into the United States.
Symbolism over substance
There is little to no chance the budget Congress eventually enacts for fiscal 25 looks anything like the request Biden submitted on Monday.
Given that it’s an election year, Republicans will likely avoid handing Biden an economic olive branch, emphasized by Johnson calling Biden’s proposal “another glaring reminder of this administration’s insatiable appetite for reckless spending” shortly after it was released.
The proposal itself should instead be viewed nearly solely as an attempt by Biden to assure voters of his economic priorities ahead of his rematch with Trump.
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Young subtly disputed the idea that Biden’s budget request won’t be taken up by Congress during her Monday call with reporters, but in an interview published Monday with People magazine, she indicated that the proposals themselves are meant to convey a clear message to voters.
“The budget is anything but a financial document. It’s what the president should be judged by: where you put your next dollar,” she claimed. “I’m lucky I get to work for a president whose values I share.”