White House US$6.9 trillion budget blueprint would raise taxes, boost spending
10 Mar 2023 12:24pm
Joe Biden
A
A
A
The fiscal 2024 budget request proposes a slew of new spending designed to increase child care, build affordable housing, reduce home energy bills, make college more affordable and more. But it relies more heavily on tax increases for upper-income households to pay for those programmes while trying to tame rising deficits, reported German Press Agency (dpa).
The plan calls for imposing a 25 per cent minimum tax on the wealthiest 0.01 per cent of households, quadrupling a 1 per cent surcharge on corporate stock buybacks, restoring the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6 per cent, and raising the corporate income tax rate from 21 per cent to 28 per cent, among other things.
And it promises to extend the solvency of Medicare by a quarter-century by raising Medicare taxes on those making more than US$400,000 a year and expanding the authority for Medicare to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers.
While spending would increase by US$$1.9 trillion over a decade, revenue would increase by US$4.7 trillion, for over US$2.8 trillion in 10-year deficit reduction. But according to the Office of Management and Budget’s numbers, the budget shortfall would still total more than US$17 trillion over the next decade even if Biden’s plans were fully implemented, which seems unlikely.
The deficit would grow from nearly US$1.6 trillion this fiscal year to nearly US$1.85 trillion next year. It would then gradually decline to US$1.5 trillion in fiscal 2027 before inching back up, topping US$2 trillion fiscal 2033.
No more ‘disinvestment’
The emphasis on fiscal discipline marks a shift in tone from his first budget proposal, issued two years ago, which offered up a spending spree designed to make up for what administration officials described at the time as a "decade of disinvestment” in domestic programmes.
But Biden’s push for tax increases aimed at the wealthy sets the stage for a clash this year with Republican lawmakers who have already made clear their opposition.
"I do not believe raising taxes is the answer,” Speaker, R-Calif., told reporters Wednesday. "I had this conversation with the president personally.”
Cecilia Rouse, outgoing chair of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, countered expected GOP criticism that tax increases in the budget would hurt economic growth. She told reporters in a conference call that the 2017 Republican tax cuts that favoured upper-income households "really has had no impact that economists have been able to determine on economic growth. It’s been exaggerated”.
And it is not just a fight over tax policy. Another battle will be waged over discretionary spending priorities.
Republicans are pushing for more generous defence spending as concerns grow about a rising China and the war in Ukraine enters its second year.
Biden proposed spending US$886.4 billion on defence in the coming fiscal year, a 3.3 per cent increase over this year’s level, not counting emergency funding. But nondefence discretionary spending would rise by over 8 per cent, to roughly US$841 billion.
White House budget director Shalanda Young defended the larger percentage increase for nondefence discretionary spending, saying it is similar to what Congress passed in December in the fiscal 2023 omnibus spending law. "All of our proposals are paid for and we’re doing this in a fiscally responsible manner,” she said in the conference call.
Among the Cabinet departments and major agencies, big winners include the EPA, which would see a 19.2 per cent base discretionary funding boost. The National Science Foundation’s 18.6 per cent boost reflects an effort to fund last year’s law to boost domestic manufacturing and research and development.
Other agencies with substantial proposed increases include the Treasury Department at 15 per cent, and the Agriculture and Education departments at roughly 14 per cent.
House Republicans have said they want to cut next year’s discretionary spending down to fiscal 2022 levels, a move that would require cutting about 9 per cent from current funding levels. But many of them also have said they want to protect defence and veterans programmes, a position that would require far deeper cuts to other nondefence programmes.
Even before the budget was released, Senate Minority Leader , R-Ky., told reporters that Biden’s plan for "massive taxes” and spending would "not see the light of day.”
And the budget battle will unfold as both parties brace for a showdown over raising the statutory by summer to ensure the Treasury can pay all its bills.
House Republican leaders, who want to tie spending cuts to a debt limit increase, issued a joint statement Thursday faulting Biden for "proposing out of control spending and delaying debt negotiations, following his pattern of shrugging and ignoring when faced with a crisis”.
The White House plan also makes some optimistic assumptions about the economy that could skew its revenue projections if they prove too rosy.
The administration expects last year’s soaring inflation to wane dramatically. The consumer price index would fall from 8.1 per cent in calendar year 2022 to 4.3 per cent this year and drop to 2.4 per cent next year. It would then fall to 2.3 per cent in 2025 and remain there through 2033.
Economic output, as measured by gross domestic product, would surge from 0.4 in 2023, measured from fourth quarter to fourth quarter, to 2.1 per cent next year.
And the average annual interest rate on 10-year Treasury notes would drop from 3.9 per cent this year to 3.6 per cent next year, even as the Federal Reserve warned this week it may need to raise rates more than anticipated to curb inflation.
Young credited Biden with presiding over US$1.7 trillion in deficit reduction during his first two years in office. But she cautioned not to expect such large reductions in the future, now that pandemic relief programmes have wound down.
"We would not expect to continue to see large deficit reduction year to year, just as we do not expect to see the rapid economic growth and job creation,” she said in the conference call. -Bernama-dpa
