Biden budget: It’s the same old song
Whether it’s tackling climate change, reducing inflation, or dealing with skyrocketing deficits, President Joe Biden has one proposal to it all: tax more and spend more. His latest budget proposal for 2024 is no different.
Coming in at $6.9 trillion, Biden’s budget proposal is 8 percent higher than what the federal government is expected to spend this year. The proposal, which will supposedly reduce deficits and prevent Medicare and Social Security from going bankrupt, calls for more spending for both Medicare and Social Security as well as the Department of Defense. The proposal also creates myriad more programs like universal preschool and national paid family and medical leave.
And how are these spending proposals going to be paid for? By imposing a $5 trillion tax hike on Americans in the next decade. As reported by USA today,
Biden’s budget revives several proposals to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans that Biden has been unable to pass amid Republican opposition in Congress.
The budget includes about $5 trillion in new taxes over 10 years. A key proposal – popular among the progressive wing of the Democratic Party – is a billionaire minimum tax that would require the wealthiest .01% of Americans to pay at least 25% on their income, including on appreciated assets. That’s a higher rate than the 20% minimum tax for billionaires Biden proposed last year.
“No billionaire should ever pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter,” Biden said a statement attached to the 182-page budget document.
Biden also wants to repeal former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans by restoring the 39.6% tax rate for single filers earning at least $400,000 a year and married couples earning at least $450,000. Biden proposed taxing capital gains at the same rate as wage income for Americans who earn at least $1 million.
The budget would eliminate Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for corporations that decreased the rate they pay on profits to 10% by setting the new rate at 28%, still below the 35% it was before 2017.
Other changes include quadrupling a new tax on corporate stock buybacks, doubling the tax rate for U.S. multinational corporations from 10.5% to 21% and increasing the Medicare tax rate from 3.8% to 5% for high-income earners.
New year, same old
Tax hikes are bad enough on their own, but with the Federal Reserve Bank hiking interest rates in order to slow down inflation — by slowing down the economy — their impact is likely going to be magnified. That does not bear much significance to president Biden, however. Much like last year, the president is sticking to his campaign promise to tax more and spend more.
Certainly, it’s possible that Congress will agree on a budget that looks different from what Biden is proposing. The lawmaking process in Washington, however, is brim with compromises.
Americans should be concerned that Biden only has one solution to each and every problem ailing the country. With an aging population — which will require more entitlement spending — and skyrocketing debt and rising deficits, more spending and higher taxes are the last things the country’s economy needs.