“Don’t tell me what you value,” President Biden has said for years. “Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” The $5.8 trillion budget proposal Mr. Biden released Monday is more realistic about the nation’s needs than many that have come before it. But it leaves out some of the most important details.
As he has before, Mr. Biden proposed more spending and substantial tax increases to pay for it. Much of the new spending is sorely needed. At a time in which congressional Republicans are dragging their feet on emergency COVID-19 funding, Mr. Biden called for massive investments in pandemic preparedness that would help protect against future COVID outbreaks and other epidemics. It would include a free adult vaccination program. Similarly, Mr. Biden proposed more funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to combat the nation’s gun violence epidemic.
The president would boost international aid, particularly to help other countries combat climate change, and increase the defense budget. Both would help restore the country’s global credibility and advance U.S. interests abroad.
Rather than offering free college for all, Mr. Biden proposed beefing up Pell Grants, which assist poor students rather than wealthier ones who do not need aid. More Internal Revenue Service funding would improve taxpayer support services and enable the agency to better crack down on tax cheats, who place more burdens on those who play by the rules. More election assistance money would enable states to secure voting systems and make absentee ballots postage-free.
To top it off, the White House claims Mr. Biden’s plan would cut deficits by more than $1 trillion over the next decade, in part by hiking corporate taxes. This nod toward fiscal responsibility contrasts with a bipartisan consensus that seemed to be emerging — that deficits do not matter.
Yet the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes that deficits would still total $14.4 trillion over the next decade, in part because Mr. Biden’s plan would fail to overhaul old-age retirement programs such as Medicare, continuing the national debt’s rise into alarming territory.
Moreover, the plan is incomplete, devoting scant space to Mr. Biden’s stalled Build Back Better agenda. Its provisions, unaddressed in the Biden budget, include boosting anti-poverty programs such as the child tax credit and the earned-income tax credit, bolstering Obamacare and pouring money into clean energy.
These omissions are meant to avoid antagonizing Sen. Joe Manchin III, the key holdout stalling the Build Back Better plan, as he continues negotiations. The West Virginia Democrat wants a slimmed-down bill focusing on climate change, prescription drug prices and deficit reduction. This would be substantially smaller than the ambitious Build Back Better program Mr. Biden pursued last year. Many needy Americans would miss the child tax credit, earned-income tax credit and Obamacare reforms in particular.
Despite these shortcomings in the spending blueprint, if Mr. Biden persuades Congress to accept many of the proposals he outlined Monday and gets even a slimmed-down Build Back Better bill over the finish line, he could claim substantial victories for himself and for the Americans who elected him.
