President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled a $6.8 trillion government spending plan for 2024 that calls for dozens of new policy initiatives and higher taxes for businesses and the wealthy. However, Republicans immediately said the plan had no chance of gaining congressional approval.
Biden has called for increased funding to counter China’s economic and military influence, increased health care spending for young and old Americans, new educational projects and an expansion of agency staff. federal environmental protection.
“China is the only competitor to the United States committed to reshaping the international order and has the growing economic, diplomatic, military, and technological might to do so,” the White House budget summary said.
The release of the budget plan comes at a time when the United States faces a debate over how to raise the country’s debt ceiling from $31.4 trillion, the current limit on how much the government can borrow for pay his bills.
If Biden and Congress fail to agree on an increase in the debt ceiling in the coming months, the United States could default on its financial obligations for the first time, leading to a financial catastrophe that could affect the world markets and increase domestic unemployment.
Biden’s opponents in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives have called for massive budget cuts, not increases, to reduce the chronic budget deficit, which currently stands at more than $1 trillion a year.
Republicans say government spending is out of control and individual programs should be drastically reduced or eliminated.
Biden, by contrast, is calling for higher taxes on Americans earning more than $400,000 a year and businesses to fund existing and new programs. Republicans have not yet specified which programs they propose to cut or eliminate. The opposition party’s plan is due out next month.
After presenting his budget plan at a meeting with unionists in Philadelphia, Biden pressed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to present his plan so they could go “line by line” and see what they could do. get along. “I am ready to meet the speaker at any time,” Biden said.
Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Cecilia Rose, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters that the president’s budget plan is based on what they consider as progress made during his first two years in office.
“It will boost American manufacturing, provide paid national holidays, lower taxes for working families, make our communities safer, lead to medical breakthroughs, benefit our veterans,” Young said. “It’s the right way to further develop our economy.”
“Republicans in Congress keep saying they want to cut the deficit. But they haven’t come up with a comprehensive plan showing what they were going to cut,” Yang said. they won’t have released the plan. We look forward to their version of the budget so the Americans can compare it with what we have prepared.”
The disclosure of Biden’s budget priorities will form the basis for months of debate.
Federal budgets are rarely approved at the start of each new fiscal year, which is October 1, when Congress and the White House, regardless of which party controls the executive or legislative branch, generally agree to keep spending at levels current until, ultimately, an agreement on future funding is not reached.
