President Joe Biden released his fiscal year 2022 budget proposal to Congress late last week, the first formal budget of his presidency. The $6 trillion request incorporates both of Biden's economic recovery plans, the American Families Plan and the American Jobs Plan, as well as other initiatives to aid the nation's pandemic recovery, invest in education and transportation infrastructure, combat climate change, and better position the nation's future standing on the world's stage.
While the topline budget for the proposal is $6 trillion, only $300 billion is new spending requested for the coming year. The rest of the budget, as is typical with every president budget, is spent on established government programs like Social Security.
The proposal also calls for total government spending to rise to $8.2 trillion by 2023, with deficits running above $1.3 trillion throughout the next decade, which would be the highest sustained levels of federal spending since World War II, according to the New York Times. Under the plan, federal spending would rise to about 25% of the national GDP, with the economy forecasted to grow by 5.2% this year.
Biden plans to finance his plan through raising taxes on corporations and high income earnings, with the corporate tax rate plans to rise to 28% while the capital gains tax will increase to 39.6% for the wealthiest Americans.
"I believe this is our moment to rebuild an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not a trickle-down economy from the very wealthy," Biden said in remarks about the economy on Thursday. "To build an economy that rewards work, not just wealth. An economy that works for the backbone of this country--the people who get up every single day, work hard, raise their families, pay their taxes, serve their country, volunteer in their communities--just looking for a little bit of breathing room."
The budget is dependent on Congress to pass into law, and is expected to lead to long negotiations and changes before its eventual approval. Two major parts of Biden's proposal are two bills that have yet to be seriously debated in Congress, meaning that the budget is expected to meet some legislative headwinds. However, since Biden's Democratic party controls both chambers of Congress, the budget's major priorities are expected to have a better chance at passing in the final version of the bill.