Biden’s New Budget Aims To Make The Wealthy Pay More, Help The Middle Class

Last week, President Joe Biden presented a new budget for the 2025 fiscal year, outlining plans to increase taxes on corporations and billionaires and fund social programs and defense.

“We are the only nation that has emerged from every crisis we have entered stronger than we went in. There is still work to do. My budget will help make that promise real,” Biden said of his plans.

If Biden’s proposed budget is passed, tax receipts would increase by $4.9 trillion and the deficit would be cut by $3 trillion over the next ten years.

The corporate tax rate would increase to 28% from 21%, which former President Donald Trump cut in 2017. Biden also intends to place a new minimum tax of 25% on the top 0.01% of Americans. Biden commented on higher tax rates in his proposed budget: “Make all the money you want! Just begin to pay your fair share of taxes.”

The budget also outlines plans to increase funding for social programs, which would result in a $19.5 trillion increase in the United States’ deficit.

This plan would increase the Medicare tax rate on Americans earning over $400,000 annually.

The budget did not outline any similar plans for Social Security, but it would increase spending by 6.2% more than the current rate.

Trump has stated that his plans for social programs would involve significant cuts.

“I’m never gonna allow that to happen,” Biden responded. “I won’t cut Social Security. I won’t cut Medicare.”

Biden also plans to spend more money to better secure the U.S.-Mexico border. Hundreds of dollars would be put towards hiring thousands of new Border Patrol agents, Customs and Border Protection officers and Asylum officers. At the same time, $849 million would go toward funding new technology better to detect drugs at entry ports along the border. The budget will provide $1.3 billion to hire 375 new immigration judge teams to more efficiently handle immigration cases and $4.7 billion in contingency to fund the Department of Homeland Security for security operations along the border in case of another extreme migrant surge.

The budget also calls for lowering costs for struggling American families by restoring the full Child Tax Credit enacted in the American Rescue Plan. It proposes a new program in which families with incomes of up to $200,000 a year would be guaranteed affordable childcare until children are of age to enter kindergarten.

Biden also proposed a mortgage relief credit and a new tax credit for the middle class, which would allow homebuyers up to $10,000 over two years. The bill looks to permanently expand tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act and lower the cost of prescription drugs by allowing the government to negotiate prices for more.

Article by Simone Bieglmeier