Biden seeks funding boost
President’s blueprint calls for nearly 16% hike across domestic plans
Washington — President Joe Biden on Friday asked Congress to authorize a massive $1.5 trillion federal spending plan in 2022, seeking to invest heavily in government agencies to boost education, expand public housing, combat the coronavirus and confront climate change.
The request marks Biden’s first-ever proposal for discretionary spending, a precursor to a fuller, annual budget slated later in the spring that will also address programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The president’s early blueprint calls for a nearly 16% increase in funding across nondefense domestic programs, reflecting the White House’s guiding belief that bigger government — and spending — can close the country’s persistent economic gaps.
Many of the agencies Biden seeks to fund at higher levels in 2022 are
programs that now-former President Donald Trump had unsuccessfully sought to slash while in the White House. In a further break with Trump, Biden’s plan also calls for keeping military spending relatively flat in the upcoming fiscal year. The approach sparked early opposition from congressional Republicans, who faulted the Biden administration for shortchanging the Pentagon.
Boost in education
Under the proposal, the Department of Education would see a roughly 41% increase over its current allocation, reaching $102 billion next fiscal year, most of the increased funds targeted to the Title I program, which funds high-poverty schools. The proposal would double federal spending on the Title I program and represent the largest increase since it was created more than 55 years ago. The plan also proposes a roughly 23% boost to the Department of Health and Human Services, including more than $8.7 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which the administration says is the highest funding level for the public health agency in two decades. It would create a new federal agency under the National Institutes of Health, called the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, focused initially on innovative research into cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.
The budget envisions nearly $69 billion in federal money toward addressing public housing, a 15% increase from the amounts enacted in 2021, to help low-income families obtain access to affordable living accommodations. And the Biden administration hopes to set aside a total of $14 billion in new sums across government to protect the environment, including new efforts to reduce carbon emissions and research clean-energy technology.
“Together, America has a chance not simply to go back to the way things were before the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn struck, but to begin building a better, stronger, more secure, more inclusive America,” the White House’s acting budget chief, Shalanda Young, said in a letter accompanying the blueprint Friday.
Difficult road
In releasing the spending document, the White House set off what is an annual, often bitterly partisan fight in Washington, as lawmakers race to fund the government before the current spending agreement expires at the end of September. The vast increases Biden seeks come in addition to the $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package he signed into law last month, and the roughly $2 trillion plan to upgrade the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure the White House asked Congress to adopt last week.
But setting federal spending at such high levels may prove difficult for Democrats, who maintain only narrow congressional majorities in the House and Senate. They likely must rely on Republicans, who maintain filibuster power in the Senate, and some GOP lawmakers already have shown a renewed interest in tightening the federal purse strings — and addressing the budget deficit — after largely ignoring the issue during Trump’s presidency.
On Friday, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, faulted the Biden administration for coupling a massive increase in domestic spending with only a minor increase for the U.S. military. “That signals weakness to China and Russia, who are aggressively investing in their militaries,” Shelby said in a statement, later adding: “We’ve just spent several trillion dollars domestically, and the administration is determined to spend several trillion more. Shortchanging America’s defense in the process is unacceptable and dangerous.”