Joe Biden aims $1.5tn US budget at health and social services
Washington, US - US President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled a more than US$1.5tn budget proposal that would see funding for health, education and social services eclipse defence spending, in a reversal of his predecessor’s policies.
The discretionary spending request for fiscal year 2022 would allocate US$769.4bn to non-defence programmes, surpassing the US$753bn apportioned for defence, which was prioritised under Donald Trump but only slightly increased under Biden’s proposal.
The Biden administration characterised the increase in non-defence spending as necessary to help the country recover from the COVID-19 downturn and create a more equitable economy in the years ahead.
“The President’s funding request makes things fairer,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
“It injects capital into communities where capital is usually hard to come by. It will make paying taxes a more seamless process for millions of Americans. And it makes sure that corporations actually pay what they owe.”
The nearly 16 per cent increase in non-defence spending would the total to 3.3 per cent of GDP, about equal to its historical average over the past three decades, Shalanda D Young, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a letter to lawmakers.
Outside of the Defense Department, Health and Human Services would receive the most funding at US$133.7bn, a jump of more than 23 per cent from the prior fiscal year, which runs from October to September. The Education Department would get a 40.8 per cent funding increase that would bring its budget to US$102.8bn.
‘Over the past decade, due in large measure to overly restrictive budget caps, the nation significantly underinvested in core public services, benefits and protections,’ Young wrote, saying the plan would be a reversal of that austerity.
The budget is a yearly undertaking for US presidents, signaling their major funding priorities, but must be approved by Congress.
The plan also proposes a funding increase of more than 10 per cent to US$13.3bn for the US tax authority, Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service, which would help it improve its services and better monitor corporations and high earners.
It also aims US$36.5bn at schools serving poor populations, US$6.5bn for federal health research and US$10.7bn to fight the opioid epidemic.
The spending bill will be considered by a Congress where Democrats hold small majorities in the House and the Senate, and where lawmakers currently are debating the US$2tn jobs and infrastructure bill Biden unveiled last week. Patrick Leahy, Democratic chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the proposal’s spending ‘necessary and urgent’, and tied caps in federal spending over the last decade to the terrible toll wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.