Biden unveils $1.5T spending plan
Proposal increases schools, health care, housing funds
President Joe Biden released a $1.5 trillion wish list for his first federal budget Friday, asking for substantial gains for Democratic priorities including education, health care, housing and environmental protection.
The request by the White House budget office for an 8.4 percent increase in agency operating budgets spells out Biden’s top priorities as Congress weighs its spending plans for next year.
“I’m hoping it’ll have some bipartisan support across the board,” Biden said before an Oval Office meeting with his economics team, though prominent Senate Republicans immediately complained the plan would shortchange the military and national security in boosting domestic programs.
The Biden request provides a significantly smaller 1.6 percent increase for the $700 billion-plus Pentagon budget than for domestic accounts. Homeland security accounts would basically be frozen, reflecting opposition among Democratic progressives to immigration security forces.
Senate Republicans were quick to criticize the modest proposed increase for defense, with Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell, Oklahoma’s Jim Inhofe, Florida’s Marco Rubio, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Alabama’s Richard Shelby releasing a joint statement.
“Talk is cheap, but defending our country is not,” they said. “We can’t afford to fail in our constitutional responsibility to provide for the common defense. To keep America strong, we must balance domestic and defense spending priorities.”
This year’s budget cycle is not governed by the formal spending caps of a broader outline.
The Biden administration believes the caps, imposed by a long-abandoned 2011 budget deal, caused a decade of severe under-investment in public services that the president is now trying to turn around with large increases that would mostly bypass national security programs.
The administration says the request would bring spending in line with historical averages. It seeks $769 billion in non-defense discretionary funding.
Biden wants to increase the Education Department’s budget by a 40.8 percent to $102.8 billion, which includes an additional $20 billion in grants for high-poverty schools.
The Department of Health and Human Services would get a 23.1 percent boost to $133.7 billion. There would be additional funds to combat opioid addiction and for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose mission took on new urgency during the coronavirus pandemic. The administration is also asking for $6.5 billion to establish a biomedical research agency to address cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other diseases.
Biden is seeking a $14 billion increase across government agencies to address climate change. It’s part of a whole-of-government approach to the climate crisis.
Housing and Urban Development would get a 15.1 percent increase to $68.7 billion, primarily to provide housing vouchers for an additional 200,000 families. The administration also seeks more money for civil rights enforcement and addressing gun violence as a public health epidemic.
The plan also details how the Biden administration will try to deal with the influx of arrivals at the U.S. southern border. It includes $861 million to invest in Central America to address the forces driving people to migrate to the U.S. An additional $345 million would go to immigration services to resolve delays in years-long naturalization and asylum cases.
The president seeks modest increases for national security. Defense would get a 1.6 percent increase to $715 billion. Homeland Security would edge up 0.2 percent to $52 billion.