Biden requests funding increase for education, health care, environment

White House calls for 16% increase in nonmilitary spending

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, revamp federal health agencies 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 percent 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 are programs that former President Donald Trump 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. Combined, the budget would increase all federal discretionary spending by roughly 8 percent in 2022.

Under the proposal, the Department of Education would see a roughly 41 percent increase over its current allocation, potentially reaching $102 billion next fiscal year, with an emphasis on schools in low-income communities. Most of the funds contribute to the largest-ever expansion in Title I grants, which seek to help students and improve education in high-poverty schools, the Biden administration said.

The plan also proposes a roughly 23 percent 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 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 towards addressing public housing, a 15 percent increase from the amounts enacted in 2021, to help low-income families obtain access to affordable living accommodations. And the Biden administration hopes to sets aside a total of $14 billion in new sums across government to protect the environment, including new efforts to reduce 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.

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 seek comes 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.

Anticipating the fight ahead, a senior administration official on Friday acknowledged they are only at “the beginning of a long appropriations process” on Capitol Hill. But the aide, who briefed reporters on the budget in advance of its release on condition of anonymity, said the document for now serves as a “great marker” of the White House’s priorities — and its belief that the country in recent years has underinvested in domestic agencies and programs.