Biden flips script on Trump’s budget priorities

President Joe Biden’s first budget request to Congress includes $1.5 trillion in federal spending that turbocharges funding for education, health and environmental protections — flipping the script on the very programs the Trump administration long ridiculed and sought to slash.

The split is also laid bare in defense spending, which ramped up during the Trump years but would stay essentially flat under Biden’s pitch.

The White House proposal released Friday now goes to Congress, which ultimately holds the purse strings. Democrats hold narrow majorities in the House and Senate and will likely rely on Republicans to get the budget through, especially as Democrats vie for a massive jobs and infrastructure plan on top of Biden’s recent coronavirus stimulus bill.

But no matter how Congress recalibrates the request, Biden’s initial swing stands in stark contrast to Trump’s spending goals. Trump’s budget proposals were often ignored by Congress, but they did serve as a marker of his priorities. He mostly sought to slash programs he alleged were examples of bloated government waste. Biden’s budget frames the government in a much different light. His proposal, for example, includes almost $103 billion for the Department of Education, a massive 41 percent increase over the 2021 enacted level.

The Trump years were also marked by dramatic attempts to increase military spending. Trump’s proposed 2021 budget gave a roughly 13 percent boost to the Department of Veterans Affairs. It also sought to increase overall spending to the Department of Homeland Security by 3.2 percent and would have increased NASA’s budget by $2.7 billion, putting $700 million to support lunar activities.

Now, Biden is proposing a

1.7 percent increase in funding for national defense programs — much smaller than the administration’s other pushes for education, climate and health.