United States: Joe Biden unveils a budget that looks like a campaign program

The president will unfold his plan in Philadelphia. Some measures have very little chance of being adopted since the Democrats no longer have a majority in Congress.

By Le Figaro with AFP

Posted on 03/09/2023 at 6:50 p.m.update on 03/09/2023 at 7:46 p.m.

Social promises and taxes on the rich: Joe Biden presents Thursday a draft budget that looks like a campaign program with a view to 2024, the strongest measures of which, however, have little or no chance of passing the barrier of Congress. In this exercise austere as possible as the presentation of the budget, the American president hopes to find additional political momentum.

The 80-year-old Democrat – who officially only has “l’intentionto seek re-election in 2024, but appears to be already campaigning – will lay out his plan in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an electorally strategic state. “My budget will ask the wealthy to pay their fair share so that the millions of workers who helped build this wealth can retire with the health insurance they paid for.“, had indicated on Twitter the president, Wednesday evening.

Joe Biden has already distilled some budget proposals, without having any illusions about his ability to materialize them. Since the beginning of the year, he has only controlled the Senate, the other chamber of Congress (that of representatives) now being dominated by the Republicans, who are determined not to let any tax increase pass.

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Provide 25 more years of “Medicare”

However, Joe Biden’s draft budget, according to what the White House has already revealed, only holds on condition of increasing the tax burden on the richest, who according to him must pay “their fair share». «No billionaire should pay less tax than a firefighter!“, he said Monday. The Democrat therefore intends to make pay more taxes to the “wealthy and (to) big business, while cutting unnecessary spendingfor the benefit of the pharmaceutical and oil giants.

With this additional income, Joe Biden estimates that he can, as he promised on Wednesday, ensure for 25 additional years the financing of a health insurance plan benefiting Americans over 65, the “Medicare“, and this without touching the benefits. But also increase the salaries of federal civil servants by more than 5%, says the Washington Post. All of this, as the White House said on Thursday, by reducing the federal deficit by “nearly 3 trillion dollars over the next ten years“, while Republicans regularly accuse the president of letting the spending slip away. “A budget reflects our values“, Joe Biden tweeted Thursday.

It is also, in this case, a political weapon. The Democrat is trying, with his proposals, to embarrass the Republican Party, which is calling for more budgetary rigor but has so far not explained exactly what expenses it intended to cut. Joe Biden is therefore happy to constantly accuse the right of wanting to undermine social plans such as Medicare – which the conservatives defend themselves against.

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An increasingly politicized vote?

This budget presentation comes against the backdrop of a showdown between Democrats and Republicans on another financial subject, more pressing than the 2024 election: what is known as the “raising the debt ceiling“. The United States, the only industrialized power in this case, must regularly increase, via a vote of Congress, the government’s debt capacity.

However, this vote, which has long been a formality, is increasingly politicized. The boss of the House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy, assures that his troops will not vote to raise the debt ceiling until Joe Biden rein in public spending. The Democratic president, for his part, has so far refused to negotiate, arguing that the debt accumulated over the years by the country is a shared responsibility.

The stakes are not small: if the standoff goes on too long, the United States would be under the threat of default, unprecedented, from July. The debt of the world’s largest economy reached 31.4 trillion dollars on January 19, the ceiling beyond which the country can no longer issue new loans to finance itself, and can therefore no longer honor its payments. Temporary emergency measures have been taken to continue paying.

SEE ALSO – United States: Joe Biden wants to reduce the deficit by “nearly 3,000 billion dollars” in ten years