Biden’s $7.3 Trillion Budget Breakdown

Biden’s Pitch For A Second Term: The Largest Tax Hike In History, More Reckless Liberal Spending, Record Debt, And Less American Prosperity

BIDEN’S BUDGET: TAX, SPEND, REPEAT

• Yesterday, Biden unveiled his budget for FY 2025, a $7.3 trillion liberal wish list defined by massive spending increases and tax hikes on Americans.
  • Biden says his budgets are a statement of his values, but his bloated budget fails to address the priorities of the American people.
• Biden’s budget includes a $4.9 trillion tax hike – the largest in history.
  • This amounts to almost $36,000 in tax hikes per American family.
  • Rather than use the revenue from this to cut down the deficit, most of Americans’ tax dollars would be used for more spending and new entitlement expansions.
  • Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Brian Riedl: “This is a classic tax-and-spend budget that continues large deficits even after big tax hikes.”
• If Biden’s budget were adopted, the gross national debt would eclipse $52 trillion by 2034, and the debt-to-GDP ratio would surpass the record set just after WWII.
  • Over the next decade, Biden’s budget will spend $2.5 trillion more on interest payments from the national debt than on U.S. national security.
• Biden’s budget funnels billions of taxpayer dollars into federal agencies that have already ballooned in spending under his watch.
• While Biden’s budget includes deficits averaging $1.7 trillion a year over the next decade, House Republicans last week introduced their own budget that “seeks to reduce deficits much faster – balancing the budget by the end of the decade.”
  • House Republicans’ budget would reverse Biden’s runaway spending, weed out fraud and abuse, and fuel prosperity for Americans.
• With Americans already struggling to afford gas and groceries, Biden’s budget will only compound these difficulties.

BIDEN WANTS TO CRUSH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WITH MORE TAXES

• Biden’s budget includes a slew of tax hikes – raising taxes from roughly 18 percent of GDP to over 20 percent. 
  • The Tax Foundation: Biden’s tax hikes “would put the U.S. in a distinctly uncompetitive international position and threaten the health of the U.S. economy.”
• Biden’s budget would increase the business tax rate to 28 percent, which the Tax Foundation previously estimated would kill 159,000 jobs, shrink the economy by $720 billion, and cut wages for low-income Americans.
  • Known as “the most harmful tax for economic growth,” raising the business tax rate would worsen the competitive position of U.S. businesses and reduce prospects for business investment and workers.
  • Biden’s tax hike would give the U.S. a higher business tax rate than communist China.
  • American workers would bear the brunt of Biden’s business tax increase.
  • By raising the business tax rate, American families would be hit with increased utility bills due to increased costs for utility providers.
  • When including state taxes, corporate taxes would jump to the second highest in the OECD, after Columbia.
• Biden’s budget raises the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6 percent (small business owners often pay business taxes on their individual tax return), which breaks Biden's pledge to not raise taxes on small businesses. 
• Biden’s budget includes a minimum 25 percent tax on unrealized gains for some Americans – meaning they would have to pay taxes on assets that increased in value even if they didn’t sell it.
  • Taxing unrealized gains would likely reduce incentives to invest and hurt the long-term growth of the economy.
  • A tax on unrealized gains is opposed by three-quarters of Americans.
• Biden wants to quadruple the tax on stock buybacks, which would likely discourage investment and burdens every American with a 401k, IRA, or union pension.
• Biden is pushing for a second death tax by removing the step-up in basis when parents die.
  • This will impose a “steep tax increase and paperwork nightmare for small businesses, farms, and families.”
• Biden’s budget restores billions of dollars for a supercharged IRS, even after it was successfully clawed back by Republicans.
  • Biden also wants to make it easier for IRS agents to stack up questionable penalties against taxpayers by expanding approval authority.
• Biden’s budget continues his war on American energy by repealing $35.3 billion in tax credits for oil and natural gas production.
  • This will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher gas prices and energy bills.

IRRESPONSIBLE SPENDING AND NO ATTEMPT TO REIN IT IN

• Biden’s budget is full of wasteful spending that does nothing but promote his radical left-wing agenda.
• Biden’s budget focuses on advancing Democrats’ woke agenda, mentioning climate 148 times, equity 60 times, and environmental justice 18 times.
  • Meanwhile, inflation is mentioned just 10 times, parents 10 times, gas prices 2 times, and energy prices 1 time.
• For the fourth year in a row under Biden, the budget does not include the Hyde Amendment and would use taxpayer money to fund abortions, a policy that a majority of Americans oppose.
• Biden’s proposal would again send taxpayer dollars to the UN Population Fund, which supports abortion and forced sterilizationin China.
• Biden’s budget restores the full child tax credit, with $3,600 for children under six and $3,000 for children over six, while removing work requirements by making the credit fully refundable.
  • Removing income requirements to claim the full child tax credit will take an estimated 1.5 million workers out of the workforce.
• Biden’s budget also includes other far-left priorities:
  • $3 billion “to advance gender equity and equality worldwide.”
  • $8 billion to “train young workers” on climate change – a major tenantof the Green New Deal.
  • $3 billion for the UN’s Green Climate Fund.
  • $1.4 billion for STEM programs that “have an emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.”
  • Free community college across the nation.
  • Universal free preschool and highly subsidized childcare.
• Biden’s budget cuts $5.6 billion in discretionary funding from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

BIDEN’S BUDGET PUTS U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY AT RISK

• Biden’s budget fails to secure the border by “underinvesting and maintaining status quo policies like ‘catch and release.’”
  • Biden’s budget seeks more funding for Ukraine than it does for border security.
• Biden’s $895 billion request for the Defense Department fails to keep pace with inflation and includes major cuts planned for weapons modernization programs.
  • Meanwhile, China is increasing its military budget by 7.2 percent for the second year in a row.
• Biden is requesting a defense budget that includes “deep cuts in a wide range of programs, delays to existing programs and slowing efforts to build weapons stocks.”
  • This includes an 18 percent cutin the number of F-35 jets the Pentagon orders, as well as cuts to an attack submarine, Army helicopters and drones, and Air Force overhead.
  • Space Force would see a $600 million budget cut compared to the Defense Department’s FY 2024 request.
    • Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said this is “not an optimal” budget as it doesn’t allow key space programs to move forward at the pace that DoD would like to stay ahead of the Chinese threat.
  • Navy’s budget would retire 10 ships early and buy only six.
  • The cuts come as U.S. military capability is arguably lowerthan at the end of the Cold War.
• National security experts have been clear: a 3 to 5 percent increase in Defense spending is necessary to counter the threat of China.

BIDEN’S BUDGET IS FULL OF GIMICKS AND MATHAMATICAL GYMNASTICS

• Biden’s claim that his budget will deliver a deficit reduction is “mostly fake,” leaving out costs, using “gimmicks,” and making “several unrealistic assumptions.”
• Biden’s budget proposes a tax credit for first-time home buyers, but as many housing experts point out, this will only increase demand for homes without impacting the supply and drive prices even higher.
• Biden is capping credit card late fees at $8.
  • The reduction in credit card late fees will force credit card companies to raise fees in other areas and may lead to credit card companies eliminating cash-back rewards and travel points many credit card users enjoy.
  • The smaller late fees also eliminates an important late-payment deterrent, which may cause more borrowers to miss credit card payments and negatively impact their credit score.
  • Banks may also become more reluctant to give credit to high-risk individuals.

ORGANIZATIONS ACROSS THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM HAVE CRITICIZED BIDEN’S BUDGET

• Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: “The budget lacks a plan to put the debt on a downward path, to pay for its proposed tax cut extensions, or to prevent the 23 percent across-the-board Social Security benefit cut – the equivalent of a $17,400 cut for a newly retired couple – scheduled to take effect around 2033.”
• Taxpayers Protection Alliance: “President Biden’s tax-and-spend proposal is filled with harmful tax increases and out-of-control expenditures that will harm American taxpayers and consumers.”
• Business Roundtable: “The Administration has continued a troubling trend with its FY 2025 budget: proposing job killing tax increases on American employers.”
• National Alliance for Public Charter Schools: “The President’s FY 2025 budget falls disappointingly short of prioritizing public charter schools and public educational options for the parents who are looking for something better.”
• Independent Petroleum Association of America: “The changes in President Biden’s proposed budget to oil and natural gas industry tax provisions are a direct attack on America’s smaller independent producers who develop most of the nation’s natural gas and oil wells, and particularly the small marginal operators.”