“For all the criticism of Biden's proposals-which I will grant are very, very large and expansionary-at least he’s putting out the metric of paying for them,” MacGuineas says. While Biden has proposed tax increases on corporations and the rich and a crackdown on tax evasion to pay for the next $4.1 trillion or so, it’s not yet clear how much of his spending or tax hikes might become law. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, signed into law in March, was focused on emergency coronavirus relief and financed almost entirely with new federal debt. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the Republican leader of the House Budget Committee, described President Biden’s policy agenda as an “unsustainable spending binge.” During Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s confirmation hearing in January, Senate GOP Whip John Thune said, “The one thing that concerns me that nobody seems to be talking about anymore is the massive amount of debt that we continue to rack up as a nation.”Īltogether, Biden’s three major initiatives so far-the American Rescue Plan and the proposed American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan-would account for some $6 trillion in new federal spending. In a statement released ahead of Biden’s 100th day in office last month, Rep. Most of that spending stems from ambitious proposals for investment in infrastructure and the care economy.Įven though Biden’s spending policies are popular with Americans, the Republican Party has already sounded the alarm. The new budget is expected to call for $6 trillion in outlays over the year, and would raise federal spending to levels that surpass records set during World War II. The White House on Friday is expected to release President Biden’s budget request for the 2022 fiscal year that begins October 1. “It appears that it’s been quite some time since there’s been presidential leadership on improving that overall fiscal situation,” she adds. The Bush tax cuts would have expired at the end of 2010, but Obama agreed to extend them for two years, and ultimately, with the country still recovering from the Great Recession and Republicans by then in control of the House, agreed in 2012 to make most of them permanent.Īs a result, both the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration inherited “unsustainable debt situations,” MacGuineas says. He pushed through another round of cuts in 2003. Bush argued for his first round of tax cuts in 2001 on the grounds that the surplus was dangerous in government hands and should be returned to the American people. The last time the debt as a share of GDP shrank was during the last years of the Clinton Administration under pressure from the Republican-controlled Congress, he actually ran a surplus. Bush and Barack Obama also left behind bigger federal debts than they started with.
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