President Joe Biden, pictured at a campaign event on Friday, overviewed many of his priorities for the country’s 2025 budget in his State of the Union speech last week.
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President Joe Biden, pictured at a campaign event on Friday, overviewed many of his priorities for the country’s 2025 budget in his State of the Union speech last week.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
President Biden will deliver his 2025 budget proposal to Congress on Monday, though it’s more of a wishlist than a plan of action.
Like all presidential budgets, it’s an outline of the administration’s values, and has virtually no chance of passing a deeply-divided Congress. But it sends a message to voters — and to lawmakers, Shalanda Young, the director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, told NPR.
“It’s important that the president puts out a values document, which this budget is, so people are on notice,” Young told Morning Edition‘s A Martinez. “Congressional Republicans are on notice: You can’t give your friends on Wall Street tax cuts, add to the debt, while middle-class and working families suffer.”
The budget builds on the State of the Union address Biden delivered last week, in which he outlined his administration’s accomplishments and made the case for voters to reelect him, with a heavy dose of economic populism.
Biden stressed that his second-term agenda would prioritize lowering costs for families, including through tax credits for first-time homebuyers, and raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
The White House said earlier Monday that the president’s budget would also strengthen Medicare and Social Security, as well as boost manufacturing and create clean jobs. It would also reduce the federal government’s budget deficit by some $3 trillion over a decade, by raising taxes on large corporations and ensuring that billionaires pay a minimum 25% rate.
“What that means is this president, unlike many who talk about fiscal responsibility, pays for every investment in the budget,” Young said. “So we call on Congress, if they want to do something about our fiscal path, take up the president’s budget. Ask the wealthiest in this country to begin to pay their fair share.”
Young said lawmakers will be pushed to have this debate soon, with several provisions of Republicans’ 2017 tax law — which gave sweeping tax cuts to big corporations — set to expire next year. Biden will not support extending tax cuts for those that make over $400,000, Young said.
The president also wants to work with Congress on a mortgage reduction credit, which would give a $10,000 tax break to first-time homebuyers and people who sell their starter homes, among others. Young described it as a “bridge” for families in a period where interest rates are expected to decline.
“Families who are locked into mortgage rates that may be a bit higher but need to get to a bigger place — you have two kids and a third may have come along and you need a bigger place — we need to give these families a bridge so they can move to larger homes,” she said. “That also helps families who are looking to enter into the housing market for the first time, freeing up a housing stock. So we think this is a win and win for the American people.”
The broadcast interview was produced by Ben Abrams, Ana Perez and Shelby Hawkins.
This story originally appeared on NPR
