Putting people first may be the theme of the Biden/Harris Proposed $1.5 trillion discretionary federal budget.
Discretionary because the figures do not take into account Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the National Debt.
It also does not include numbers for the American Jobs Plan.
Advocates for public education, clean energy, environmental protection, combatting COVID 19 and future health crises, traveling on AMTRACK, IRS enforcement, foreign aid, disease and drug addiction in prevention/intervention programs, and reducing gun violence are the big winners in the Biden/Harris budget priorities.
Among the individual programs that will see an increase are:
- Pell Grants.
- Government-supported childcare programs.
- Adding school counselors and mental health professionals.
- Voucher Housing assistance for approximately 200,000 people.
- An Environmental Justice Initiative to punish polluters.
- State aid to modernize their unemployment systems.
- Veterans assistance.
- Public health program expansion that target communities of color.
- Police Reform.
- Combatting the Opioid Epidemic.
The Military-Industrial Complex personified in the Defense Department would only see close to a two percent increase in its budget. Hopefully, that increase is targeted toward cybersecurity.
In releasing the budget blueprint, the Acting Head of the Office of Management and Budget Shalandra Young wrote in a letter with the fiscal document:
“Together, America has a chance not simply to go back to the way things were before the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn struck, but to begin building a better, stronger, more secure, more inclusive America."
It is truly a putting people's first budget.
With the release of the budget blueprint, all sides started the annual scramble to either praise, condemn, and pick at the fine print of the details of the document.
Republicans of course focused on the Defense budget for their initial reactions.
Obstructionist in Chief Mitch McConnell, along with other Republican Senators issued a joint statement that said:
"President Biden recently said, 'If we don't get moving, [China] is going to eat our lunch.' Today's budget proposal signals to China that they should set the table. While President Biden has prioritized spending trillions on liberal wish list priorities here at home, funding for America's military is neglected."
Progressives like Representative Ro Khanna of California felt the Department of Defense did not deserve an increase in its budget. Instead, he and other progressives called for Defense cuts so "more funding should be shifted from the defense in order to address climate change and the coronavirus pandemic." Khanna also said that "those are the issues impacting the security of the American people and will keep Americans safer than spending billions on more deadly weapons."
No budget blueprint released by any Administration is ever adopted in its original form.
Expect a fight in Congress with at least one continuing resolution to show the other side is serious about quarreling with the other because that is how the budget appropriations process is done these days.
Do not be surprised if the Department of Defense gets a larger increase as long as Republicans sign off on the larger Democratic priorities.
That is unfortunate and a potential misplacement of dollars since the United States Defense Budget already exceeds the next ten nations that spend the highest on defense combined.
From the Peter Peterson Foundation[/caption]It will be interesting to see what the budget situation looks like in October so stay tuned.
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