President Biden unveiled his election-year budget pitch Monday, calling for $5.5 trillion in tax increases by raising rates on the wealthy and corporations — while driving up spending on federal benefit programs, affordable housing and student debt cancellation, among other proposals.
The fiscal year 2025 budget — which is highly unlikely to be approved by Congress — matches last year’s topline tax increase level and would achieve the massive investments while purportedly cutting the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years, the White House said on Monday.
Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute focusing on the budget and taxes, told The Post in a Friday interview that Biden’s similar plan from last year put forward “the highest peacetime burden in American history, as well as the highest sustained taxes in American history.”
“Not only is the president raising taxes, but he’s using a substantial portion of it for new spending rather than deficit reduction, which just means even bigger tax hikes down the road when it’s time to rein in the deficit,” Riedl said.
The White House has attacked congressional Republicans for supporting the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act under President Donald Trump, which it faulted for including “giveaways” to “wealthy and corporate tax cheats.”
