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fiscal year 2025 budget
House Democrat Calls GOP Budget a 'Blueprint for a Dystopian Hellscape'
Rep. Don Beyer warns the plan "would see unbridled benefits flowing to a wealthy and well-connected few while tens of millions of Americans lose healthcare, housing, retirement security, and food security."
Mar 27, 2024
As Republicans on Wednesday set their sights on a key seat opening up in the U.S. House of Representatives, the chamber's senior Democrat on the congressional Joint Economic Committee put out a blistering takedown of a top GOP budget proposal for the next fiscal year.
Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va.) took aim at the 180-page "Fiscal Sanity to Save America" plan released last week by the Republican Study Committee (RSC)—which includes about 80% of GOP House members—following proposals from Democratic President Joe Biden and House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas).
"The Republican Study Committee budget is a blueprint for a dystopian hellscape," he warned. "The vision offered by this group, which counts 4 in 5 House Republicans as members, would see unbridled benefits flowing to a wealthy and well-connected few while tens of millions of Americans lose healthcare, housing, retirement security, and food security."
RSC proposals to "dramatically weaken healthcare," Beyer noted, include turning Medicare into a voucher plan and rolling back Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions that cut costs for seniors; repealing tax subsidies for the Affordable Care Act and the law's protections for people with preexisting conditions; and transforming Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program into block grants to states.
As Common Dreams has reported, in addition to seeking cuts to Medicare and Social Security—while claiming to do nothing of the sort—the RSC has also launched a full-fledged assault on reproductive healthcare and rights, promoting 42 bills that would ban abortions after 15 weeks or even earlier, require unnecessary ultrasounds and 24-hour waiting periods, prohibit the use of fetal stem cells for research, and threaten access to in vitro fertilization, among other restrictions.
In addition to attacking reproductive freedom and key programs for seniors and low-income families, Beyer highlighted, the RSC wants to "weaken public health, public safety, and environmental protections," while "cutting taxes for the wealthy, by a lot."
The RSC advocates ending green tax credits from the IRA and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as well as slashing money for Community Oriented Policing Services and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The committee also calls for permanently lowering taxes for the ultrarich, indexing capital gains taxes to inflation, repealing the estate tax, rolling back the IRA's corporate alternative minimum tax, and eliminating funding intended to help the Internal Revenue Service catch wealthy tax cheats.
"Democrats believe there is a better way to get our fiscal house in order without betraying our values," said Beyer. "That starts with making smart investments in our people and our future while demanding that the rich and large corporations pay their fair share in taxes. The contrast between the Democratic approach and this Republican budget could not possibly be clearer."
Biden's budget blueprint—released as he prepares for an electoral rematch against former Republican President Donald Trump, who infamously cut taxes for rich people and corporations—proposes a 25% minimum tax for individuals with wealth of more than $100 million, along with ending capital income tax breaks and closing other loopholes.
Polling results released Tuesday by Morning Consult show that a majority of voters across party lines in key swing states support raising taxes on people who make more than $400,000 per year.
Biden and the divided Congress this past weekend narrowly avoided a government shutdown by passing a long-delayed spending package. Fiscal year 2025 is set to begin in October, setting up another election-year fight over funding.
In what's been
dubbed the "Great Resignation," a growing number of House Republicans have announced that they are not seeking reelection or even exited their seats early—shrinking the party's already slim majority in the lower chamber.
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Budget Proposal Shows GOP 'Is the Party of Cutting Social Security and Medicare'
"Trump has tried to walk back his support for Social Security and Medicare cuts," said the head of Social Security Works. "This budget is one of many reasons why no one should believe him."
Mar 20, 2024
Defenders of Social Security and Medicare on Wednesday swiftly criticized the biggest caucus of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives for putting out a budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 that takes aim at the crucial programs.
The 180-page "Fiscal Sanity to Save America" plan from the Republican Study Committee (RSC) follows the release of proposals from Democratic President Joe Biden and U.S. House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas)—who is leading the fight to create a fiscal commission for the programs that critics call a "death panel" designed to force through cuts.
The RSC document features full sections on "Saving Medicare" and "Preventing Biden's Cuts to Social Security," which both push back on the president's recent comments calling out Republican attacks on the programs that serve seniors.
The caucus plan promotes premium support for Medicare Advantage plans administered by private health insurance providers as well as changes to payments made to teaching hospitals. For Social Security, the proposal calls for tying retirement age to rising life expectancy and cutting benefits for younger workers over certain income levels, including phasing out auxiliary benefits.
The document also claims that the caucus budget "would promote trust fund solvency by increasing payroll tax revenues through pro-growth tax reform, pro-growth energy policy that lifts wages, work requirements that move Americans from welfare to work, and regulatory reforms that increase economic growth."
In a lengthy Wednesday statement blasting the RSC budget, Social Security Works president Nancy Altman pointed out that last week, former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee to face Biden in the November election, "told CNBC that 'there's a lot you can do' to cut Social Security."
"Everyone who cares about the future of these vital earned benefits should vote accordingly in November."
"Now, congressional Republicans are confirming the party's support for cuts—to the tune of $1.5 trillion. They are also laying out some of those cuts," Altman said. "This budget would raise the retirement age, in line with prominent Republican influencer Ben Shapiro's recent comments that 'retirement itself is a stupid idea.' It would make annual cost-of-living increases stingier, so that benefits erode over time. It would slash middle-class benefits."
"Perhaps most insultingly, given the Republicans' claim to be the party of 'family values,' this budget would eliminate Social Security spousal benefits, as well as children's benefits, for middle-class families. That would punish women who take time out of the workforce to care for children and other loved ones," she continued. "This coming from a party that wants to take away women's reproductive rights!"
The caucus, chaired by Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), included 285 bills and initiatives from 192 members in its budget plan—among them are various proposals threatening abortion care, birth control, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) nationwide.
"The RSC budget would also take away Medicare's new power to negotiate lower prices on prescription drugs, putting more money into the pockets of the GOP's Big Pharma donors," Altman warned. "And it accelerates the privatization of Medicare, handing it over to private insurance companies who have a long history of ripping off the government and delaying and denying care to those who need it."
"In recent days, Trump has tried to walk back his support for Social Security and Medicare cuts," she noted. "This budget is one of many reasons why no one should believe him. The Republican Party is the party of cutting Social Security and Medicare, while giving tax handouts to billionaires."
"The Democratic Party is the party of expanding Social Security and Medicare, paid for by requiring the ultrawealthy to contribute their fair share," Altman added. "Everyone who cares about the future of these vital earned benefits should vote accordingly in November."
Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler also targeted the Republican presidential candidate while slamming the RSC plan, saying that "Donald Trump's MAGA allies in Congress made it clear today: A vote for Trump is a vote to make the MAGA 2025 agenda of cutting Social Security, ripping away access to IVF, and banning abortion nationwide a hellish reality."
"While Trump and his allies push forward their extreme agenda, the American people are watching," Tyler added, suggesting that the RSC proposal will help motivate voters to give Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris four more years in the White House.
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Biden Budget Includes Over $1 Trillion in 'Militarized Spending': Analysis
"If we are ever going to stop the cycle of endless war, we'll have to invest differently."
Mar 12, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden's new budget proposal calls for more than $1 trillion in military-related spending for the coming fiscal year, according to an analysis released Monday by the National Priorities Project.
That's more than twice as much as the president's proposed discretionary spending on domestic programs related to public health, housing, education, and environmental protection.
The $1.1 trillion in "militarized spending" includes $850 billion for the Pentagon, an agency that recently failed its sixth consecutive audit and can't account for a majority of its roughly $4 trillion in assets. The $850 billion topline is a $9 billion increase over the Pentagon budget that Congress is expected to approve for the current fiscal year.
The president's 2025 request also includes $34 billion in Department of Energy funding for the nation's nuclear stockpile, at least $11.6 billion in international military aid, more than $60 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, and $113 billion for veterans' programs.
"That's not all the militarism in the budget," noted Lindsay Koshgarian, program director of the National Priorities Project. "In reality, the spending on militarization in this budget is even higher. These figures, which come from the administration, treat the militarization of domestic law enforcement—things like the domestic work of the FBI, federal marshalls, and grants to local law enforcement agencies—as domestic expenses. NPP reports from previous years have found that those expenses added tens of billions more in militarized spending."
The $1.1 trillion also excludes money "for the Pentagon's operations in support of various wars," Koshgarian observed.
"That's highly unrealistic given current administration policies," she wrote. "The administration hasn't been making visible efforts to end the war in Ukraine, nor has it responded to demands that it withhold military aid to Israel in light of war crimes the Israeli government continues to perpetrate there. Without—at the very least—some efforts along those lines, it's not reasonable to assume these extra expenses will just drop to zero next year."
"War hawks squealing that a 1% increase to defense spending is 'meager' or 'catastrophic' lack perspective altogether."
Biden's budget request would push U.S. military spending to record levels, but Republican lawmakers immediately criticized the proposal as inadequate—a signal that they are likely to attempt to pile even more money into the Pentagon's bloated coffers, as they do almost every year.
"War hawks squealing that a 1% increase to defense spending is 'meager' or 'catastrophic' lack perspective altogether," Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen, said in a statement Monday. "The true catastrophe is the existing scale of U.S. military spending. The Pentagon is a three-quarters-of-a-trillion-dollar agency that has never once passed an audit. It's infamous for waste, fraud, and bankrolling defense corporations. Roughly half of the total Department of Defense budget goes to contractors each year."
"Reallocating billions away from the Pentagon and into direct human needs instead," Gilbert added, "would benefit everyday Americans far more."
The White House drew praise from progressive advocacy groups for proposing a revival of the expanded child tax credit that slashed youth poverty in 2021, among other domestic investments. The program expired at the end of 2021 due to opposition from congressional Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), causing child poverty to surge.
Groups also contrasted Biden's proposal with the fiscal year 2025 resolution passed last week by the Republican-controlled House Budget Committee, which calls for steep cuts to Medicaid, education, infrastructure spending, and more while backing a "fiscal commission" for Social Security and Medicare.
But Koshgarian wrote Monday that Biden's request would still not provide the "security we need, in terms of costs of living, quality of life, climate change, or securing peace." She noted that the White House proposal would boost the Pentagon budget by "more than 10 times that of the Department of Education" and "330 times that of the State Department."
"If we are ever going to stop the cycle of endless war," she argued, "we'll have to invest differently."
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Biden 2025 Budget Would Offer 'Welcome Relief,' But Not Enough
One expert said that enacting his reforms "will begin to reverse the 40-year one-way ratchet of falling taxes for the wealthy and corporations and instead invest in workers and families."
Mar 11, 2024
On the heels of delivering the latest State of the Union speech and signing a package of funding bills, U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday unveiled his budget blueprint for fiscal year 2025, a proposal praised by congressional Democrats and progressive advocates who want him to go even further.
The $7.3 trillion budget comes as the divided Congress is still sorting out funding for the current fiscal year. Given those divisions—and that the Republican House majority is already advancing its own budget resolution for the fiscal year that begins in October—the Democratic president's plan is widely seen as a statement of priorities going into the November election.
"Biden used his official budget request as a campaign leaflet, taking a first-term victory lap and calling out Donald Trump by name," Politico reported, referring to the former president who lost reelection in 2020 and is now the presumptive Republican nominee.
"This budget demonstrates a commitment to ensuring corporations pay more of their fair share."
One key issue is Social Security and Medicare. The GOP blueprint unveiled last week includes a fiscal commission that critics call a "death panel" designed to fast-track cuts. As Common Dreams reported earlier Monday, Trump made televised comments taken as "support for cutting Social Security and Medicare," which his campaign later claimed were about cutting "waste" in the programs.
Meanwhile, according to a White House fact sheet, Biden's new budget demonstrates his desire to "protect and strengthen Medicare and Social Security for this and future generations," including with improvements to drug price negotiations.
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, said Monday that the Republican candidate's latest remarks are "consistent with Trump's record as president" and Biden is presenting "a very different vision for Social Security's future" with his proposal to protect the program by boosting taxes on the ultrarich. She emphasized that "Social Security is on the ballot this November."
Raising taxes for the wealthy and corporations—which would not only fund initiatives but also cut an estimated $3 trillion from the national debt over a decade—is a major focus of Biden's blueprint, which takes aim at provisions from Trump's 2017 tax law. Biden calls for imposing a 25% minimum tax for individuals with wealth of more than $100 million, as well as ending capital income tax breaks and closing other loopholes.
The blueprint also advocates for setting the corporate tax rate at 28%, raising the Inflation Reduction Act's (IRA) minimum rate on billion-dollar corporations to 21%, denying deductions for compensation over $1 million for any C corporation employee, and "reforming the international tax system to reduce the incentives to book profits in low-tax jurisdictions," as the fact sheet details.
Other tax-related proposals include restoring the full IRA investment in the Internal Revenue Service and providing new funds to crack down on rich tax cheats, as well as reviving the expanded child tax credit that led to a historic drop in youth poverty.
"The White House budget's across-the-board increases would be a welcome relief to agencies and programs across the government that have seen their funding cut," said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen, in a statement Monday. "This budget demonstrates a commitment to ensuring corporations pay more of their fair share."
Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, also welcomed the plan, saying that "President Biden's 2025 budget lays out a sound approach to key decisions that need to be made next year, regardless of the outcomes of the elections: a fairer tax code that raises more revenues from wealthy people and profitable corporations to invest in people, communities, and the economy and to improve our fiscal outlook."
Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens offered similar praise, asserting that "the tax reforms in President Biden's 2025 budget are the critical unfinished business of Bidenomics. Enacting the reforms in his budget will begin to reverse the 40-year one-way ratchet of falling taxes for the wealthy and corporations and instead invest in workers and families."
Other priorities for the president include lowering childcare costs, increasing the affordable housing supply, expanding access to homeownership and affordable rent, cutting home energy and water bills, reducing the cost of higher education, investing in family planning services, implementing paid family and medical leave, enabling universal pre-K, and confronting the climate emergency.
The budget includes $23 billion for climate adaptation and resilience; nearly $10 billion to address air pollution, radiation exposure, and legacy waste and contamination in communities nationwide; $3 billion for the international Green Climate Fund; $1.6 billion to support the clean energy workforce and infrastructure projects; and mandatory funding to expand the
American Climate Corps.
"This budget only has a shot at becoming a reality if Biden and Dems win big this November. Biden needs to deliver for young people, otherwise many young people are going to end up staying at home," said the Sunrise Movement, which last week partnered with three other youth-led groups to put forth a sweeping agenda that they believe can energize younger voters.
On the voting front, "the budget provides state and local election officials with $5 billion in new, sustained election assistance funding over 10 years," pointed out Public Citizen's Gilbert. "This follows on essential commitments made by the White House in the State of the Union address to prioritize the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act."
Stand Up America's senior associate of policy and political affairs, Sunwoo Oh, also welcomed the proposal saying that "election funding is critical to ensuring every voice is heard and every eligible vote counted. It's long past time that Congress invest in America's election infrastructure to give states and localities the consistent resources they need to keep our elections, and those who administer them, safe and secure."
However, not all parts of the budget were welcomed by progressive advocacy groups. For example, Gilbert declared that "it's impossible not to comment on the $895 billion defense topline. War hawks squealing that a 1% increase to defense spending is 'meager' or 'catastrophic' lack perspective altogether. The true catastrophe is the existing scale of U.S. military spending."
"The Pentagon is a three-quarters-of-a-trillion dollar agency that has never once passed an audit," she stressed. "It's infamous for waste, fraud, and bankrolling defense corporations. Roughly half of the total... goes to contractors each year. Reallocating billions away from the Pentagon and into direct human needs instead would benefit everyday Americans far more."
The Environmental Working Group criticized another aspect of the Pentagon budget, warning that $1.6 billion is too low for Department of Defense (DOD) cleanup of contaminated sites, including those impacted by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as "forever chemicals."
"The cost of cleaning up the backlog of contaminated sites continues to grow and now exceeds $38 billion, per estimates provided by the Pentagon in 2022," noted John Reeder, the group's vice president for federal affairs. "It's clear that incremental increases in funding cannot possibly catch up to the DOD's rising cleanup obligations. Service members, military communities, and farmers need the cleanup of toxic PFAS pollution to move much more quickly‚ they have waited far too long."
"Reallocating billions away from the Pentagon and into direct human needs instead would benefit everyday Americans far more."
The budget includes a $4.7 billion emergency fund for border security—a top issue in Congress and the presidential contest.
American Immigration Lawyers Association executive director Ben Johnson said that his group supports additional resources for U.S. Customs and Border Protection "to increase capacity at ports, the hiring of 1,600 more asylum officers, efforts to reduce the 3 million-case backlog plaguing the immigration courts, and the targeted use of more than $1 billion to combat cartels and stop fentanyl and other contraband smuggling."
"Lacking in the president's request, but which he has called for in every previous budget, is funding for legal representation that is critical to ensure both fairer and more efficient hearings for people seeking asylum or other legal protection," Johnson added. "More funds could and should also be directed to improve the entire immigration system which will reduce yearslong visa backlogs and help American families, businesses, and the economy."
Another policy that garnered swift criticism was the proposed 2% pay raise for federal civilian employees, which is lower than the president's previous budgets and contrasts with the 4.5% pay raise for military service members.
"We applaud President Biden for taking steps in his proposed budget to ensure corporations and the ultrawealthy are paying their fair share in taxes, to extend the solvency of Medicare, and to increase budgets for critical federal programs," said American Federation of Government Employees National president Everett Kelley. "However, we are extremely disappointed in the way this budget turns its back on the long-standing practice of pay raise parity for civilian and military employees of the federal government."
"Civilian federal workers right now are working for 27.5% less than their private-sector counterparts. A paltry, 2% raise for civilian federal employees will do very little to close that widening gap," the union leader emphasized. "Ultimately, until we are able to address lagging pay for federal workers, other efforts to recruit, hire, and retain top talent will never be successful because of the albatross of low pay."
As Republicans in Congress widely complained about Biden's proposal, top Democrats celebrated it. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that "just as he did in his State of the Union address, President Biden's budget lays out a bold, optimistic, and responsible path for the nation."
"The budget highlights the sharp contrast between Democrats' positive, proactive vision and the Republican negative, regressive vision for our country. Democrats want to grow our economy in a responsible way, while making smart investments in our future," he continued, challenging all of his colleagues looking to succeed outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to "lay out their plan... for all Americans to see."
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said, "Put simply, this budget tells working people and families: 'We have your back—and we're going to keep building a stronger future together."
"As we work to finish negotiating and passing the final six appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024, I look forward to digging into the details of the president's budget request for fiscal year 2025 and working with my colleagues to begin the process of writing serious, bipartisan spending bills that will move our nation forward and continue to build a brighter future for American families," she added.
While that work is still underway, Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young is set to testify about Biden's 2025 proposal before the Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday. The panel's leader, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Monday that the president "has released a fiscally responsible budget that puts the middle class first and lays out a vision for a stronger, safer, and more prosperous America."
On the other side of Capitol Hill, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, also applauded Biden's budget, specifically highlighting the child tax credit and paid leave policies. She said that "I look forward to working with President Biden in shaping a federal budget that delivers a more prosperous future for everyday Americans."
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