WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden called Monday for a new tax on billionaires and more funding for police and the military as part of a $5.8 trillion spending plan he sent to Congress for the upcoming fiscal year.
The proposal outlines the administration’s spending priorities as inflation has soared to its highest level in four decades.
Congress is in charge of writing the federal budget, and Biden’s spending plan will become the starting point for negotiations between lawmakers and the White House.
The proposal sets up the themes that Biden and congressional Democrats are likely to emphasize in this fall’s midterm elections.
Among the highlights:
- A minimum tax of 20% on households worth more than $100 million, which the administration said would address the problem of the nation’s wealthiest individuals paying a lower tax rate than middle-income households. Over half of the revenue from the tax would come from billionaires.
- $30 billion in mandatory spending to support law enforcement, crime prevention and community violence intervention, including funding for more community policing officers. An additional $1.7 billion would be used to expand gun-tracking strike forces. Biden pledged in his State of the Union address this month to provide more funding for police, even as some Democrats call for defunding the police.
- $773 billion in military spending, a 9.8% increase, to bolster support for Ukraine and strengthen deterrence efforts in the Indo-Pacific and across the globe.
- Deficit spending is projected to drop by more than $1 trillion over the next decade.
