President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year will propose cutting the U.S. deficit “by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.
That decrease tops Biden’s promise in last month’s State of the Union speech that his fiscal plan would reduce the deficit by $2 trillion.
The president is slated to roll out his budget proposals formally at an event Thursday in the swing state of Pennsylvania, but the White House already has been releasing some of them this week.
When asked Wednesday why Biden is now putting a greater priority on deficit reduction, Jean-Pierre told reporters that it’s “something that shows the American people that we take this very seriously,” and it has to do with “how do we move forward, not just for Americans today but for … other generations that are going to be coming behind us.”
Biden’s budget is due to include a proposal to bolster Medicare by raising the Medicare tax rate on earned and investment income to 5% from 3.8% for people making more than $400,000 a year.
In addition, it’s expected to call for millions in new funding for railroad safety measures in the wake of recent derailments, according to a Reuters report. And it reportedly will feature a 5.2% raise for federal employees, their biggest pay increase in 43 years.
A number of the president’s budget proposals aren’t expected to find much traction in the Republican-run House of Representatives, but they could help provide the Democratic incumbent with talking points in a 2024 re-election campaign. Biden appears poised to announce in the coming weeks that he’ll run for president again.
The president’s proposals also are likely to factor into his discussions with House Republicans over raising the debt limit.
Related: CBO warns of potential for U.S. default between July and September, as debt-limit standoff persists
