The president’s budget addresses the main attack lines that Republicans are using against him and his Democratic allies in Congress in the run-up to the midterm congressional elections.
With his party facing potentially gale-force headwinds in the midterm elections, President Biden on Monday tacked toward the political center with a budget that would bolster military and law enforcement spending while tackling inflation and deficit reduction in service of what he called a “bipartisan unity agenda.” The core of his proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins a month before the midterms did not change significantly from his first budget blueprint a year ago. To universal prekindergarten and combating climate change he actually added a new tax on the wealth of billionaires. But its framing was a marked shift from the 2021 pitch for a fundamental transformation of an ailing American society. Instead, Mr. Biden’s plan was an appeal based on the reality of the moment, to both new dangers around the globe and at home, where inflation and crime are crushing the president’s political standing. Endangered Democrats in swing districts have been urging Mr. Biden to counter the messages from the far left and address the kitchen-table issues facing voters with incremental steps, not transformative legislation. For them, the budget promises deficit reduction to cool the economy and tangible steps to unclog supply-chain bottlenecks that contribute to rising prices. The heft of his message this year comes not from an urgent appeal to address racial and income inequality, climate change and the struggles of the middle class, but to reassert American dominance in a dangerous and competitive world. “We are at the beginning of a decisive decade that will determine the future of strategic competition with China, the trajectory of the climate crisis and whether the rules governing technology, trade and international economics enshrine or violate our democratic values,” the budget states, justifying large increases to project U.S. military and diplomatic strength globally. Under the new plan, the left wing’s hopes for a peace dividend at the end of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be scotched in favor of a new great powers military budget that would bring the Defense Department’s allocation to $773 billion, an increase of nearly 10 percent over the level for the 2021 fiscal year. Rather than cuts, Mr. Biden pledges to bolster the nation’s nuclear weapons program, including all three legs of the nuclear “triad”: bombers, land-based intercontinental missiles and submarines. Domestically, the big-ticket items from last year are still there: universal prekindergarten, generous subsidies for child care and commitments to clean, renewable energy.
