One of President Joe Biden’s favorite quotes comes from his father: “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget — and I’ll tell you what you value.” This week, as Biden introduced his 2024 budget proposal with a speech in Philadelphia, Republicans have avoided that classic Biden approach by refusing to show us a budget at all. Instead of providing us with a document that would allow us to see a contrast in values between the two political parties, all the GOP has provided Americans with is a contrast in competence.
Biden’s ambitious budget would raise taxes on the wealthiest people and corporations, particularly large corporations, while offering $1 trillion in tax credits for low- and middle-income people. It calls for billions in new spending on Medicaid, child care, affordable housing and free community college, even as it would reduce the deficit by nearly $3 trillion over 10 years. The budget has its issues — it would extend much of the poorly designed Trump tax cuts, for example. But it would “give working people a fighting chance,” as Biden said Thursday, and it provides a clear platform for the president and his party heading into the 2024 election.
Were congressional Republicans a functioning party, we’d be able to pit the GOP-controlled House’s proposal against Biden’s. But at this point, all we can say for sure is Biden’s budget exists and the Republicans’ budget doesn’t. House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, told CNN on Wednesday that the GOP’s budget release would “probably be the second week in May” before his spokesperson hastily walked back that timeline.
A May debut for an opposition budget normally wouldn’t be unusual. But the government is projected to hit the debt limit in June, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California and his fellow Republicans have insisted that they’ll raise the limit only in exchange for spending cuts. We’re not talking about a few trims — The…
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