Biden Unveils $6.9 Trillion Budget, Setting Up Showdown With GOP

President Joe Biden unveiled a $6.9 trillion budget proposal on Thursday, a defiant opening salvo in high-stakes negotiations with congressional Republicans over the debt ceiling and government funding. The proposal, certain to be rejected by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, showed little inclination for compromise, asking lawmakers to bolster the social safety net through a flurry of new taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Biden’s proposal would increase funding on a bevy of government programs, extending the solvency of Medicare, lowering prescription drug prices, and cutting the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. Even still, the deficit in 2024 would increase from $1.6 trillion to $1.8 trillion, and the gross federal debt would swell to $51 trillion after a decade. In a year that GOP leaders have said they would pursue at least $150 billion in spending cuts and refuse tax increases, Biden instead proposes adding $77 billion across defense and non-defense spending while increasing taxes by $5.5 trillion over the next decade. The gulf between the parties underscored the truism that presidential budgets are dead-on-arrival wish lists with few practical implications. But this year’s edition – cast against the backdrop of coming legislative battles that could rattle markets and devastate the nation’s fragile post-pandemic recovery – carried outsized importance as a marker of how the White House would approach the coming battles. -------- Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm Subscribe to Bloomberg Originals:    / bloombergtv   Bloomberg Quicktake brings you global social video spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world. Connect with us on… YouTube:    / bloomberg   Breaking News on YouTube:    / @bloombergquicktakenow   Twitter:   / quicktake   Facebook:   / quicktake   Instagram:   / quicktake