华盛顿——乔·拜登总统周五公布了他的第一份联邦预算1.5万亿美元的愿望清单，要求民主党在教育等优先事项上取得实质性进展。医疗保健服务、住房和环境保护。
白宫预算办公室要求将机构运营预算增加8.4%，这阐明了拜登在国会权衡明年支出计划时的首要任务。这是自2011年限制国会支出的法律到期以来，民主党更广泛野心的第一个财务大纲。
拜登在椭圆形办公室与他的经济团队举行会议之前表示:“我希望这将得到两党的全面支持。”不过，著名的参议院共和党人立即抱怨说，该计划将在推动国内项目方面损害军事和国家安全。
2011年的两党合作也限制了民主党的野心，这是他们现在试图解决的一个问题。白宫新闻秘书Jen Psaki表示，由于上限，政府“继承了长期投资不足的遗产”。
“总统专注于扭转这一趋势，并重新投资于我们实力的基础，”她在一次简报会上告诉记者。
利害攸关的是“可自由支配的支出”，大约是国会每年通过的巨额联邦预算的三分之一，用于资助军队、国内内阁部门的运作、外交政策和国土安全。预算的其余部分包括所谓的强制性项目，有固定支出，主要是社会保障、医疗保险和医疗补助。
拜登的请求为五角大楼7000多亿美元的预算提供了比国内账户低得多的1.6%的增长。国土安全账户将基本冻结，反映出民主党进步人士对移民安全部队的反对。
参议院共和党人很快批评了适度增加国防开支的提议，少数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔，俄克拉荷马州的吉姆·殷霍夫，佛罗里达州的马尔科·卢比奥南卡罗来纳州的林赛·格雷厄姆阿拉巴马州的理查·谢尔比发布了一份联合声明。
“空谈是廉价的，但保卫我们的国家不是，”他们说。“我们不能不履行我们的宪法责任，提供共同防御。为了保持美国的强大，我们必须平衡国内和国防支出的优先次序。”
拨款过程是前总统为数不多的一贯成功故事之一唐纳德·特朗普但今年的预算周期不受更广泛的正式支出“上限”的控制。这些上限的失效为拜登和民主党支持的更多国内支出打开了大门，但也引发了与共和党在军事账户上的斗争。
拜登政府认为，由长期被放弃的2011年预算协议规定的上限，导致了十年来公共服务投资的严重不足，总统现在正试图通过大幅增加公共服务投资来扭转这一局面，这些公共服务投资大多会绕过国家安全计划。
政府表示，这一要求将使支出符合历史平均水平。它寻求7690亿美元的非国防自由支配资金，约等于30年来相对于美国整体经济的平均水平。
拜登希望将教育部的预算大幅增加40.8%，至1028亿美元，其中包括为高贫困学校追加200亿美元的拨款。
卫生和公众服务部将获得23.1%的增长，达到1337亿美元。将有额外的资金用于对抗阿片成瘾和疾病控制和预防中心，在冠状病毒大流行之后，该中心的任务变得更加紧迫。政府还要求65亿美元建立一个生物医学研究机构，以解决癌症、糖尿病、阿尔茨海默氏症和其他疾病。
拜登正在寻求政府机构增加140亿美元来应对气候变化。这是整个政府应对气候危机方法的一部分，包括数十亿美元来促进炼油厂、发电厂和其他危险场所附近社区的环境正义。
住房和城市发展将增加15.1%，达到687亿美元，主要是为另外20万个家庭提供住房券。政府还寻求更多资金用于公民权利执法，作为一个公众来解决枪支暴力问题健康流行病。
通过国会起草的总统计划通常是不可能的。最近的历史和与共和党人的必然冲突可能会迫使立法者在9月30日预算年度到期后的几个月内将自由支配账户置于自动驾驶状态。
该计划还详细说明了拜登政府将如何努力应对涌入美国南部边境的移民。其中包括向中美洲投资8.61亿美元，以解决驱使人们向美国移民的各种因素。另外3.45亿美元将用于移民服务，以解决长达数年的归化和庇护案件的拖延。移民审查执行办公室的预算将增加21%，达到8.91亿美元，以便雇用100名新的移民法官和支助小组，减少现有的积压工作。
总统为国家安全寻求适度的增长。国防部门是自由支配计划中最大的部门，将获得1.6%的增长，达到7150亿美元。国土安全部将上涨0.2%，至520亿美元。
但是政府认为外交是与更广泛的世界接触的一种方式。它正在寻求将国务院和美国国际开发署的资金增加12%，使他们的支出达到635亿美元。
周五的请求不包括税收计划或强制性联邦支出。也不包括拜登基础设施计划中的计划支出。一份更全面的预算提案将于今年春天晚些时候发布。
Biden budget seeks more for schools, health care and housing
WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden released a $1.5 trillion wish list for his first federal budget Friday, asking for substantial gains for Democratic priorities including education,health care, housing and environmental protection.
The request by the White House budget office for an 8.4% increase in agency operating budgets spells out Biden’s top priorities as Congress weighs its spending plans for next year. It’s the first financial outline of the Democrats’ broader ambitions since the expiration of a 2011 law that capped congressional spending.
“I’m hoping it’ll have some bipartisan support across the board," Biden said before an Oval Office meeting with his economics team, though prominent Senate Republicans immediately complained the plan would shortchange the military and national security in boosting domestic programs.
Bipartisanship in 2011 also restricted Democrats' ambitions, a problem they’re now trying to address. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration was “inheriting a legacy of chronic underinvestment” because of the caps.
“The president is focused on reversing this trend and reinvesting in the foundations of our strength,” she told reporters at a briefing.
At stake is “discretionary spending,” roughly one-third of the huge federal budget that is passed by Congress each year, funding the military, domestic Cabinet department operations, foreign policy and homeland security. The rest of the budget involves so-called mandatory programs with locked-in spending, chiefly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The Biden request provides a significantly smaller 1.6% increase for the $700 billion-plus Pentagon budget than for domestic accounts. Homeland security accounts would basically be frozen, reflecting opposition among Democratic progressives to immigration security forces.
Senate Republicans were quick to criticize the modest proposed increase for defense, with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Oklahoma's Jim Inhofe, Florida'sMarco Rubio, South Carolina'sLindsey Grahamand Alabama's Richard Shelby releasing a joint statement.
“Talk is cheap, but defending our country is not," they said. “We can’t afford to fail in our constitutional responsibility to provide for the common defense. To keep America strong, we must balance domestic and defense spending priorities."
The appropriations process was one of the few consistent success stories of former PresidentDonald Trump's tumultuous four-year tenure in office, but this year's budget cycle is not governed by the formal spending “caps” of a broader outline. The lapse of those caps opens the door to more domestic spending favored by Biden and Democrats but invites a battle with Republicans over military accounts.
The Biden administration believes the caps, imposed by a long-abandoned 2011 budget deal, caused a decade of severe underinvestment in public services that the president is now trying to turn around with large increases that would mostly bypass national security programs.
The administration says the request would bring spending in line with historical averages. It seeks $769 billion in non-defense discretionary funding, about equal to the 30-year average relative to the overall U.S. economy.
Biden wants to increase the Education Department’s budget by a massive 40.8% to $102.8 billion, which includes an additional $20 billion in grants for high-poverty schools.
The Department of Health Human Services would get a 23.1% boost to $133.7 billion. There would be additional funds to combat opioid addiction and for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose mission took on new urgency in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. The administration is also asking for $6.5 billion to establish a biomedical research agency to address cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's and other diseases.
Biden is seeking a $14 billion increase across government agencies to address climate change. It's part of a whole-of-government approach to the climate crisis that includes billions to boost environmental justice for communities near refineries, power plants and other hazardous sites.
Housing and Urban Development would get a 15.1% increase to $68.7 billion, primarily to provide housing vouchers for an additional 200,000 families. The administration also seeks more money for civil rights enforcement addressing gun violence as a publichealthepidemic.
Passing the president’s plan as written through Congress is typically a long shot. Recent history and guaranteed conflicts with Republicans are likely to force lawmakers to put discretionary accounts on autopilot for months after the Sept. 30 expiration of the budget year.
The plan also details how the Biden administration will try to deal with the influx of arrivals at the U.S. southern border. It includes $861 million to invest in Central America to address the forces driving people to migrate to the United States. An additional $345 million would go to immigration services to resolve delays in years-long naturalization and asylum cases. The budget for the Executive Office of Immigration Review would jump 21% to $891 million in order to hire 100 new immigration judges and support teams to reduce the existing backlogs.
The president seeks modest increases for national security. Defense -- the largest department in the discretionary plan -- would get a 1.6% increase to $715 billion. Homeland Security would edge up 0.2% to $52 billion.
But the administration views diplomacy as a way to engage with the wider world. It's pursuing a 12% increase in funding for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, taking their spending to $63.5 billion.
Friday’s request does not include plans for tax revenues or mandatory federal spending. Nor does it include the planned spending in Biden’s infrastructure plan. A fuller budget proposal will be released later this spring.
