Biden's "Fiscal Responsibility" Illusion

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• President Biden is trying to use his fiscal year 2023 budget to reframe his reckless agenda without actually changing his policies.
• The president says his budget is focused on “fiscal responsibility,” but it would produce annual deficits over $1 trillion for every year of the next decade and would raise the federal debt by more than $16 trillion in that time.
• His budget lays out a liberal wish list of Washington welfare programs while using budget gimmicks to hide the price tag.

As inflation hits highs not seen in generations, President Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted. In desperation, he is trying to use the rollout of his fiscal year 2023 budget to reframe his reckless agenda without actually changing his policies.

Last March, Democrats made a down payment on their scheme to “transform” America by dumping $2 trillion in “COVID relief” on the economy. Then, the president proposed a budget that included trillions for another deficit-funded spending spree, and Democrats raised the debt limit by $2.5 trillion to make room for their plans.

A year later, the White House insists the president is focused on “fiscal responsibility.” In his new budget, he tries to takes credit for a $1.3 trillion drop in the federal deficit from 2021 to 2022, without admitting that this was a decrease from historically high deficits and a natural result of emergency COVID-19 spending winding down. The president’s fiscal policies were not the reason for this deficit reduction. In fact, Democrats’ “COVID relief” law accounted for more than $1 trillion of the deficit in 2021, and they spent all of last year trying to jam through more deficit spending.

The president now proposes massive deficit spending of more than $1 trillion for every year of the budget window – nearly $1.8 trillion in 2032 alone. His plan would do nothing to slow our growing national debt either. Under his plan, the debt would climb from $28.4 trillion last year to $44.8 trillion in 2032. That amounts to $345,000 per household in the U.S., a number no one else in America would call “fiscal responsibility.”

This Is Joe Biden’s Idea of Fiscal Responsibility?

A new “zero” cost scam

President Biden’s budget also has a new twist on a ruse Democrats employed to try to sell their reckless tax and spending spree. Last year, despite negative fact checks, they kept insisting that their bill would cost “zero.” The new budget uses a “deficit neutral” placeholder for their plans instead of providing cost estimates for specific proposals, allowing them to conceal the true price tag of their legislation.

The president felt no need for ambiguity about the liberal wish list of Washington welfare programs he supports. His budget endorses legislation that would subsidize or entirely pay for people’s prescription drugs, health care premiums, child care, long-term care, housing, college, preschool, and paid time off of work. He claims he can do all of this, and the final product will miraculously reduce the deficit.

Americans are not happy with the economic consequences of the president’s agenda. Instead of pursuing policies that are actually fiscally responsible, his strategy is to hide the same radical policies behind new talking points.