What's in Biden's $6 trillion budget

The White House on Friday sent Congress a $6 trillion budget plan that would ramp up spending on infrastructure, education and combating climate change, arguing it makes good fiscal sense to invest now, when the cost of borrowing is cheap, and reduce deficits later.

Gavino Garay produced this report.

Money is cheap.

Let's spend it.

That's the message coming from the White House on Friday, after it unveiled a $6 trillion budget proposal that would ramp up spending on infrastructure, education and combating climate change, arguing it makes good fiscal sense to invest now, when the cost of borrowing is cheap, and reduce deficits later.

The first comprehensive budget offered by Democratic President Joe Biden faces strong opposition from Republican lawmakers, who want to lower government spending and reject his plans to hike taxes on the rich and big corporations.

Biden's plan for fiscal year 2022 calls for just over $6 trillion in spending and $4.17 trillion in revenues, a 36.6% increase from 2019 outlays, before the coronavirus pandemic bumped up spending.

It projects a $1.84 trillion deficit, a sharp decrease from the past two years because of the pandemic.

Biden's $715 billion defense budget includes a 2.7% pay raise for troops and shifts billions in spending from old systems to help pay to modernize the nuclear arsenal to deter China.

White House officials said tax increases would start to chip away at deficits after 2030.

Republican opposition to Biden's push to spend more to revamp the U.S. economy is growing, as they argue it could fuel inflation and impact corporate competitiveness.

Republican U.S. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, said, quote: "President Biden's budget is a recipe for mounting debt and crippling deficits.

This bloated $6 trillion proposal would take our nation to its highest levels of spending and debt since we fought World War II." U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, welcomed the proposal, saying: "A federal budget should be a statement of our national values.

President Biden's budget is an unequivocal declaration of the value that Democrats place on America's workers and middle-class families, who are the foundation of our nation's strength and the key to Build Back Better."