President Biden proposed a $7.3 trillion budget on Monday packed with tax increases on corporations and high earners, new spending on social programs and a wide range of efforts to combat high consumer costs like housing and college tuition.
The proposal includes only relatively small changes from the budget plan Mr. Biden submitted last year, which went nowhere in Congress, though it reiterates his call for lawmakers to spend about $100 billion to strengthen border security and deliver aid to Israel and Ukraine.
Most of the new spending and tax increases included in the fiscal year 2025 budget again stand almost no chance of becoming law this year, given that Republicans control the House and roundly oppose Mr. Biden’s economic agenda. Last week, House Republicans passed a budget proposal outlining their priorities, which are far afield from what Democrats have called for.
Instead, the document will serve as a draft of Mr. Biden’s policy platform as he seeks re-election in November, along with a series of contrasts intended to draw a distinction with his presumptive Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Biden has sought to reclaim strength on economic issues with voters who have given him low marks amid elevated inflation. This budget aims to portray him as a champion of increased government aid for workers, parents, manufacturers, retirees and students, as well as the fight against climate change.
Speaking in New Hampshire on Monday, Mr. Biden heralded the budget as a way to raise revenue to pay for his priorities by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and big corporations.
“I’m not anti-corporation,” he said. “I’m a capitalist, man. Make all the money you want. Just begin to pay your fair share in taxes.”
The budget proposes about $5 trillion in new taxes on corporations and the wealthy over a decade. Administration officials said Monday that those increases would be split equally between corporations and the nation’s highest earners, and that Americans earning less than $400,000 a year would enjoy tax cuts totaling $750 billion under their plans.
“We can do all of our investments by asking those in the top 1 and 2 percent to pay more into the system,” Shalanda Young, the director of the White House budget office, told reporters.
The president has already begun trying to portray Mr. Trump as the opposite: a supporter of further tax cuts for the well-off. “Do you really think the wealthy and big corporations need another $2 trillion tax break?” Mr. Biden asked in New Hampshire, referencing Mr. Trump — but not by name. “Because that’s what he wants to do.”
Speaker Mike Johnson and other members of House Republican leadership criticized Mr. Biden in a statement released Monday afternoon. “The price tag of President Biden’s proposed budget is yet another glaring reminder of this administration’s insatiable appetite for reckless spending and the Democrats’ disregard for fiscal responsibility,” they said.
Mr. Biden’s budget proposes about $3 trillion in new measures to reduce the federal deficit over the next decade. That is in line with his budget proposal last year, which narrowed deficits by raising taxes on businesses and the rich and by allowing the government to bargain more aggressively with pharmaceutical companies to reduce spending on prescription drugs.
The budget again calls for raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent, the level Mr. Trump set in the tax bill he signed in late 2017. It increases a new minimum tax on large corporations and quadruples a tax on stock buybacks, among other efforts to raise more revenue from companies and individuals who make more than $400,000 a year.
Those savings would build on discretionary spending limits that Mr. Biden and congressional Republicans agreed on last year to resolve a standoff over raising the nation’s borrowing limit. They still would leave the nation with historically high budget deficits: about $1.6 trillion a year on average over the next decade, by administration forecasts. As a share of the economy, deficits would decline in that time — but total government debt as a share of the economy would tick upward.
House Republicans released a budget last week that seeks to reduce deficits much faster — balancing the budget by the end of the decade. Their savings relied on economic growth forecasts that are well above mainstream forecasters’ expectations, along with steep and often unspecified spending cuts.
The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called the Republican plan “unrealistic in its assumptions and outcomes.” On Monday, the group called Mr. Biden’s proposed deficit reduction “a welcome start, but a too timid one.”
Mr. Biden and his aides have repeatedly said they believed the projected deficits in his budgets would not hurt the economy. Ms. Young and Jared Bernstein, who leads the White House Council of Economic Advisers, repeated that position on Monday, even after acknowledging that the budget now forecasts higher government borrowing costs over the next decade than previous budgets have.
Instead of turning toward more aggressive deficit reduction, as prior Democratic presidents have done after losing control of a chamber of Congress, Mr. Biden has leaned into the need for new spending programs and targeted tax incentives to bolster growth and the middle class.
The new proposal continues that trend. It would create a national program of paid leave for workers. It would reinstate an expanded child tax credit that Mr. Biden created temporarily in his $1.9 trillion economic stimulus law in 2021. That credit helped reduce child poverty significantly over the span of a year before expiring. That reinstatement would last for only a year, but administration officials said Monday that they hope to make it permanent as part of a broader debate on taxes in 2025.
The budget also includes new efforts to help Americans struggling with high costs. That issue has dogged Mr. Biden with voters since inflation soared on his watch to its highest levels in four decades, even as price increases have cooled over the past year. Mr. Biden previewed many of those efforts in his State of the Union speech last week, including new tax credits for certain home buyers and expanded assistance for people to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.
Mr. Biden also called for new efforts to improve the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. In the budget, he opposed benefit cuts for the programs and any additional contributions from workers earning less than $400,000 a year.
On Monday, Ms. Young implied that Mr. Biden would look to shore up Social Security in part by targeting a cap on income subject to the payroll taxes that feed the program — a move he has specifically endorsed for Medicare. She said Mr. Biden would improve its solvency “by asking high-income Americans to pay their fair share. If you make a million dollars in this country, you are done paying your Social Security taxes sometime in February.”
In another key area, Mr. Biden’s proposal punts on key details: what to do about the provisions of the 2017 Republican tax law, including tax cuts for individuals, that expire in 2025. The budget calls that expiration, which was written into the law in order to hold down its estimated cost, “fiscally reckless.” But it does not specify how Mr. Biden would handle the expirations if he wins a second term.
Instead, the budget says Mr. Biden would seek to extend tax breaks for people earning less than $400,000 a year, offset with “additional reforms to ensure that wealthy people and big corporations pay their fair share.”
MUCH AS he may wish to, Donald Trump cannot govern through imperial decree alone. Congress is drafting legislation to remake the tax system and alter federal spending—something only it can do. On May 12th Republicans unveiled their new plan. Unfortunately it is a mess.
Customers line up at the check out booth on April 18, 2025 at a Costco branch in Niantic, Connecticut.
Robert Nickelsberg | Getty Images
Inflation was slightly lower than expected in April as President Donald Trump’s tariffs just began hitting the slowing U.S. economy, according to a Labor Department report Tuesday.
The consumer price index, which measures the costs for a broad range of goods and services, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.3%, its lowest since February 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. The monthly reading was in line with the Dow Jones consensus estimate while the 12-month was a bit below the forecast for 2.4%.
Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core CPI also increased 0.2% for the month, while the year-over-year level was 2.8%. The forecast was for 0.3% and 2.8% respectively.
The monthly readings were a bit higher than in March though price increases remain well off their highs of three years ago.
Shelter prices again were the main culprit in pushing up the inflation gauge. The category, which makes about one-third of the index weighting, increased 0.3% in April, accounting for more than half the overall move, according to the BLS.
After posting a 2.4% slide in March, energy prices rebounded, with a 0.7% gain. Food saw a 0.1% decline.
Used vehicle prices saw their second straight drop, down 0.5%, while new vehicles were flat. Apparel costs also were off 0.2% though medical care services increased 0.5%.
Egg prices tumbled, falling 12.7%, though they were still up 49.3% from a year ago.
While the April CPI figures were relatively tame, the Trump tariffs remain a wild card in the inflation picture, depending on where negotiations go between now and the summer.
In his much-awaited “Liberation Day” announcement, Trump slapped 10% duties on all U.S. imports and said he intended to put additional reciprocal tariffs on trading partners. Recently, though, Trump has backed off his position, with the most dramatic development a 90-day stay on aggressive tariffs against China while the two sides enter further negotiations.
Markets expect the president’s softening position to lead to less of a chance of interest rate cuts this year. Traders had been expecting the Federal Reserve to start easing in June, with at least three total reductions likely this year.
Since the China developments, the market has pushed out the first cut to September, with just two likely this year as the central bank feels less pressure to support the economy and as inflation has held above the Fed’s 2% target now for more than four years.
The Fed relies more on the Commerce Department’s inflation gauge for policymaking, though CPI figures into that index. The BLS on Thursday will release its April reading on producer prices, which are seen as more of a leading indicator on inflation.
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.
TEGERNSEE, GERMANY — Top German business leaders, economists and politicians descended onto a small, picturesque Bavarian town situated next to the iconic Tegernsee lake last week to share their hopes and discuss what’s at stake for the new government.
Buoyed by recent positive market sentiment for Europe’s largest economy, attendees at the summit were united in their call for the new administration to step up and honour campaign promises. Any missteps would likely not be tolerated, with some business leaders warning the government cannot allow itself a “lazy summer.”
Despite rain and low hanging clouds providing a somewhat dreary backdrop to the event, which has been dubbed the “Davos of Germany,” the promise of new beginnings enveloped the summit and the atmosphere was buzzing with excitement for potential changes the newly-appointed Chancellor Friedrich Merz could initiate.
The view across the Tegernsee from the Ludwig Erhard Summit
Sophie Kiderlin, CNBC
Big expectations for the government were commonplace, with concerns about Germany’s struggling economy and recent political turmoil seemingly having faded into the background.
The German DAX index is currently up over 18% since the beginning of this year, frequently hitting record highs in recent months. The German economy has however been in stagnation territory for over two years now, with tensions over economic, fiscal and budget policy in the previous ruling coalition and its eventual breakup continuing to weigh on expectations.
“There are very high hopes now on the new government,” Patrick Trutwein, chief risk officer and chief operating officer at the IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG, said during a panel moderated by CNBC’s Annette Weisbach.
He said he was feeling positive about Germany’s future considering the announcement of the major fiscal package enshrined in Germany’s constitution, as well as further potential reforms ahead and “an economy that’s pretty robust and can build on its own … productivity and competencies.”
Matthias Voelkel, CEO of Boerse Stuttgart Group, was among those feeling hopeful.
“If we look ahead and if they [the new government] do the right thing, I’m optimistic,” he told CNBC.
Audi CEO Gernot Döllner meanwhile said in a fireside chat that he was hopeful that the new government would “send an impulse into the German economy.”
The mood was also upbeat in Germany’s auto sector, which has long been struggling with competition from China, pressures from the transition to electric vehicles and has recently been hit by U.S. tariffs.
“The Germans are back,” Hildegard Müller, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, told CNBC’s Weisbach Friday. “We are competitive,” she added.
A talk at the Ludwig Erhard Summit.
Sophie Kiderlin, CNBC
But amid the positive buzz, it was clear that observers are keeping a close eye on the governments every move.
“This new government in Germany cannot allow itself a political lazy summer, I’m sorry, they’ve got to work and they’ve got to work hard,” said Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, chairman of Spitzberg Partners and former German politician.
Or as Veronika Grimm, member of the German Council of Economic Experts, told CNBC: “A lot lies ahead for the government.”
Overal the message was clear: Germany needs to get its act together.
Alexander Horn, general manager of Eli Lilly‘s Germany arm — Lilly Germany — said the business strongly welcomes the new government’s goals, but won’t tolerate any caveats.
“Specifically we expect that the declarations of intent that are in the coalition agreement will be implemented quickly, speed plays an enormously big role,” he said during a panel, according to a CNBC translation.
Boerse Stuttgart Group’s Voelkel indicated his optimism relied on action from the government, saying he was looking for moves towards “less bureaucracy, less anti-growth regulation, more innovation and particularly strengthening investment.”
The newly minted German government has set itself many of these points as policy goals, making promises to boost the country’s economy, reduce bureaucracy and boost innovation and investment during the election campaign and in its coalition agreement.
“This country needs an economic turnaround. After two years of recessions the previous government had to announce again [a] zero growth year for 2025 and we really have to work on this,” German economy minister Katherina Reiche told CNBC on the sidelines of the summit.