Biden’s budget proves he wants war with GOP, despite shaky economy

The utterly unserious budget President Joe Biden sends to Congress Thursday, complete with trillions in new taxes, will make one thing painfully clear: Biden wants all-out war with Republicans as he promotes his progressive agenda — and to hell with the economy and America’s debts.

Biden’s expected tax hikes include:

• Upping what earners over $400,000 pay in Medicare taxes by a full third.
• A quadrupling of the 1% surcharge on corporate stock buybacks that he and fellow Democrats imposed last year.
• A new 20% minimum tax on income and theoretical earnings that stockholders haven’t yet realized (for individuals and families worth $100 million or more).
• A bump-up in the top income-tax rate from 37% to 39.6%.

All told, that’s a stiff hit, especially for already heavily taxed high earners. (The top 1% coughed up nearly half of the nation’s income taxes in 2020 but raked in only 22% of the income, per the Tax Foundation.)

Nor are middle- and low-income families safe: They’d get socked either directly or via higher prices from companies looking to offset their own higher taxes. It’s the last thing anyone needs, as the economy struggles with persistent inflation, rising interest rates and the possibility of a major slowdown.

That’s why Biden couldn’t get a Democratic Congress to agree to these tax hikes in his first two years. Proposing them now that Republicans have taken the House is nothing but a political ploy.    

Expect the prez also to re-up on progressives’ drunken-sailor spending for things like child care, paid leave, expanded child tax credits and universal pre-k. (The inflation their trillions have already fueled apparently isn’t painful enough.)

But don’t expect sufficient funding for military weapons to ensure the US and its allies are properly prepared, amid rising threats from Russia and China. And Biden says he’s against any real spending cuts, which Republicans rightly insist are needed to contain the spiraling debt.

Instead, the president wants Republicans to simply agree to lift the debt ceiling, no questions asked, even as Uncle Sam’s IOUs exceed the nation’s entire economy by about 20% and are rising rapidly.

He knows his plan will be dead on arrival in the GOP-run House; he’s not trying to negotiate, but play political games. Next, he’ll again call for “unity”: He’s that cynical.