President Biden on Wednesday boasted that his economic plans would further pay down the national debt by creating jobs and reducing the cost of household goods such as prescription drugs and utility bills.
He said the federal government is on track to pay down the national debt this quarter for the first time in six years.
“Let me remind you again: I reduced the federal deficit,” Mr. Biden said in remarks from the White House. “All the talk about the deficit from my Republican friends — I love it. I reduced it by $350 billion in my first year in office. We are on track to reduce by the end of September by $1.5 trillion, the largest drop ever.
The speech signaled a pivot by Mr. Biden and the Democrats to emphasize financial responsibility ahead of the November elections.
Treasury Department this week said it expects to pay down $26 billion in privately held debt from April to June this year. However, that plan may be in jeopardy because the Treasury also expects to borrow $182 billion in privately held debt from July to September.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the trillions of spending Mr. Biden has proposed will add billions to the deficit over the next few years.
For example, the CBO said Mr. Biden’s infrastructure package, which passed into law last year, will add $256 billion to the deficit.
In the speech, Mr. Biden also called for the wealthy and corporations to pay more in taxes to help further deficit reductions.
“All we are asking is that the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations pay their fair share,” he said. “There’s no reason why billionaires should be paying a lower tax rate than a teacher or a firefighter.”
At the same time, Mr. Biden is seeking to revive his more than $1.75 trillion spending bill to expand the social safety net and push climate initiatives. The bill was derailed by Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat, who said it would likely increase the federal deficit.
Although Mr. Biden didn’t mention by name the massive spending bill, known as Build Back Better, he highlighted several initiatives that were included in it. For example, he emphasized his plan to lower the cost of prescription drugs by allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs.
The Build Back Better bill would add nearly $750 billion to the federal deficit over the next five years and roughly $165 billion over the next decade, the CBO said.
At the start of Mr. Biden’s presidency, the federal deficit was a record $3.13 trillion, which is more than triple the $984 billion at the end of 2019 and double the previous record of $1.4 trillion in 2009, according to the CBO.
At the end of 2021, the federal deficit totaled $2.77 trillion, which is the second-highest deficit on record, though it was down mostly because the government was spending less to counteract the economic impact of COVID-19 shutdowns.
In the speech, Mr. Biden also slammed the tax plan unveiled last month by Sen. Rick Scott, Florida Republican. The president said the proposal, which has received lukewarm support among Republicans, would raise taxes on 75 million American families, including 95% who make less than $100,000 a year.
“The working-class folks are going to a hell of a lot more and it goes further than that,” Mr. Biden said, calling it an “extreme agenda.”
Mr. Scott responded by accusing the president of misrepresenting the plan and ignoring the impact of soaring inflation.
“Almost every sentence was a complete lie,” Mr. Scott said on Fox News.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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