Where the Biden budget, debt ceiling, Social Security, and 2024 election collide

President Joe Biden’s $6.8 trillion budget proposal, released Thursday, is more than just a Democratic wish list for government spending, taxation, and deficit reduction. 

It’s a statement of values. It’s an opening bid in critical negotiations with Republicans over Social Security and other increasingly insolvent safety-net programs and, most urgently, the need to raise the statutory limit on the federal government’s ability to borrow money. And it’s a signal moment in the soft launch of President Biden’s expected 2024 reelection campaign. 

The pandemic has raised the stakes. Government spending, by Presidents Donald Trump and Biden, to help struggling Americans and businesses has ballooned the deficit and debt to a place once thought unfathomable.

By 2033, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects, the federal debt will clock in at close to $52 trillion. Today, the debt stands at an already astounding $31 trillion. It’s reached the point where the numbers are so massive that they almost feel meaningless.

But to some members of Congress, the debt and deficit do matter – because they have real-world implications for the government’s ability to function. On Social Security, which the CBO projects is headed for insolvency by 2033, a bipartisan group of senators is working privately on a compromise to set the program on a sustainable path.

President Joe Biden’s $6.8 trillion budget proposal, released Thursday, is more than just a Democratic wish list for government spending, taxation, and deficit reduction. 

It’s a statement of values. It’s an opening bid in critical negotiations with Republicans over Social Security and other increasingly insolvent safety-net programs and, most urgently, the need to raise the statutory limit on the federal government’s ability to borrow money. And it’s a signal moment in the soft launch of President Biden’s expected 2024 reelection campaign. 

But for now, it’s an opportunity to examine exactly what Mr. Biden is trying to do with federal spending and priorities at a fraught moment in the nation’s history. 

In a speech in Philadelphia, the president took the fight to Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, saying, “Show me your budget. I’ll tell you what’s your value.”

The United States is arguably more politically polarized than it’s been in decades. That does not bode well for the ability to do seemingly simple things like establish the outlines of a federal budget.