Biden asks $1.5T budget, raises non-defense spending

ANKARA

President Joe Biden released Friday a $1.5T budget outline for the fiscal year 2022, according to a statement by the White House.

The budget proposal calls for a significant increase in non-defense areas such as education, housing, and climate change.

The outline includes $36.5 billion investment, a $20 billion increase from enacted the fiscal year 2021, to provide schools in high-poverty areas; $6.5 billion to create a medical program focusing on cancer research; and $10.7 billion, an increase of $3.9 billion from the previous budget, to help end the opioid epidemic.

It also includes a $14 billion increase for the federal government to fight climate change and $30.4 billion for housing assistance to 200,000 more families with a focus on the homeless and people who flee domestic violence.

An additional $2.1 billion is requested to combat gun violence, while $1 billion is sought to end gender-based violence.

In all, Biden is asking $769.4 billion for non-defense spending, which would be a 15.9% increase over enacted the fiscal year 2021, if approved by Congress. Also, he asks $753 billion for all national defense programs -- a 1.7% rise year-over-year.

"America is confronting four compounding crises of unprecedented scope and scale all at the same time," Shalanda Young, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in the statement.

She listed those as the coronavirus pandemic, economic crisis, racial inequity, and the growing threat of climate change.

"The President’s funding request makes things fairer. It injects capital into communities where capital is usually hard to come by," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in her statement.

"It will make paying taxes a more seamless process for millions of Americans. And it makes sure that corporations actually pay what they owe," she added.

Treasury Department noted that Biden's budget request would also provide $13.2 billion for the Internal Revenue Service -- a $1.2 billion, or 10.4%, increase from the 2021 enacted level.