Biden’s new deficit hawk persona has some progressives feeling some bad deja vu, Biden hires Bruce Reed, who want to cut Social Security & Medicare

[basquebromance]

Biden 10-year costs:
-American Rescue Plan: $1.9 trillion
-Infrastructure: $400 billion
-Approps: $1 trillion
-CHIPS Act: $80 billion
-PACT Act: up to $667 billion
-Student loans: $600 billion ...
-Inflation Reduction Act: $300 billion saved (but gimmicks)

"I'm a deficit hawk!"

Biden’s new deficit hawk persona has some progressives feeling some bad deja vu

Biden zeroes in on the deficit ahead of coming showdowns with the GOP over the debt ceiling and federal budget.

www.politico.com

excerpts from article:

The president has made a fresh effort to sell his administration as a model of fiscal restraint in recent weeks, casting falling deficits as an increasingly central focus of his agenda. Biden now routinely touts a $1.7 trillion drop in the deficit on his watch as a top accomplishment. When the president releases his new proposed budget next week, he is expected to call for another $2 trillion in cuts over a decade.

“My economic plan is working,” Biden said in a speech last week, peppering his remarks with more than a dozen references to the deficit. “It’s reducing the deficit. It’s fiscally responsible.”


The growing fixation on the deficit is notable for a White House that championed an expansive economic agenda, including trillions of dollars in emergency deficit spending that, it says, proved critical to fighting the pandemic and revitalizing the economy.

Biden’s deficit focus also serves as a preview of what advisers hope will be a clear line of attack in a potential 2024 rematch against former President Donald Trump. Biden himself has noted that “in the previous administration, America’s deficit went up every year, four years in a row.”


Stephanie Kelton, an economist at Stony Brook University who advised Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run, said Biden’s deficit rhetoric could complicate his defense of ambitious economic spending down the road. The administration’s student debt relief plan, for example, is projected to balloon the deficit by $400 billion over a decade — more than the entire savings created by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.

White House allies said they expect the president’s forthcoming budget proposal will only serve to reinforce that more substantive vision — and as long as it keeps Republicans on the defensive, they’re happy to have Biden talk about the deficit as much as he wants.

“This White House is the opposite of chastened from its first two years agenda,” Green said. “They know what’s popular and they want to run on it.”

 

[Synthaholic]

President Biden has already cut the deficit immensely. There's nothing wrong with decreasing the debt. It just has to be done the right way: taxing corporations and the wealthy.

 

[Independentthinker]

Biden 10-year costs:
-American Rescue Plan: $1.9 trillion
-Infrastructure: $400 billion
-Approps: $1 trillion
-CHIPS Act: $80 billion
-PACT Act: up to $667 billion
-Student loans: $600 billion ...
-Inflation Reduction Act: $300 billion saved (but gimmicks)

"I'm a deficit hawk!"

Biden’s new deficit hawk persona has some progressives feeling some bad deja vu

Biden zeroes in on the deficit ahead of coming showdowns with the GOP over the debt ceiling and federal budget.

www.politico.com

excerpts from article:

The president has made a fresh effort to sell his administration as a model of fiscal restraint in recent weeks, casting falling deficits as an increasingly central focus of his agenda. Biden now routinely touts a $1.7 trillion drop in the deficit on his watch as a top accomplishment. When the president releases his new proposed budget next week, he is expected to call for another $2 trillion in cuts over a decade.

“My economic plan is working,” Biden said in a speech last week, peppering his remarks with more than a dozen references to the deficit. “It’s reducing the deficit. It’s fiscally responsible.”


The growing fixation on the deficit is notable for a White House that championed an expansive economic agenda, including trillions of dollars in emergency deficit spending that, it says, proved critical to fighting the pandemic and revitalizing the economy.

Biden’s deficit focus also serves as a preview of what advisers hope will be a clear line of attack in a potential 2024 rematch against former President Donald Trump. Biden himself has noted that “in the previous administration, America’s deficit went up every year, four years in a row.”


Stephanie Kelton, an economist at Stony Brook University who advised Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run, said Biden’s deficit rhetoric could complicate his defense of ambitious economic spending down the road. The administration’s student debt relief plan, for example, is projected to balloon the deficit by $400 billion over a decade — more than the entire savings created by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.

White House allies said they expect the president’s forthcoming budget proposal will only serve to reinforce that more substantive vision — and as long as it keeps Republicans on the defensive, they’re happy to have Biden talk about the deficit as much as he wants.

“This White House is the opposite of chastened from its first two years agenda,” Green said. “They know what’s popular and they want to run on it.”

Footnote: The Inflation Reduction Act which saves 300 billion using gimmicks was something they had to agree to in order to get Manchin's vote. Otherwise, they would not have even agreed to that. And, very shortly after it was signed, Biden decided to forgive student loans, which they projected would add about 500 billion dollars onto the debt, actually a net addition onto the debt of 200 billion dollars, not a savings of 300 billion dollars. Manchin was snookered and leopards don't change their spots. Every time democrats add onto the debt they don't refer to it as spending, they call it "investing" and they love to invest.