Analysis-Why Biden's child programs likely won't go anywhere
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[March 10, 2023]
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's budget proposal,
released on Thursday, envisions a dramatic expansion of the federal
safety net for children and families. Unlike programs that benefit older
Americans, it stands little chance of gaining traction.
Biden's fellow Democrats widely back his family-focused proposals: Tax
credits, free preschool, subsidies for child care and paid family leave.
But Democrats failed to pass them into law when they controlled both
chambers of Congress last year, and Republicans who now control the
House of Representatives are considering steep cuts to existing family
programs.
At a total cost of $1.6 trillion over 10 years, Biden's family programs
would amount to roughly 2% of all federal spending, according to a
Reuters analysis, a proposal that Republican House Speaker Kevin
McCarthy called "completely unserious" on Thursday.
That would be dwarfed by the $31.8 trillion spent on Social Security and
Medicare, the retirement and health plans for people over 65, according
to Biden's budget.
Those two programs are due to balloon as the Baby Boom generation ages,
with Biden's budget projecting they will account for 42% of federal
spending in 2033, up from 34% today.
But Republicans and Democrats have said any cuts to either program are
off limits as they gird for difficult negotiations to raise the nation's
$31.4 trillion debt ceiling this year.
"I guarantee you I will protect Social Security and Medicare," Biden
said at a rally in Philadelphia on Thursday.
That makes good political sense. Republican proposals to scale the two
programs back have been met with fierce resistance from Democrats and
interest groups over the past 20 years. Even modest efforts to rein them
in, such as by adjusting the way benefit increases are calculated, have
gotten nowhere in Congress.
The 60 Plus Association, a conservative group that backed then-President
George W. Bush's proposal to partially privatize Social Security, now
says the program should be preserved as is.
Lawmakers have reason to be wary: Older Americans are more likely to
vote than their younger counterparts, with Census Bureau data showing
that 76% of voters aged 65 to 74 cast a ballot in the 2020 elections,
about 10 percentage points higher than the population at large.
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U.S. President Joe Biden, flanked by
Allison Hessemer, a preschool teacher, speaks with children as he
visits East End Elementary School in North Plainfield, New Jersey,
U.S., October 25, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
A presentation by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to
House lawmakers on Wednesday laid out options for addressing the
deficit and projected that spending cuts would have substantially
less effect on the deficit than increased tax collections.
Biden's budget proposal projects a deficit of $1.7 trillion for the
current fiscal year. His proposal would address it by hiking taxes
on wealthy Americans and corporations; Republicans have yet to put
forward a budget of their own, but many are calling for steep
domestic spending cuts.
HEAD START: CUT OR EXPAND?
One proposal by the conservative Republican Study Committee calls
for phasing out the Head Start preschool program for low-income
families over 10 years.
Another plan circulated by Russell Vought, who served as former
President Donald Trump's budget director, would cut Head Start
immediately by 50%.
Biden, by contrast, would boost Head Start funding by 9% next year.
His proposal comes after a surge of COVID-19 pandemic spending,
including child tax credits and expanded benefits for antipoverty
programs, that analysts say helped bring a record low child poverty
rate of 5.2% in 2021.
That tax credit expired at the end of 2021. If revived, it would
cost the government $259 billion in the next fiscal year -- equal to
4% of total federal spending.
Federal spending on children is on track to decline from 9.4% of the
budget in 2021 to 6.4% in coming years as growing entitlement
spending eats up a growing share of the budget, according to a 2022
report from the Urban Institute think tank.
Elaine Maag, who helped author that report, said lawmakers usually
do not consider that safety-net programs for children can yield
benefits later on, such as higher graduation rates and better
physical health.
"We generally don't think about the benefits of these investments in
children, we just think about the cost side," she said. "If we
thought more about the benefits, we might do more investing in
kids."
(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; editing by Scott Malone and Josie Kao)
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