Biden’s Progressive Budget Proposal Vastly Expands Government

President Joe Biden, joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., delivers remarks during a Joint Session of Congress Wednesday, April 28, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

In The Hill, Democrat political advisor Doug Schoen raises a warning flag over the budget bill being forced on the Biden administration and voters by radical progressives in Congress and the Senate. Schoen says passage of the $3.5 trillion bill could put Congress and the Senate at risk for Democrats in 2022. He writes (abridged)

This week, President Biden and congressional Democrats released their $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation plan.

Democrats have lauded this proposal as a progressive bill that would produce change in American society on par with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

The progressive budget proposal vastly expands governmental social, environmental, educational, and healthcare programs — including funding for universal pre-K, nutrition assistance, the child tax credit, and clean energy initiatives — all of which would be paid for by tax increases on the wealthiest Americans and American businesses.

I was hired by Bill Clinton in 1994 after the Democrats’ blow-out defeat in that year’s midterm election — so, I well-recall the damaging political impact of government overreach and the then-largest tax increase in history, which the then-Democratic Congress passed without Republican support.

Democrats faced a similar fate in 2010 in President Obama’s first midterm election, when the party lost control of Congress once again due in large part to voters’ perception of governmental overreach by the Democrats in power.

History could very well repeat itself again this year if the Biden administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress seek to pass — intact — this $3.5 trillion-dollar proposal through the reconciliation process.

Democrats …face a number of considerable hurdles as they move forward with the proposal. They need 50 votes in the Senate to pass this bill through budget reconciliation, and are banking on the votes of moderate Senate Democrats, including Senators Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — neither of whom has indicated that they are on board with the bill.

Given the political risks to Democrats associated with this $3.5 trillion proposal — risks with both the bill’s passage and failure — I urge the leaders in my party to reconsider their next steps on this proposal, which could very well put them in the minority in Congress in 2022.

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an advisor to President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. His new book is “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.”