White House plans to tax ultra-rich to fund childcare

Joe Biden has offered Congress a $7.3 trillion US federal budget for the next fiscal year that would subsidise childcare for households on less than $200,000 a year and protect those on less than $400,000 a year from tax cuts – but would still raise overall taxes over the next decade by nearly $5 trillion. He would spend the extra money on cutting college tuition fees, policing, the elderly and a slight uptick in defence spending. The conditional mode is important, though, since much of this won’t happen even if he wins a second term. Filibustering and budget brinkmanship are so routine in Congress that a president’s non-discretionary spending plans are merely an opening gambit in a horsetrading marathon that usually involves multiple threats of government shutdowns. That doesn’t make this budget meaningless. It’s a political prospectus for a second Biden term, including a 25 per cent tax on billionaires defined as anyone with total wealth of over $100 million. Trump would be liable.