Are you getting whiplash as I am over Biden’s proposed FY2023 budget?

“Biden overextended with his social spending, that’s why Build Back Better failed and why Democrats will get creamed in the midterms.” “Biden didn’t do enough to advance the progressive agenda in his 2023 budget, that’s why Democrats will get creamed in the midterms.” “His budget reflects a capitulation to Joe Manchin, who made his millions from dirty coal and who is torpedoing any investment to transition from climate-killing fossil fuel to clean-energy, and that’s why Democrats will get creamed in the midterms.”

And what is the Republican plan? To raise taxes on the bottom half of the country, repeal the Affordable Care Act and sunset Medicare and Social Security, take away women’s rights, ban books and suppress the vote and subvert elections – that is when they aren’t busy impeaching Biden, Harris and every cabinet member in order to complete their insurrection. You know that if Republicans regain control, the substantial progress Biden has made (but pushed off the headlines by Ukraine, Jan. 6, the ongoing Trump coup and more), will be undone. That would be a truly dystopian society.

I don’t have any complaint with the Biden Budget – to me, it is as Biden has said, a statement of values of a nation; it fulfills Biden’s and the Democrats’ pledge to address climate change; foster economic, political, social, criminal and environmental justice; expand health security nationally and internationally; and advance public safety and national security – in effect, it is the Build Back Better agenda.

So what’s in the Biden Budget? First, it is important to put it into context:

When Biden took office, the pandemic was raging in communities across the country and the economy was struggling to recover from the most severe downturn since the Great Depression. The economy shrunk and the unemployment rate was 6.4%, with 20 million collecting unemployment. The budget deficit exploded to $3.1 trillion in 2020—yet despite trillions in COVID-relief resources (and billions in fraud), the Trump administration didn’t secure vaccines for all Americans.

Most schools were closed and testing and medical equipment shortages continued as Trump set states against each other in a cage-match to buy supplies. And even before the pandemic, the Trump tax cuts had added $2 trillion to the deficit and the deficit increased every year despite the Republicans’ constant “trickle down” BS that tax cuts for the wealthiest would bring down the deficit.

Unlike his predecessor, President Biden prioritized fiscal responsibility (and hopefully recovering money from the CARES Act fraudsters). In the face of the extraordinary challenges he inherited, Biden knew that a strong economic recovery – built, as he said, from the bottom up and the middle out instead of the top down – would result in less emergency spending and drive future deficits down.

This strategy paid off producing the strongest economic growth in 40 years –5.7% in 2021.The administration is projecting the deficit in 2022 will be $1.5 trillion lower than last year’s – the largest ever one-year decline in history.

Since Biden took office, 8 million jobs (that is 8 million taxpayers) have been added while the unemployment rate dropped to 3.4% – the lowest since 1969. And those receiving unemployment benefits dropped from 20 million to 1.6 million, the lowest since 1969.

And between the start and the end of 2021, we went from about 41,000 to more than 200 million Americans vaccinated (for free at thousands of locations), and from most schools closed to 99 percent open for in-person learning, freeing up parents to return to productive work. Biden’s war-level mobilization to combat COVID has saved 2.2 million lives (1 million have already died), prevented 17 million hospitalizations and 66 million COVID-19 cases, and avoided $900 billion in health care costs.

Inflation? The percentages are deceiving because they are against 2020 and 2021 low level of economic activity and reflect increased spending power and demand, not to mention price-gouging and profiteering. What I want to see is a comparison to 2019. Also, you need to factor in Putin’s Ukraine War and ongoing supply chain issues (helped along by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott interfering with produce coming from Mexico).

Biden’s FY2023 budget is aimed at continuing economic growth and progress. It addresses rising prices due to the release of pent-up demand, amassed savings, lingering supply chain issues as well as price gouging, by cutting costs for necessities like prescription drugs and child care and even gas by promoting clean-renewable energy and fostering competition and prosecuting price-gouging, rather than cutting jobs or wages.

The Biden Budget invests – with greater return on investment than expenditures for climate disasters – in climate action and renewable energy (producing jobs while cutting dependence on brutal autocrats), public health and medical research, public safety and national security and what Biden has called a “Unity Agenda” (basically the things that the vast majority of Americans, regardless of party or where they live, want and would benefit from – like addressing the opioid crisis, research to treat cancer, Alzheimer’s). The investments in climate action – for clean energy, public transit, infrastructure – come with requirements for Made in America products like steel and aluminum, which will support US manufacturing.

Biden could easily have dubbed his budget the “People’s Agenda” for its focus on what everyday Americans need to improve their lives, or the “Justice Agenda” because every line-item is designed to promote economic, social, political, environmental and criminal justice across zip codes, from urban to rural, coastal to mid-America, on everything from health care, public education, public safety and infrastructure spending. His is the first administration that has specifically demanded equity in government administration.

Most critically – if they are honest critics rather than partisan obstructionists – Biden’s Budget does not add but rather reduces the budget deficit and is paid for by making the wealthiest 0.1% and corporations pay their fair share of taxes, while assuring anyone making $400,000 or less will not pay a dollar more in federal income tax.

My idea, instead of an impractical, improbable “wealth tax,” is a revised Alternative Minimum Tax combined with a Value Added Tax on spending over a certain amount – those billionaires may not earn “taxable income” but they sure as hell spend millions they get from somewhere.

“All told, it is a budget that includes historic deficit reduction, historic investments in our security at home and abroad, and an unprecedented commitment to building an economy where everyone has a chance to succeed,” Biden declared.

I’ll vote for that.