Biden announces budget plan for fiscal year 2024

WASHINGTON, March 9 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden announced his budget proposal for the next fiscal year on Thursday.

The 182-page proposal projected the federal government's spending of 6.9 trillion U.S. dollars throughout fiscal year 2024, starting on Oct. 1, 2023, and ending on Sept. 30, 2024.

Biden said his budget plan aims at reducing the deficit by nearly 3 trillion dollars over the next decade "by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share."

"We propose a billionaire minimum tax, requiring the wealthiest Americans to pay at least 25 percent on all of their income, including appreciated assets," he said in a written message to Congress.

Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives controlled by Republicans, responded on Thursday that he thinks Biden's budget request "is completely unserious."

"He proposes trillions in new taxes that you and your family will pay directly or through higher costs," McCarthy tweeted. "Mr. President: Washington has a spending problem, NOT a revenue problem."

Under Biden's budget proposal, the Pentagon's spending would surge to 842 billion dollars in fiscal 2024, a 26-billion-dollar or 3.2-percent increase from the 2023 enacted level.

The United States has been heavily criticized for hefty spending on military activities. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2023 allocated nearly 817 billion dollars to the Pentagon.

Andrew Lautz, director of federal policy for the National Taxpayers Union and National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF), wrote on Thursday that the NTUF is skeptical of the 2024 Biden defense budget request, and believes that "all taxpayers should be too."

Hundreds of Americans attended a rally in Washington, D.C. last month to protest against massive money funneling into Ukraine, as well as the role of the United States in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

"The United States is playing way too much on the military," Scholz-Karabakakis, a protester from Vermont, said, while he accused Washington of "expanding outwards to the borders" of other countries and "creating anxiety, fear around the world."