Unlike the recently-released MAGA House budget resolution for FY 2025 — which slashes domestic spending and showers the rich and big corporations with favors — the budget that President Biden unveiled today clearly prioritizes the financial and health security of workers and retirees. In fact, the contrast could not be more stark.
While Republicans have long advocated cutting Americans’ earned benefits and have proposed a fiscal commission designed to do just that, the President’s FY25 budget “upholds his commitment to protecting Medicare and Social Security for this and future generations.” The White House budget document pledges to defend both programs against benefit cuts. The President calls for extending the solvency of the Social Security trust fund by demanding that the highest-income earners pay their fair share in payroll contributions. The White House budget also urges that seniors receive a boost in benefits, which currently average a modest $1,900 per month.
The agency that administers Americans’ earned benefits, the Social Security Administration (SSA), would receive a major increase under the President’s budget. He requests $15.4 billion for SSA operations, a nearly 9% increase from the agency’s FY ‘23 funding level. The chronically underfunded agency has been struggling to provide proper customer service — including field office closures, long wait times on SSA’s 1-800 phone line, and excessive delays in disability insurance hearings. It is past time for SSA to receive truly adequate funding, and the President’s budget represents a major step in that direction.
The White House budget extends solvency of the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund (Medicare Part A) by modestly increasing the Medicare tax rate on incomes above $400,000, closing loopholes in existing Medicare taxes, and directing revenue from the Net Investment Income Tax into the HI trust fund. We thoroughly support the President’s plan to restore the solvency of the Part A trust fund — reassuring current and future seniors that Medicare’s finances will remain strong.
Continuing his leadership on the issue of prescription drug prices, the President’s budget would provide additional funding for prescription drug-related actions under the Inflation Reduction Act. The budget significantly increases the pace of Medicare drug price negotiation with Big Pharma, bringing more drugs into negotiation sooner — and extending the $2,000 out-of-pocket prescription drug cost cap beyond Medicare and into the commercial market. In addition, the Budget extends the $35 cost-sharing cap for a month’s supply of a covered insulin product to the commercial market. These measures would not only provide additional relief from Big Pharma price gouging but save the Medicare program — and taxpayers — hundreds of billions of dollars.
The President has demonstrated that budgets are not merely about dollars, they are moral documents that affirm our society’s values. This budget elevates the needs of everyday Americans— including and especially seniors — over the priorities of wealthy and powerful special interests. Thank you, President Biden.
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Media inquiries to:
Walter Gottlieb