Biden Hones Multi-Trillion-Dollar Budget

Biden rejected progressive spending plans but now Hones Multi-Trillion-Dollar Budget

Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential nomination running as a moderate, rejecting the big-government plans of progressive rivals as unaffordable.

The former vice president has proposed a total of $5.4 trillion in new spending over the next 10 years, according to an analysis published Monday by the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan group at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. That includes historically high allocations for sectors from education and health to child-care and housing.

Mr. Biden's proposed budget is more than double that of Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee. It is a fraction of the $30 trillion to $50 trillion spending plans that progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren laid out during the Democratic primary. But since effectively sealing the nomination in March, Mr. Biden's plan has grown in response to the pandemic, the lockdowns, and the resulting recession.