On The Money: Inside Biden’s $6T budget | Key inflation metric higher than expected

Hello and happy Friday, and welcome back to On The Money. I’m Naomi Jagoda, filling in for Sylvan Lane, with your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line.

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THE BIG DEAL: Biden releases $6T budget that foresees decade of trillion-dollar deficits

President Biden on Friday proposed a budget that would entrench deficits in excess of $1 trillion for the next decade, pushing the nation’s debt burden to record highs.

The blueprint released by the White House ties together three major spending proposals already announced by Biden: the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan, the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan and $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending for fiscal 2022.

Combined with mandatory spending programs, the 2022 budget would spend $6 trillion, about $300 billion more than current projections for the year, with much of the spending going toward education, health, science research and infrastructure.

Read more here from The Hill’s Niv Elis.

What’s in — and what isn’t in — the budget?

• Along with the budget, the Treasury Department released details on Biden’s tax proposals, which would raise a net $2.4 trillion over 10 years.

• The budget takes aim at specific tax provisions that benefit the fossil fuel industry and projects that eliminating these measures will generate $35 billion over the course of a decade. 

• The budget includes $750 million to address the ongoing fallout from the SolarWinds hack.

• The budget leaves out financial plans for a public option, lowering prescription drug costs and Medicare expansion, despite several Democrats’ calls for the administration to prioritize these health care reforms.

• The budget does not include the controversial Hyde Amendment, delivering on a campaign promise to try to scrap the ban on federal funding for abortions.

LEADING THE DAY: Key inflation measure comes in at 0.6 percent, above expectations

The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, a key measure of inflation, rose 0.6 percent in April, according to Commerce Department data released Friday, higher than the already-inflated 0.5 percent expectations among economists.

A “core” version of the measure that excludes volatile food and energy prices came in even higher, at 0.7 percent.

In year-over-year terms, the index was up 3.1 percent, more than the 2.9 percent economists had expected. That figure was the highest in 13 years but was also distorted because it was set in comparison to last year when the economy was reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Niv has more here on the latest inflation data.

House Democrats still pressing for Trump’s tax returns:

Lawyers for the Biden administration and House Democrats said in a court filing on Friday that they are continuing to have communications that may inform the administration’s position on the request for former President Trump’s tax returns.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) requested Trump’s tax returns from the Treasury Department and IRS in 2019. The Trump administration rejected the request, prompting the committee to file a lawsuit. The Biden administration has not yet said how it will handle the request.

Judge Trevor McFadden, a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C. appointed by Trump, directed the parties in the lawsuit to submit another court filing by July 2. McFadden also extended until July 9 his order that requires the Biden administration to give Trump’s personal lawyers 72 hours notice before providing the Ways and Means Committee with Trump’s tax returns.

GOOD TO KNOW:

• AAA reported that Memorial Day weekend gas prices are going to hit a seven-year high. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki defended gas prices as “well in line” with recent decades. 

• CEOs of the country’s biggest companies in 2020 experienced a total average pay increase of 5 percent from the previous year.

• The final Senate vote on a bill to improve U.S. competitiveness with China has been postponed until next month.