President Joe Biden's White House released their budget proposal document today, which only serves as a nagging reminder that Congress still hasn't finished last year's budget process and still needs to pass roughly 70 percent of the current year's budget -- a task they were supposed to accomplish last September. They've let it slip so long that the process is now lapping itself, in other words. Biden's new proposal is for the budget that is theoretically supposed to be in place by this October (but will almost certainly be delayed at least until after the election).

Previous (and future) procrastination aside, however, the presidential budget request is no more than a wish list, really. Even when one party has the trifecta of controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, presidential budgets are still considered mere wishful thinking by Congress, who always just goes ahead and puts their own budget together. Presidential budget requests aren't exactly "dead on arrival" in Congress, but they are never passed without any changes -- they are always rewritten to some degree or another.

Currently, of course, Democrats only control the White House and the Senate. The House is in Republican hands, meaning even if the Senate did go along with Biden's framework it would still never emerge intact from the House. But presidential budgets do lay out the agenda and priorities for a president and his party, so it is interesting to see what Biden wants to do next -- even though "next" should really be read as: "in my second term, if I win," more than: "in the next budget Congress passes."

So let's take a look at where Biden's priorities will be, moving forward:

President [Joe] Biden called for major new spending initiatives Monday to lower costs for health care, child care and housing, and enough new taxes on the wealthy and major corporations to pay for those proposals and also shave $3 trillion off the national debt over the next decade.

. . .

In a $7.3 trillion budget for fiscal 2025, Biden would have Congress offer universal prekindergarten education, provide 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, expand anti-poverty tax credits and create a new tax break for first-time home buyers.

. . .

That spending would be more than offset by dramatically increasing taxes on the wealthiest individuals and corporations, the White House said. Biden's budget would increase the minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations to 21 percent from 15 percent. It would raise taxes on U.S. multinationals' foreign income to 21 percent from 10.5 percent, and eliminate some tax deductions for executive compensation.

. . .

Biden would also restore expansions of the child tax credit, part of his 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. That measure sent monthly checks to working families to offset the cost of child care and kept 3 million children out of poverty, according to research conducted by Columbia University's Center on Poverty and Social Policy.

Some of these proposals are left over from the "Build Back Better" bill that Biden wanted to pass (and which, thanks to Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, did not pass). Universal pre-K and paid family/medical leave are programs that would be wildly popular if they ever actually appear, but it will likely take a new Congress for Biden to make them reality (if the Democrats can both hold the Senate and take control of the House again, in other words).

Biden has fully embraced the "tax the rich" idea from progressives, which is an accomplishment Senator Bernie Sanders should be proud to see. Making giant corporations pay "their fair share" (as Biden now loves to say) is also a wildly popular idea with the general public. That "eliminate some tax deductions for executive compensation" translates to limiting corporations from claiming a tax write-off for any executive salary in excess of a million dollars. The first million can be written off as a business expense, to put this another way, but any money paid in salary above that to any one individual cannot be written off.

That last item in that excerpt is an important one, and (once again) was a program that Congress failed to renew because Joe Manchin didn't like it. The COVID era change sent monthly checks to the poorest of parents, as a refundable tax credit (rather then them getting it in a lump sum after filing their taxes each year). It worked like a charm and reduced poverty by a staggeringly-impressive amount. So of course Manchin (and all the Republicans) killed it. Again, this was a wildly popular program.

Joe Biden is, of course, going to make political hay over his budget priorities in contrast to the Republicans' agenda. Which isn't all that hard, since he's really got the winning hand with the public on all of these programs. Conservatives howl over spending money on these things but average people support them, so the more Biden talks about what he'd like to do, the more voters will be listening and comparing Biden to the alternative.

Here was Biden talking up some of his plans during the "State Of The Union" speech last week:

Imagine a future with affordable child care. Millions of families can get -- they need to go to work to help grow the economy. Imagine a future with paid leave because no one should have to choose between working and taking care of a sick family member. Imagine a future of home care and elder care and people living with disabilities so they can stay in their homes and family caregivers can finally get the pay they deserve.

. . .

The child tax credit I passed during the pandemic cut taxes for millions of working families and cut child poverty in half. Restore that child tax credit. No child should go hungry in this country.

As you can see, these are all quite obviously good issues for Democrats to run on. And Biden already leans on the concept of "fairness" when he speaks, which is a very good way to frame the issue. Biden's budget would raise taxes on both corporations and the wealthiest Americans by $5 trillion over a decade, but would also keep to his promise by lowering taxes (by $750 billion) for people making less than $400,000 a year. He is proposing to spend $2 trillion of the money raised on his proposals, which leaves $3 trillion to lower the deficit over the next decade.

Biden knows he is weak on how the public sees him and "the economy." By proposing specific things to directly help working Americans while bringing more fairness to the tax code, Biden's at least got a plan for making things better. Donald Trump and the Republicans don't. Trump's economic proposals (such as they are) don't offer anyone any direct relief at all, but would raise prices for everybody. Trump promises that everything will be so wonderful in his economy, but never actually gives specifics as to how any of it is going to happen.

The new Biden budget proposal lays out the subjects Biden will be campaigning on for the rest of the election season. Few (if any) of these will make it into the next actual budget Congress passes, of course, but Biden is more concerned right now with laying down markers for what he'd do in his second term. So while Congress will quite likely ignore most of Biden's new budget, hopefully the voters won't. It's up to him to effectively make the case for these things now, out on the campaign trail.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant