Biden Budget Refutes Itself on Social Security and Medicare

President Biden claims his latest budget proposal “protects and strengthens Medicare” by raising payroll taxes on high-income taxpayers and the owners of pass-through businesses such as S-corporations and limited-liability companies. The administration also claims it is committed to strengthening and protecting Social Security. But as the president’s own budget numbers show, we can’t tax our way out of insolvency.

The largely symbolic document released Thursday shows a widening gap between the outlays for Social Security and Medicare and the tax revenue Mr. Biden’s budget would collect to finance them. That the proposed tax increases on the wealthy and American businesses would do so little to close the fiscal gap in Medicare shows the futility of relying on taxes to solve the structural imbalance between spending and revenue.