In his 2023 budget proposal released Monday, President Joe Biden is seeking to cut the deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade while making investments toward bolstering national security, fighting crime, combatting inflation, growing the economy and preparing for infectious disease outbreaks beyond COVID-19.

The budget also makes clear that Biden is not ready to give up on many of the items on his social and climate wish list that have been stalled since his Build Back Better legislation failed to gain the traction it needed on Capitol Hill last year.

"It's my hope that Congress enacts this law this year so I can sign it and we can get to work," President Biden said in a speech Monday.

The budget includes a deficit-neutral reserve fund in anticipation of Congress passing a law that would help lower costs for families and expand production capacity. Biden wants to cut the costs of prescription drugs, health care premiums, child care, long-term care, housing and college.

The programs would be paid for, in part, by tax reforms targeting the wealthiest Americans and corporations. Individuals with more than $100 million would be required to pay at least 20% of their total income in federal taxes, while Biden would raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% — still well below the 35% it stood at before former President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress lowered it in 2017.

The White House would not say Monday if there has been any recent progress in talks on legislation for a social and climate bill. 

“The deficit-neutral reserve fund is meant to leave the space — the revenue, specifically — to allow congressional negotiators the room to do what President Biden has asked,” Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters in a call Monday morning.

But talks have remained stalled since December, with little forward movement since then. Young would not detail any further discussions, saying she did not want to get "ahead of congressional negotiations."

A president's budget can be used as a blueprint for Congress to draft legislation, but they do not have to follow his recommendations to a T. Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities in the Senate, meaning many of the president's priorities could fall out of the ultimate spending bill by the time it passes.

Biden's budget focuses on three key values, Young told reporters at a Monday afternoon briefing: Fiscal responsibility, domestic and global security and, finally, building a better America.

"The budget also makes clear that the president is committed to working with Congress to pass legislation that reduces the deficit, cuts costs for families and expands the productive capacity of our economy," she said. "These are all things we can make progress on together." 

President Biden on Monday also emphasized the budget's allocations for security, both at home and abroad.

The budget proposes $6.9 billion for international efforts to counter Russia’s assault on Ukraine and support Kyiv, as well as more than $800 billion for defense and national security.

It also includes more than $33 billion for state and local law enforcement and another $1.7 billion for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to expand its gun-trafficking strike forces. 

"This is an issue families in every part of the country face," Biden said. "The answer is not to defund our police departments. It's to fund our police and give them all the tools they need: training and foundation and partners and protectors that our communities need."

The $813.3 billion request for defense and national security, including $773 billion in spending for the Pentagon, is a roughly 4% increase from 2022. 

"This will be among one of the largest investments in our national security in history," Biden said. "Some people don't like the increase, but we're in a different world today."

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, said this Monday of Biden's military spending proposals: "At a time when we are already spending more on the military than the next 11 countries combined, no we do not need a massive increase in the defense budget."

The budget proposal also calls for "nearly $1 billion in assistance to Ukraine for State Department, USAID, and Department of Defense to counter Russian malign influence and to meet emerging needs related to security, energy, cyber security issues, disinformation, macroeconomic stabilization, and civil society resilience."

The Biden administration estimates the government is on track to reduce the budget by $1.3 trillion this year, the largest one-year drop in U.S. history. It credits Biden’s policies — namely last year’s American Rescue Plan — for the reduced deficit, as well as a 5.7% growth of the economy in 2021 and a current unemployment rate of just 3.8%. 

"This record economic and job growth has made it possible for us to responsibly and significantly cut back on emergency spending," Biden said. "We're reducing the size of the deficit relative to our economy by almost two-thirds, reducing inflationary pressures and making real headway cleaning up the fiscal mess I inherited."

It also includes investments in creating jobs, increasing affordable housing supply, boosting manufacturing and expanding maritime freight capacity to move goods faster through ports and waterways, one of the factors that have led to the highest inflation the U.S. has seen in 40 years.

On climate change, Biden’s plan calls for $3.3 billion to support clean energy projects, as well as investments in climate resilience, adaptation programs and efforts to battle wildfires.

COVID-19 itself is not a major focus in the budget. The White House only mentioned the virus a handful of times in a fact sheet about the proposal, including investments to address global health and health security challenges, prepare for future pandemics and other biological threats, and strengthen the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local public health agencies.

The White House has been warning in recent weeks that many COVID-19 response programs could be cut or dramatically scaled back if Congress does not pass an emergency funding bill soon. The Biden administration is seeking a $22.5 billion package.

Predictably, many Democrats supported Biden's budget request, while Republicans largely criticized it.

"President Biden has proposed a responsible and compassionate budget that will build a better, stronger, more secure, and more inclusive nation for decades to come - all while lowering costs for American families, creating a fairer tax code, and improving our nation’s long-term economic outlook," said House Budget Committee chairman Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky, in a statement Monday.

“President Biden is fond of saying ‘show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value,’" the panel's ranking member Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., wrote in his own statement. "What this budget shows is that President Biden values more spending, more debt, more taxes, and more pain for the American people.”