Voters Mostly Support Biden’s 2024 Budget Proposal

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President Joe Biden last week released a $6.9 trillion budget that seeks to unleash about $5 trillion in tax hikes on high earners and corporations, resurrect many of his abandoned Build Back Better priorities and reduce the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the course of 10 years.

The pie-in-the-sky fiscal 2024 budget has already been deemed dead on arrival by congressional Republicans, but Biden’s plan will likely serve as a starting point for negotiations with House GOP leadership — which hasn’t yet presented a budget plan — as the clock ticks on the looming debt ceiling crisis.

A Morning Consult survey conducted in the days after the plan’s unveiling found majority approval among voters for nearly every provision. As negotiations kick into gear over the coming weeks, the survey suggests that Democrats would be wise to highlight Biden’s health care proposals — and call attention to the deficit-reduction elements.

Advocates hope 2024 is the year Washington finally moves forward on family and child support measures

Advocates for family-friendly policies like guaranteed paid leave and child care are gearing up to push lawmakers on these measures in the 2024 budget debate. Groups including New America and Child Care Aware have already begun to publish recommendations, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said she would be working specifically to make the Child Tax Credit permanent.

Such policies have received bipartisan voter support over the past years, but have yet to make it across the finish line in Washington — the Child Tax Credit was dropped from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act last year despite strong support among Democrats and support from more than 2 in 5 Republican voters. Reinstating the credit has seen steady support among voters over the past months: 58% of voters said they supported the measure in the new survey, while 59% of voters in an August 2022 survey said they backed a renewal of the CTC. 

The Biden administration may also be wise to drive home a federal paid leave policy in an effort to appease workers who are willing to act on the matter; late in 2022, unionized rail workers threatened to upend U.S. supply chains with a strike as rail companies and workers battled over paid sick time. 

And although Americans have positive views of the value of community colleges, Biden’s plan to provide funding to support free community college attendance had a lukewarm reception among voters. Support was especially bleak among Republicans voters, at just 34%. The $500 million in initial funding toward a grant program to pay for two years of community college tuition for programs that lead to a four-year degree or “good-paying jobs” is meant to restart the Biden administration’s goal of instituting free community college education.

Capping costs of insulin and certain drugs received the most support among Biden’s health proposals

The White House centered its budget proposal on top health care priorities, several of which build on the Inflation Reduction Act, including expanding Medicare’s drug negotiation powers, extending Affordable Care Act subsidies and capping monthly insulin costs at $35 for all Americans. The majority of the public backed every aspect of what could be building blocks for Biden’s potential 2024 campaign platform.

At least 3 in 5 registered voters said they support the health provisions surveyed, with support across each political party for most proposals, according to the Morning Consult survey. Roughly 3 in 4 voters supported capping insulin costs at $35 a month, including 83% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans. The White House revived the provision after it failed to pass as part of the IRA, instead passing as a cap only for Medicare beneficiaries.

Reducing insulin costs has recently become a popular topic: Novo Nordisk A/S and Eli Lilly & Co. said they would significantly cut prices for certain insulin products, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced legislation to prohibit manufacturers from raising insulin prices above $20 per vial.

Another top Biden health priority is expanding Medicare’s drug price negotiation powers, a popular provision of the IRA. The administration is selling the expansion of negotiating power and a tax increase on incomes above $400,000 as ways to keep the Medicare program solvent for at least 25 years. Roughly 2 in 3 voters said they support the proposal, with 4 in 5 Democrats and half of Republicans backing the changes.

The budget also proposes permanently extending ACA subsidies that the IRA kept in effect through 2025 and allowing states that have not expanded Medicaid to offer “Medicaid-like” coverage” to individuals. Nearly 2 in 3 voters back the proposal, though it had the starkest partisan divide among health provisions, as 83% of Democrats said they support the plan, compared with 46% of Republicans.

Voters support climate provisions, including resilience funding, climate change investments

The bulk of climate-related funding in Biden’s budget proposal includes $24 billion for climate resilience and conservation, with the money aiming to help communities combat climate change disasters like floods, wildfires, storms, extreme heat and drought. 

Roughly 3 in 5 voters support that funding, according to the survey, including 78% of Democrats and 58% of independents. Meanwhile, 45% of Republicans back the provision, indicating potential for some bipartisan support for the funding. 

That provision, however, and other climate measures like the $1.8 billion earmarked for environmental justice initiatives, is likely to set up a battle with House Republicans that believe the $369 billion in climate and clean energy funding allocated by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act has already provided too much money. 

On the green energy side, 3 in 5 voters also support investments to help address climate change, such as measures to create clean-energy jobs, fund climate research and strengthen communities affected by natural disasters. Biden’s budget includes $16.5 billion for climate science and clean energy innovation, $6.5 billion for energy storage and transmission projects, and $4.5 billion for clean energy infrastructure jobs. 

Half of voters also back investments that support Biden’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 52% by the end of this decade.

About half of voters support investments in tech innovation and research

The Biden budget includes $210 billion for federal research and development, which the White House called “an historic level of investment in American science, technology and innovation.”

It also sets aside $21 billion in discretionary spending for activity related to the CHIPS and Science Act, which seeks to boost semiconductor research, development and production within the United States. Another $4 billion in spending is set to go toward funding the Regional Technology and Innovation Hub Program at the Economic Development Administration, which will establish tech hubs that will focus on creating new jobs within emerging tech sectors.

Nearly half of registered voters (49%) support Biden’s proposed investment in innovation and research into areas like artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors. Democrats view the spending more favorably, with nearly 2 in 3 supporting the proposed investments. By comparison, just 1 in 3 Republicans back the spending on the tech sector.

The March 11-12, 2023, survey was conducted among a representative sample of roughly 1,000 registered voters, with an unweighted margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.