Biden budget includes $4.7 billion emergency fund to use if there's a migrant surge and keeps 34,000 beds in immigration detention facilities

President Joe Biden's budget proposal includes a new $4.7 billion emergency border fund to use if there's a migrant surge at the border.

It also funds more border agents, offers improved technology, and keeps the number of beds in detention facilities at 34,000.

The new fund can only be tapped on an as-needed basis when the number of undocumented migrants crossing the southern border tops a certain threshold, which has not been specified.

President Biden's $7.3 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 includes $11.8 billion in border spending - above U.S. Border Patrol agents search migrants before transporting the group to a processing center

The president presented his $7.3 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 on Monday. Overall it includes $11.8 billion in border spending.

Biden's budget plan is unlikely to pass the Republican controlled House but it serves as an important blueprint for the president's policy agenda as he runs for a second term in the White House.

Immigration and border security have become a top political issue. 

Republicans on Capitol Hill have already refused to fund Biden's $13.6 billion emergency supplemental request to increase border security.

They say it doesn't do enough. Biden counters they only oppose it because Donald Trump, his 2024 Republican rival, does. The Trump team sees the border as a successful issue to use against the incumbent president. 

Biden's plan includes $405 million to hire 1,300 additional Border Patrol Agents; $239 million to hire 1,000 additional U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers to stop fentanyl and other contraband from entering the United States; and $755 million to hire an additional 1,600 Asylum Officers and support staff to facilitate timely immigration dispositions.  

His budget also includes shifts in his own policy. Previously Biden had asked Congress to cut the number of detention beds from 34,000 to 25,000. 

Lawmakers have been resistant, however, and now Biden is leaving the number at it is.

In December, border crossings reached an all-time high. The Border Patrol had 249,785 arrests that month, up 31% from 191,112 in November and up 13% from 222,018 in December 2022, the previous all-time high. 

U.S. Border Patrol agents prepare migrants for transport to a processing facility at a remote section of the U.S.-Mexico border near Arizona

President Joe Biden's budget is unlikely to pass Congress but will serve as an important policy blueprint in the 2024 election

Among Biden's budget proposals: the deficit would be  reduced by $3 trillion over a decade, homebuyers would get a tax credit of $9,600, and parents would get a child tax credit. 

The proposal provides about $900 billion for defense in fiscal 2025, about $16 billion more than the baseline.  

It includes a 4.5% pay increase for members of the military but it does not include support to Ukraine, which requires Congress to to pass the national security supplemental request.

Biden's plan also asks Congress to apply his $2,000 cap on drug costs and $35 insulin to everyone, not just people who have Medicare. And he wants Medicare to have the ability to negotiate prices on 500 prescription drugs, which could save $200 billion over 10 years. 

The White House plans to pay for its ambition agenda - which includes $3 billion for climate change resilience - by imposing about $5 trillion in new taxes on corporations and the wealthy over a decade. 

The president's plan would raise taxes by a net total of $4.9 trillion, or more than 7% above what the U.S. would collect. Meanwhile, Americans earning less than $400,000 a year would get tax cuts totaling $750 billion. And those earning above $400,000 a year would see increased taxes on the wages, investment gains and self-employment income.

'We can do all of our investments by asking those in the top 1 and 2 percent to pay more into the system,' Shalanda Young, the director of the White House Budget Office, said on a briefing call with reporters.

Biden's plan is unlikely to become law given Republicans' control of the House but it will serve as important message to voters as he seeks to reassure them about his stewardship of the economy and his plans to lower the deficit.

It will also serve as a contrast between his vision for the country and that of his rival Donald Trump. 

Other items in the budget:

• $2.1 billion for weather satellites to maintain the existing fleet of satellites critical for extreme weather forecasts and invest in next generation systems that would provide more accurate forecasts to combat the more powerful and frequent storms and extreme weather caused by climate change
• $2.9 billion for the Secret Service, which includes $70 million for security related to the 2024 Presidential Campaign and inauguration and $16 million to begin security preparations for the 2026 World Cup
• $7.8 billion for the Artemis program, which would bring astronauts - including the first women, first people of color, and first international astronauts - to the lunar surface as part of a long-term journey of science and exploration
• It also offers universal prekindergarten education to all four million 4-year-olds in America and give states the 'flexibility' to later expand preschool to 3-year-olds
• Provides 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.
• The president pushes to shore up the Social Security fund but doesn't offer specifics. 

He also targets the wealthy. 

His plan would raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent. 

Biden also proposes a new minimum tax on large corporations and quadrupling a tax on stock buybacks with the goal of raising more revenue from big businesses and the wealthy to pay down the country's debt.

During the last three years, the national debt has risen from $27.8 trillion to $34.4 trillion.

The budget builds on what Biden outlined in his State of the Union address last week. And this week he'll hit the road, traveling to three battleground states - New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan - to sell his plan. 

Biden's budget includes a 25% tax on billionaires like Jeff Bezos  - seen above with Lauren Sanchez at the 2024 Vanity Fair Oscar Party

Voters have repeatedly given Biden the thumb's down on his handling of the economy. An NBC News poll last month found voters trust Trump more on economic matters by 20 points. 

And a CBS/YouGov poll in February found that 55 percent said Biden's policies would make prices more expensive while only 34 percent said that of Trump's policies. 

His budget seeks to reassure a nervous electorate. Its proposals are designed to appeal to the middle class, parents, students and those against climate change.

Biden will paint Trump as the opposite - in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy.

'No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a teacher, a sanitation worker, a nurse,' he said in his State of the Union address last week. 

'Do you really think the wealthy and big corporations need another $2 trillion in tax breaks? I sure don't. I'm going to keep fighting like hell to make it fair!' he noted. 

House Republicans have passed their own budget proposal that would massively cut government spending, undo the Inflation Reducation Act and kill the Affordable Healthcare Plan.

And, just as Biden won't sign the Republican budget into law, they won't pass his on Capitol Hill. 

Speaker Mike Johnson said the president's budget is 'yet another glaring reminder of this administration's insatiable appetite for reckless spending and the Democrats' disregard for fiscal responsibility' that is 'a roadmap to accelerate America's decline.' 

Meanwhile, Congress is still trying to fund the government for this year.  

 On Saturday, Biden signed into law a $460 billion package to avoid a shutdown of several federal agencies, but lawmakers are only about halfway through addressing spending for this fiscal year.