WASHINGTON—The Heritage Foundation today released Budget Blueprint 2023, a comprehensive roadmap for legislators to stop their reckless spending, restore fiscal sanity, and balance the budget in 10 years.  

In an environment where American families must be careful with their finances, it would make sense for legislators in Washington to do the same with the nation’s finances. However, Americans have watched our leaders do just the opposite. 

In the last two years alone, Congress and the President have increased the national debt to more than $30 trillion with more than $6 trillion in new spending. Inflation is at 8.5%, rates not seen in four decades. This out-of-control spending and inflation are a destructive tax on Americans, jeopardizing the financial futures of millions. At the same time, the Chinese Communist Party is growing more dangerous, and we face a variety of challenges at home that threaten our future.   

The Heritage Foundation’s Budget Blueprint is the only comprehensive federal budget proposal of its kind, and offers a way out of this economic nightmare. It includes 230 specific policy reforms to roll back excessive government spending, prioritize taxpayer dollars, reform major entitlement programs to better work for Americans, restore federalism, promote opportunity for all, and protect rights and American values.  

Some of the highlights of the Budget Blueprint:  

Reverses the Growth of Government Spending and Inflation 

• Reduces inflationary government spending by $15.5 trillion during the Fiscal Year 2023 – FY 2032 period compared to current law, balancing the budget. 

• Requires the Federal Reserve to focus on maintaining stable prices and stops the Federal Reserve from printing trillions of inflationary dollars to bankroll expanding federal deficits. 

• Strengthens Social Security and modernizes Medicare. 

• Creates a fairer tax code by making the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent and preventing a tax hike, further simplifying and lowering taxes on families, allowing universal savings accounts for all Americans, indexing capital gains to inflation, and ending the Death Tax, reducing total revenues by $3.2 trillion during the FY 2023 – FY 2032 period compared to current law. 

• Implements pro-growth tax reform that cuts the harmful corporate rate to a more competitive 15 percent, makes full and immediate expensing permanent and extends neutral cost recovery to investments in structures, and eliminates dozens of distortive special interest tax breaks. 

Counters the Threat of Communist China 

• Promotes free enterprise and limited government, allowing a dynamic American economy to grow so families and communities flourish and outcompete the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party. 

• Provides important resources for America’s national security and focuses the Department of Defense on its mission to protect the homeland and the United States’ interests abroad, including responding to challenges from China. 

• Increases defense budget resources to $836 billion in FY 2023, growing to $1.049 trillion by FY 2032 to meet the needs for great power competition. 

Protects Unborn Life and Family Formation 

• Advances vital pro-life and conscience protection provisions. 

• Redirects federal funding to health centers that do not provide abortions. 

• Rolls back taxpayer funding from those that promote anti-American values such as Planned Parenthood and the United Nations Population Fund. 

• Refocuses welfare programs to promote the dignity of work and to remove marriage penalties. 

Empowers Parents to Make Education Choices 

• Winds down the federal Department of Education, eliminating unnecessary programs and transferring necessary functions to appropriate agencies. 

• Expands the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and expands school choice opportunities for Armed Services families.  

Matthew Dickerson, director of Heritage’s Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, released the following statement about the “Budget Blueprint”:   

“President Biden's budget policies are devastating American families. Inflation has hit 8.5%, a rate not seen in four decades. The economy shrank in the first half of this year, which indicates that we are in a recession. There is a massive labor shortage, with 2.9 million fewer people employed compared to the pre-pandemic rate. This has resulted in 1970s-style stagflation, with the average worker seeing their real wages fall by nearly $3,000. It is no wonder that inflation and the economy are by far the top issues on Americans’ minds. 

 

“The next Congress and the next administration must go on offense, chart a different course, and restore fiscal sanity. That is why the Heritage Foundation is releasing the Budget Blueprint. This comprehensive policy agenda provides solutions for America's most important challenges and should serve as the platform to save our country’s future.”