Biden wants to hit billionaires like Elon Musk with a new tax on their fortunes. But his budget plan actually pivots to the center.

• The Biden budget contained a new billionaire tax meant to hit the fortunes of the super-rich.
• But much of the plan pivoted to the center with a new emphasis on cutting the deficit.

President Joe Biden rolled out a $5.8 trillion budget proposal on Monday that contained fresh taxes on the wealthiest Americans alongside new boosts to defense and domestic spending.

The largely symbolic document included a new tax proposal that would levy a 20% minimum income tax on households with assets worth $100 million or more. Billionaires like Tesla CEO Elon Musk would owe up to $50 billion to the federal government over ten years, per one estimate.

But other parts of the budget represented a step towards the political center. Biden and other White House officials spent much of the day emphasizing that the plan would ultimately reduce the deficit, or the gap between what the federal government spends and what it collects in tax revenue.

Part of it at least seems designed to win over centrists like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He's consistently mentioned reducing the national debt as a priority of his.

"The budget I'm releasing today sends a clear message to the American people that we've what we value first, fiscal responsibility," he said at a brief news conference outlining his budget plan. "Second, safety and security and thirdly, the investments needed to build a better America."

—President Biden (@POTUS) March 28, 2022

He also swiped at former President Donald Trump for "mismanagement" of the economy and swelling the deficit while he was in office. Much of the deficit reduction that Biden touted is the result of expiring federal COVID-19 aid that was never meant to be permanent.

With the midterms approaching, Republicans are hammering Biden. "What this budget shows is that President Biden values more spending, more debt, more taxes, and more pain for the American people," Rep. Jason Smith, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement.

Still, some budget experts said that the spending proposal would devote a large chunk of funding — approximately $1.5 trillion — to reducing the deficit.

"It's certainly a more fiscally responsible budget than last year," Marc Goldwein, senior policy at the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told Insider. By comparison, the White House budget plan last year would have grown the deficit by $1.4 trillion over a decade.

The spending blueprint included sizable increases to defense spending. The White House is seeking over $800 billion in new Pentagon spending, a ten percent increase from fiscal year 2021. They're also seeking to step up funding for police departments with $32 billion in new spending.

Some progressives are already pushing back on the substantial military spending that the Biden administration is seeking. "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," Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said in a statement.