Politics

By Trevor Hunnicutt, Andrea Shalal and Nandita Bose

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled plans for government spending and higher taxes on the wealthy, choosing the swing state of Pennsylvania to reveal his playbook for an expected 2024 re-election bid.

Speaking at a Philadelphia union hall, the Democratic president challenged Republican opponents on fiscal responsibility, highlighting plans to cut U.S. deficits nearly $3 trillion over 10 years by raising taxes on those earning more than $400,000 a year.

Overall, the budget would increase federal spending in the twelve months starting in October to $6.8 trillion from the $6.2 trillion expected to be spent in the current fiscal year.

“For too long, working people been breaking their necks, the economy’s left them behind – working people like you – while those at the top get away with everything,” Biden told Pennsylvania blue-collar workers, a group he also targeted in his 2020 presidential campaign.

Biden’s budget proposal faces stiff opposition from Republican lawmakers emboldened by winning control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections. Large parts of his agenda are unlikely ever to be enacted by this Congress.

The plan, however, is a political statement that directly challenges Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s threats to block an increase in the $31.4 trillion limit on federal borrowing unless Biden agrees to rein in federal spending.

“I want to make it clear I’m ready to meet with the speaker anytime, tomorrow if he has his budget. Lay it down, tell me what you want to do. I’ll show you what I want to do, see what we can agree on,” Biden said.

McCarthy and other Republicans on Thursday described Biden’s budget plan as “reckless.”

The president seeks to fund higher spending and narrowing the deficit by imposing a 25% minimum tax on billionaires and nearly doubling the capital gains tax from 20%, the White House said.

He also wants to quadruple a 1% stock buyback tax, potentially picking a fight with some of the investors he would need to call on to finance any re-election campaign. The measures would roll back some corporate tax breaks enacted in 2017 under Republican former President Donald Trump.

Political messaging aside, the Biden budget makes clear one thing – the aging U.S. population means that legally mandated spending on social programs will continue to be a long-term drag. One in five Americans will be retirement age or older by 2030, the U.S. Census predicts.

The budget projects more than $1 trillion deficits every year over the next 10 years, even if Biden gets his requests for higher taxes and cost-cutting measures.

Total U.S. debt would rise to nearly 110% of annual gross domestic product in 2033, a figure that rivals the peaks during the country’s mobilization for World War II.

The administration based its budget on a muted, 0.6% inflation-adjusted growth forecast for the current calendar year.

It sees unemployment creeping up to 4.6% in 2024 as the Federal Reserve engineers a slowdown to fight inflation, and predicted that effort will succeed in getting consumer prices down by nearly two-thirds from current levels by next year. In each case, the assumptions closely track the projections of economists polled by Refinitiv. [EM]

REPUBLICAN PUSHBACK

“President Joe Biden’s budget is a reckless proposal doubling down on the same Far Left spending policies that have led to record inflation and our current debt crisis,” McCarthy and other Republicans said in a statement.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget advocacy group, said the budget did not go nearly far enough to rein in dangerous debt levels.

“When it comes to fixing the debt, this is by no means an award-winning budget, but the president deserves at least a participation trophy,” she said in a statement.

Republicans are already preparing $150 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary programs, including about $25 billion from the Department Education and cuts in foreign aid and programs aimed at preventing sexually transmitted diseases. They say that would save $1.5 trillion over a decade.

Biden’s proposals, meanwhile, are a sweeping endorsement of the power of the federal government to solve big problems.

He would boost military spending to stop China and Russia pushing beyond their borders, extend healthcare subsidies for the country’s aging population while funding cancer research to cut the death rate from that disease in half, support down payments for first-time homebuyers, improve rail safety after recent accidents and guarantee preschool for all the country’s four million four-year-olds.

Biden requested $886 billion in spending for national defense, a 3.2% increase over the number enacted for the 2023 fiscal year.

Aides see most of the proposals enjoying strong bipartisan support in the country, hoping they could lift the president’s low approval ratings as he gears up announce his reelection bid as soon as next month.

Biden also proposed increases in funding for crime prevention and border patrol, a nod to issues Republicans often use in barbed attacks on the administration.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan Washington think tank, said Biden deserved credit for for putting forward $3 trillion in deficit reduction.

“However, deficit reduction will ultimately need to be nearly three times that large, and it is disappointing the budget has put forward so many costly proposals,” it said. 

Josh Bivens, director of research at the progressive Economic Policy Institute, praised the measures on paid leave, climate and funding schools in high-poverty neighborhoods.

“If there’s a quibble on the tax side, it’s that it doesn’t ask enough of plenty of American households who could afford to pay more,” he wrote on Twitter.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Andrea Shalal in Washington, and Nandita Bose in Philadelphia; Additional reporting by David Morgan and Mike Stone;Editing by Heather Timmons, Alistair Bell and Deepa Babington)

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By Simon Lewis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration’s budget plan put forward on Thursday includes requests for billions of dollars of funding for the Indo-Pacific region aimed at countering China through infrastructure investments and other support for U.S. partners and allies in the region.

Acting Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources John Bass told reporters Washington’s competition with Beijing was “unusually broad and complex” and justified new forms of funding.

“Our approach towards the generational challenge posed by the PRC focuses on investing in our own domestic capabilities, aligning our efforts with those of allies and partners and competing with the PRC where interests and values differ,” Bass said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

Biden’s budget proposal already faces stiff opposition from Republican lawmakers, although party leaders generally support efforts to counter China.

The budget proposal for 2024 includes $400 million for a fund to “counter specific problematic PRC behaviors globally,” according to a State Department fact sheet.

The administration is requesting mandatory spending, in addition to traditional discretionary funding, including $2 billion to support infrastructure projects and $2 billion to strengthen Indo-Pacific economies and support partners to push back against China, Bass said.

The budget also includes funding to expand the U.S. presence in the Pacific Islands, a region where Washington is competing with growing Chinese influence, he said.

The amount of funding is likely to pale in comparison with China’s own largess overseas through the Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, but officials say U.S. efforts are focused on “high-quality” infrastructure projects and would rally private sector investment.

“We are not looking to match China dollar for dollar, in part because any number of Chinese investments… don’t make a lot of commercial sense,” Bass said.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis, Rami Ayyub and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by David Gregorio)

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By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget plan would boost federal funding for childcare and early childhood education by billions of dollars, ensuring free preschool for all of the country’s 4 million 4-year-olds, the White House said on Wednesday.

The proposal, which Biden will deliver to Congress on Thursday, revisits several items included in Biden’s 2023 budget proposal that were removed during negotiations with Congress. Prospects for passage could be even harder this year, given Republicans’ slim majority in the House of Representatives.

The White House argues that lack of access to affordable childcare is a key factor depressing women’s participation in the workforce. It cited a Boston Consulting Group forecast that U.S. economic output could drop by $290 billion a year beginning in 2030 if the U.S. does not address critical care shortages.

One recent poll showed that 55% of households experience difficulty finding childcare, with 21% citing challenges related specifically to cost, the White House said.

Administration officials said Biden would continue to push for higher spending on the nation’s “care economy,” but could also take executive action to push forward his agenda, such as last week’s Commerce Department announcement that firms seeking funds from a $52 billion U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and research program will have to share excess profits and explain how they plan to provide affordable childcare.

Biden’s budget is also expected to include an expanded child tax credit that he has pushed for years, and other measures that would help working families, administration officials said.

Biden’s 2024 proposal includes $22.1 billion for existing early care and education programs, up 10.5% from the 2023 enacted level, including $9 billion for federal block grants.

The White House said the higher level of funding – expected to total $400 billion over 10 years – would increase childcare options for 16 million more young children while lowering costs for parents.

The proposal also funds a federal-state partnership that would provide high-quality, free preschool, expanding access to all of the country’s 4-year-olds, a dramatic increase from the estimated 1.6 million children now in preschool programs.

Last year, Biden had requested funding to pay for universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, but adopted a more targeted approach this year, a White House official said.

The 2024 plan would boost funding for Head Start programs by over 9% to $13.1 billion, with more than $500 million dedicated to boost pay for Head Start teachers and staff, the White House said. Higher federal funding for preschool would reach $200 billion over 10 years, it said.

The White House is betting that childcare programs, which are very popular with the public, could help boost Biden’s approval ratings. The president is expected to announce his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race this spring.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to the swing-state of Pennsylvania on Thursday to unveil a federal budget plan laden with spending proposals and higher taxes on the wealthy that will form a blueprint for his expected 2024 re-election bid.

Biden’s proposal, which resurrects many items stripped from last year’s budget plan, faces even stiffer opposition in Congress this year, after Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections.

It comes in direct defiance of Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s threat to block an increase in the $31.4 trillion limit on federal borrowing unless Biden agrees to rein in federal spending.

Speaking at a Philadelphia union hall, the Democratic president will highlight plans to cut the nation’s deficit by nearly $3 trillion over 10 years by raising taxes on those earning more than $400,000 a year and ending corporate tax breaks enacted in 2017 under then President Donald Trump.

A White House official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, contrasted Biden’s vision with that of Republicans, saying the budget would reduce the U.S. deficit while lowering costs for families.

It also proposes raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, the official said, and “tackles wasteful special interest giveaways.”

Biden’s budget plan proposes funding higher outlays and closing the deficit by imposing a 25% minimum tax on billionaires and doubling the capital gains tax from 20%, the White House official said. Biden has also said the budget will propose quadrupling a 1% stock buyback tax, while going after corporations and rich individuals who skip paying taxes.

Biden, will promise to protect those earning less than $400,000 a year from tax increases and safeguard Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. At the same time, he will offer relief to working families by investing billions to ease the cost of childcare and ensure free preschool for all of the country’s 4 million 4-year-olds, and promises to increase rail safety.

White House officials say that lowering the cost of childcare will boost the economy and allow more women to return to work. Such proposals also enjoy strong support and could help boost Biden’s low approval ratings as he gears up announce his reelection bid this spring.

Republicans say Biden’s spending during his first two years in office drove inflation to nearly 40-year highs last summer and are already readying $150 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary programs – including about $25 billion from the Department Education and cuts in foreign aid and programs aimed at preventing sexually transmitted diseases – that they say would save $1.5 trillion over a decade.

Is there common ground? “Very little, very little,” Republican Representative Ben Cline told Reuters. “He doesn’t want to cut any spending, he just wants to raise taxes.”

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Trevor Hunnicutt, additional reporting by David Morgan, editing by Robert Birsel)

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By Trevor Hunnicutt and Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House said on Wednesday that Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson “is not credible,” after the right-wing commentator showed footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol that portrayed rioters as peaceful.

“We agree with the chief of the Capitol Police and the wide range of bipartisan lawmakers who have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our Constitution and the rule of law – which cost police officers their lives,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

“We also agree with what Fox News’s own attorneys and executives have now repeatedly stressed in multiple courts of law: that Tucker Carlson is not credible,” Bates added.

The Biden White House has tread carefully in its criticism of Fox’s coverage of the 2020 election and its aftermath in the past, sometimes citing the Hatch Act that prevents administration officials from speaking about campaign-related matters.

Carlson has defended his decision to run the footage, saying it was needed for transparency.

“Anyone could look at the tape and decide what he or she thinks of it,” he wrote in a piece on the Fox News website late on Tuesday. 

In Monday’s coverage, Carlson argued that only a small number of those who illegally entered the Capitol as Congress was attempting to formally certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win were “hooligans,” and said the overwhelming majority were not.

“They were peaceful, they were orderly and meek. These were not insurrectionists, they were sightseers,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday accused House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy of helping Fox News stoke conspiracy theories by providing the videos used by the cable network to depict the rioters as peaceful.

McCarthy said he had no regrets about his decision to release the footage, adding that it was done in the interests of transparency.

A Fox News spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was certifying the outcome of the 2020 elections.

Five people including a police officer died during or shortly after the riot and more than 140 police officers were injured. Then-Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and staff ran for their lives amid the chaos.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Kanishka Singh in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House said on Wednesday that Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson “is not credible,” after the right-wing commentator showed footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol that portrayed rioters as peaceful.

“We agree with the chief of the Capitol Police and the wide range of bipartisan lawmakers who have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our Constitution and the rule of law – which cost police officers their lives,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

“We also agree with what Fox News’s own attorneys and executives have now repeatedly stressed in multiple courts of law: that Tucker Carlson is not credible,” Bates added.

The Biden White House has tread carefully in its criticism of Fox’s coverage of the 2020 election and its aftermath in the past, sometimes citing the Hatch Act that prevents administration officials from speaking about campaign-related matters.

Carlson has defended his decision to run the footage, saying it was needed for transparency.

“Anyone could look at the tape and decide what he or she thinks of it,” he wrote in a piece on the Fox News website late on Tuesday.

In Monday’s coverage, Carlson argued that only a small number of those who illegally entered the Capitol as Congress was attempting to formally certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win were “hooligans,” and said the overwhelming majority were not.

“They were peaceful, they were orderly and meek. These were not insurrectionists, they were sightseers,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday accused House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy of helping Fox News stoke conspiracy theories by providing the videos used by the cable network to depict the rioters as peaceful.

McCarthy said he had no regrets about his decision to release the footage, adding that it was done in the interests of transparency.

A Fox News spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was certifying the outcome of the 2020 elections.

Five people including a police officer died during or shortly after the riot and more than 140 police officers were injured. Then-Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and staff ran for their lives amid the chaos.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Kanishka Singh in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

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The White House has consistently called into question Republicans’ commitment to what it considers a sustainable federal budget. Administration officials have noted that the various tax plans and other policies previously backed by GOP lawmakers would add more than $2.7 trillion to the national debt over 10 years.

Biden intends to discuss his budget proposal on Thursday in Philadelphia. The official familiar with Biden’s budget plan was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter before the president’s official announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity on Wednesday. The official said Biden also will propose cutting government spending that goes to major pharmaceutical and oil companies.

Biden’s package of spending priorities is unlikely to pass the House or Senate as proposed. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday that the plan “will not see the light of day,” a sign that it might primarily serve as a messaging document going into the 2024 elections.

The president contended in a Monday speech that there are 680 billionaires in the United States and that many of them pay taxes at a lower rate than do families who think of themselves as being in the middle class. Biden said not to hold him to the precise number of billionaires, but that they could afford to pay more for the good of the country.

“No billionaire should be paying a lower tax rate than a fire fighter — nobody,” Biden said at a gathering of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

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By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When U.S. President Joe Biden rolls out his budget plans at a Philadelphia union hall on Thursday, he will highlight something that merited little mention during his last presidential campaign – a pledge to cut trillions from the government’s deficit.

Biden ran in 2020 on putting money in people’s pockets and rebuilding the middle class, and the U.S. federal deficit wasn’t on a long list of campaign promises. But on Thursday, cutting nearly $3 trillion from the deficit over a decade, by raising taxes on companies and people earning over $400,000 a year, will be a topline goal, according to an administration official.

Biden’s increasing emphasis on the deficit now doesn’t mean the White House sees an imminent crisis looming from the nation’s $32 trillion debt.

Instead, the White House hopes to draw a sharp contrast with Republican threats to refuse to raise the debt limit without sharp spending cuts. Including this fiscal plan in Biden’s agenda can help shore up his economic credibility before his expected 2024 re-election campaign, the White House believes.

Taxing the rich and companies while maintaining Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid has widespread popular support, polls show. Hiking these taxes can help fix bedrock problems in the U.S. economy, Biden aides say.

“We have a fundamental problem with our tax system, which does not support the kinds of investments and commitments that the American people demand and want and expect. And that’s largely because Republicans kept cutting taxes over and over again, primarily for people at the top and for big corporations,” said Michael Linden, executive associate director at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

That doesn’t mean that what the White House is proposing is going to happen, of course. Congress’s lower chamber is controlled by Republicans who have said they want to demand sharp cuts on spending on Biden’s initiatives, and extend tax breaks passed under Donald Trump. And while Americans tell pollsters they want higher taxes on the rich, hiking taxes is never a politically savvy move.

“In 2023 and 2024, it is hard to see how any of the administration’s progressive tax proposals get done, but after 2025 is a different story if Democrats manage to get unified control of Congress back,” said Tobin Marcus, a former Biden economic aide and now an analyst for Evercore ISI, an investment bank.

DO AMERICANS CARE ABOUT THE NATIONAL DEBT?

The U.S. annual deficit was 5.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) last year, and the total debt stood above 120% of GDP, higher even than its levels at World War II peak.

Federal Debt to GDP by President https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-ECONOMY/RECESSION/byvrlqngxve/

The federal government last turned an annual surplus, which is used to pay down the long-term debt, in 2001, and Democratic presidents have been consistently better at reducing the deficit.

Federal Spending Contribution to GDP https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-ECONOMY/FISCAL/akpeqarqwpr/

Nearly six in ten people told Pew Research Center in January that reducing the deficit should be a top Biden administration priority. But when asked whether the government should mostly cut services to lower the debt or increase taxes, Americans are closely divided. Half said they would mostly cut spending, while 46% would increase taxes, according to a Marist poll last month.

Biden’s administration has treated the risk of deficits as more sanguine than was common among Democrats in years prior.

“There has been a sea change in attitudes,” said Jason Furman, a Harvard University economics professor who was former President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser. It has less to do with shifting economic thought than finance, he said. “The bond markets aren’t very worried about debt and deficits.”

Robert Reich, a former labor secretary during President Bill Clinton’s administration, said he did not believe the administration’s top economic officials he has worked with are “deficit hawks.”

He said many had learned from the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, when the U.S. government didn’t spend enough to restore the economy, and made no apologies about spending freely to prevent the same thing from happening in 2021.

“It was also extremely important to get out of the pandemic recession,” he said.

Biden aides believe deficits matter as a fiscal risk to the degree that they create unsustainable interest payments, discourage private sector spending and other investment, or distort the economy by increasing inflation.

None of those are factors now when U.S. 10-year Treasury rates are below 4%, still low by historical standards.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Heather Timmons)

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By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – Battles over abortion are heating up in state capitols across the United States as lawmakers wrestle with how much to restrict or expand access after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

Here is a snapshot of state legislation seeking to restrict or protect abortion access in 2023.

RESTRICTIONS

FLORIDA: Republican lawmakers in Florida on Tuesday introduced a six-week abortion ban, which includes exceptions for rape and incest but does not make explicit exceptions for the life and health of the mother. Governor Ron DeSantis has said he would sign a six-week ban if passed by the state’s Republican-dominated legislature. Meanwhile, a 15-week ban is in effect and is being challenged in court.

KANSAS: Although Kansans voted in favor of state abortion rights on a ballot measure last year, the Republican-led Senate has passed a prohibition on prescribing abortion pills via telemedicine. The House is considering the measure.

IDAHO: Lawmakers in Idaho have introduced legislation that would make it illegal to help a minor get an abortion in another state without the permission of a parent or guardian. Offenders would face two to five years in prison. The Republican-led state is currently enforcing a total abortion ban. 

MONTANA: The Republican-led state Senate has passed a bill seeking to overturn a 1999 state supreme court ruling that found that the state constitution protected a right to abortion. That ruling has prevented lawmakers in the conservative state from restricting abortion further than the current 24-week limit. The bill will next be considered by the House.

The House on Friday passed legislation seeking to ban abortion after 12 weeks and is also considering a bill this year that would limit abortion access for Medicaid patients.

NEBRASKA: Republicans in Nebraska’s 50-seat unicameral legislature have introduced a six-week abortion ban, which looks likely to pass due to the conservative makeup of its members. Abortion is currently legal in the state up to 22 weeks.

NORTH DAKOTA: The state supreme court is due to rule on a challenge to a trigger ban – a total abortion ban that immediately went into effect when Roe was overturned – but which has since been blocked while the case proceeds. In the meantime, Republican lawmakers are moving a bill to allow abortions for rape and incest cases before six weeks’ gestation, intending to clarify the ban.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Despite the fact that the state supreme court recently struck down a six-week abortion ban in a 3-2 vote, Republicans have introduced a near-total abortion ban and a six-week ban this year. Both bills have passed one chamber; the Senate has passed the six-week ban, which includes some exceptions, and the House has passed the near-total ban.

TEXAS: While abortion is completely banned with very limited exceptions in Texas, Republican state representatives have introduced legislation that would compel internet providers to block websites that supply abortion pills or provide information on how to obtain an abortion.

UTAH: The legislature passed a bill this month that would prohibit the licensing of abortion clinics, which abortion rights advocates say would effectively eliminate access in the state. The measure now heads to Republican Governor Spencer Cox for signing. Abortion is currently banned after 18 weeks in the state.

WYOMING: The Republican-led legislature passed a bill this month banning the use or prescription of medication abortion pills, and the bill now heads to Republican Governor Mark Gordon. Abortion is legal until viability, about 24 weeks, while a state court is reviewing a challenge to a near-total trigger ban.

WEST VIRGINIA: Republican state senators have introduced a bill to remove the rape and incest exceptions from the state’s near-total abortion ban, which is currently in effect.

PROTECTIONS

MICHIGAN: The Democratic-led House has passed a bill to repeal a nearly century-old law on the books that bans abortion. It is expected to also pass the Democratic-led Senate.

ILLINOIS: Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker in January signed a law protecting abortion providers and out-of-state patients from legal attacks waged by other states.

MINNESOTA: Democratic Governor Tim Walz in January signed legislation passed by the Minnesota legislature’s new Democratic majority that codifies abortion rights in state law, as well as a right to contraception and fertility treatment. House Democrats have introduced a bill to shield abortion providers and patients from other states’ legal attacks.

OHIO: The attorney general this month certified a petition to put a constitutional amendment on the November 2023 ballot that would assert a right to abortion. The ballot proposal next heads to the Ohio Ballot Board for consideration.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Matthew Lewis)

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By Gabriella Borter and Joseph Ax

(Reuters) -Republican lawmakers in Florida filed bills on Tuesday to outlaw most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a ban that would severely undercut access to the procedure in the U.S. South if passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature.

The bills, filed on the opening day of the legislature’s 2023 regular session, make exceptions for rape and incest cases but not explicitly for the life or health of the pregnant person.

Florida Republicans, including Governor Ron DeSantis, have signaled their wish to further curtail abortions in the state after last year approving a ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Patients have been traveling to Florida from across the U.S. Southeast to end their pregnancies since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, gutting federal abortion rights. More than a dozen states have banned the procedure almost entirely since that landmark ruling.

Data from Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration showed that the number of out-of-state abortion patients rose 38% in 2022 compared to 2021.

DeSantis, who is expected to challenge former President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, told reporters on Tuesday that he supported “pro-life legislation” when asked about the new bills. He has previously said he would sign an abortion ban as early as six weeks.

DeSantis said he thought the rape and incest exceptions in the bills were “sensible.”

Abortion rights advocates and Democrats, including White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre, spoke out on Tuesday against the new bills, which would ban abortion before many women know they are pregnant.

“As with all abortion bans, this bill will prevent people from accessing essential healthcare and take away people’s power over their own bodies, their lives, and their futures,” Laura Goodhue, executive director of Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter and Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Richard Chang)

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