Biden’s Unserious Budget

President Biden’s sprawling $6.4 trillion budget released on Thursday is best viewed as a political messaging exercise. With Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, the proposal was dead even before arrival. But the annual ritual of the president delivering a budget request to Congress was a useful opportunity for Biden to stake out ground in the bitter standoff over next year’s spending levels and the raising of the debt ceiling.

Biden’s purpose is to advance the notion that our fiscal problems could be solved by a willingness to let the very...