The fiscal 2023 budget plan President Biden released Monday would allocate billions of dollars in election security grants and nearly double the budget for the Election Assistance Commission, which administers such grants.
White House budget proposals do not define future spending but rather serve as a reflection of the administration’s values. With election reform bills stalled in Congress, Biden is now pushing to invest in election administration and security through the agency designed to provide resources to the states.
The EAC, which was created in 2002 under the Help America Vote Act, provides voluntary guidance to states on how to follow the limited election administration requirements established by federal law. It also certifies election equipment and administers election-related grants.
Biden’s budget calls for $10 billion in election security grants, to be allocated over a 10-year period “to support critical state and local election infrastructure.”
The money can be spent on HAVA-related programs “such as upgrades to registration databases, voting systems, and physical structures; support recruitment, training, and retention of election workers; improve physical and cyber security; and improve voters' access to reliable elections.”
In early December, conservative think tanks wrote to congressional leaders requesting significant investment in election security at the state and local levels. And later that month, 14 state election officials called on the administration to spend $20 billion over 10 years for election equipment, training, security and facilities.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life had echoed that funding request, and while its leaders still believe more is needed, they celebrated Biden’s proposal.
“Our recent polling shows bipartisan support for federal funding for local election officials. President Biden is showing leadership and making the case that we must invest in state and local election departments. He’s right and Congress should follow suit,” said Tiana Epps-Johnson, executive director of CTCL.
Congress has appropriated funds for HAVA spending three times previously: $380 million in 2018 and $425 million in 2020, but just $75 million this year.
In addition, the Biden budget would establish $250 million in election innovation grants. State and local governments would compete for the money, to be spent on projects that improve the administration of federal elections.
“Eligible uses of funding will include capital investment to accelerate modernization of secure voting systems, efforts to expand voter access, including vote-by-mail, voter education, language proficiency, usability, voter technology, and other initiatives to enhance and secure administration of Federal elections that do not meaningfully impair access,” according to the budget proposal.
Biden proposed nearly doubling the EAC budget, from $16 million to $30 million. That includes increased compensation for full-time personnel from $5 million to $8 million.
Election administration and security have been major issues at the heart of the ongoing politicization of the 2020 election. Republicans continue to claim Donald Trump was robbed of a second term by people committing election crimes (even though there is no evidence of widespread fraud) and Democrats argue that GOP legislators are attempting to stifle voting rights of minority voters heading into the 2022 midterm elections.
The president is also asking Congress to provide a 15 percent increase for the Federal Election Commission. While the FEC is responsible for enforcing federal election laws (among other tasks), it rarely takes action thanks to the polarization among its commissioners.
The White House, through its agencies, spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually to promote and defend democracy abroad. Biden has requested keeping those expenditure lines — the Democracy Fund ($290 million) and the National Endowment for Democracy ($300 million) — flat next year.
A bipartisan bill has been proposed in the House of Representatives to establish similar funding for grants to improve democracy at home. The Building Civic Bridges Act would task AmeriCorps with administering grants to increase civic engagement and decrease polarization.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.