The U.S. administration of President Joe Biden on Friday released a $6 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2022 as it pitches massive investment plans to rebuild infrastructure and position the country to better compete with China.

The budget for the year starting Oct. 1 earmarked $715 billion for the Defense Department, including $5.09 billion to enact an initiative to bolster deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region facing China's assertiveness, and plans to procure 85 F-35 fighter jets.

"China poses the greatest long-term challenge to the United States," the Pentagon said in its budget overview, adding that Beijing's military modernization activities in recent decades have "sought to erode the ability of U.S. forces to project power in the region."

"If left unimpeded, this continued erosion could fundamentally challenge our ability to achieve U.S. defense objectives and to defend the sovereignty of our allies," it said.

The budget request for the Defense Department represented a 1.6 percent rise over the fiscal 2021 enacted level.

While the increase is slightly less than the anticipated rate of inflation for fiscal 2022, the funding level will enable investments in key deterrent capabilities and the reallocation of resources to research and development in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, hypersonic missiles and 5G wireless networks, the Pentagon said.

As part of the so-called Pacific Deterrence Initiative, the Pentagon will seek increased investment in hypersonic capabilities and land-based conventional fires capabilities with ranges exceeding the 500-kilometer limit previously imposed by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, from which the United States withdrew in 2019.

In total, the Defense Department is investing over $66 billion in the Indo-Pacific region for fiscal 2022, including what is highlighted in the initiative, the Pentagon said.

The president's budget request, which seeks $6.01 trillion in total outlays, reflected his $2.3 trillion infrastructure investment proposal and $1.8 trillion education and child care investment plan -- the former spanning eight years and the latter 10 years.

"Together, these plans reinvest in the future of the American economy and American workers and would help the nation out-compete China and other countries around the world," the White House said in a document explaining the budget request.

The Biden administration has said the massive investments will be paid for by raising taxes on corporations and wealthy households.

The budget request document showed spending ballooning to a record $7.25 trillion in fiscal 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic and rising as high as $8.21 trillion in fiscal 2031.

The country's deficit, meanwhile, is expected to total $14.53 trillion during the 10 years through fiscal 2031, the document showed.