Trump’s New Budget Cuts $2.7 TRILLION In Federal Waste!

Take a look at this, from CNN:

President Donald Trump delivered a 2020 budget to the Democratic-controlled House on Monday that cuts spending nearly across the board yet still isn't projected to balance for 15 years, even with ambitious economic growth forecasts. 

The $4.7 trillion budget proposal is dead on arrival in Congress, but it will stand as a statement of the President's priorities -- for cutting and spending alike -- and has already quickly become a lightning rod for Democratic criticism. 

Fresh off Trump's border fight with Congress, his budget blueprint calls for Congress to spend $8.6 billion more on a US-Mexico wall, proposes deep non-defense spending cuts and calls for a continued surge in defense spending. The President also wants Congress to replenish a military construction fund he plans to raid to build the border wall after he declared a national emergency.

With the 2020 campaign on the horizon, the blueprint gives Trump a chance to tout his attempt to fund conservative priorities and deliver deep cuts to domestic spending programs that would be popular with his political base. 

Alongside a 5% boost to defense spending, the plan calls for $2.7 trillion in cuts to federal spending by slashing the budgets for a host of federal departments and agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Education and State Department, among others.

Even as the proposal gives Trump a chance to stake out his political priorities, it is also opening him up to criticism for faltering on campaign promises. 

Trump made a 2016 campaign promise to eliminate the national debt while in office, but the budget proposal projects the national debt will balloon to $31 trillion in 10 years. 

And despite Trump's promise not to touch Social Security or Medicare, his latest budget proposal would reduce Medicare spending by $845 billion over 10 years.

The initial rollout lacks details on individual programs, which are anticipated to be delivered later this month. But it sets the stage for the President's priorities heading into his re-election campaign, including immigration and national security. 

In its proposal, the White House is calling for a cut to the overall level of non-defense spending by 5% next year below current federal spending caps, a nearly $30 billion reduction. It would also increase military spending by 5% to $750 billion, up from $716 billion. 

The Trump administration is using a war contingency fund as a maneuver to get around the defense budget limit, which lawmakers have already derided as a budget gimmick. 

Though the plan comes with a built-in deficit of more than $22 trillion, Trump administration officials described it as a "return to fiscal sanity" that won't hinder economic growth.

The President's proposal would expand the federal budget deficit to $1.1 trillion in the next fiscal year, while also calling for balancing the budget by 2034 by assuming the economy will be able to grow faster than most economists anticipate.

The latest budget aims to balance the budget in 15 years, rather than the traditional 10. The administration put the blame on Congress for ignoring proposed cuts last year, which has resulted in delaying when balance can be achieved. 

And from the Washington Examiner:

President Trump will unveil his fiscal 2020 budget request to Congress on Monday which calls for $2.7 trillion in spending cuts and balances in 15 years, according to the White House budget office. 

The budget from the White House is the first the president will send to a divided Congress, and the proposal is likely to face fierce opposition from the new Democrat-controlled House. But Trump’s spending plan highlights a number of his priorities, including strengthening border security to address the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, and tackling the opioid crisis. 

“In the last two, President Trump and this administration have prioritized reining in reckless Washington spending,” acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in a statement. “The budget that we have presented to Congress and the American people, ‘A Budget for a Better America,’ embodies fiscal responsibility, and takes aim at Washington’s waste, fraud, and abuse.” 

The 2020 budget, Vought added, “will balance in 15 years, end runaway spending, and secure prosperity for future generations.” 

Since Trump took office, the national debt has risen more than $2 trillion and currently stands at more than $22 trillion, a record high. But the president’s budget takes aim at government spending by calling for a 5 percent reduction in nondefense discretionary spending that will keep the budget under statutory spending caps. With the proposals included in the request for Congress, projections indicate the budget would be balanced by 2034, according to the Office of Management and Budget. 

The spending plan seeks to boost border security and immigration enforcement to address what Trump has said is a crisis at the southern border. Trump has long urged Congress to provide him with money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but had little success even when the GOP controlled both chambers. An impasse over wall funding led to a 35-day partial government shutdown that stretched from just before Christmas until the end of January. 

Despite the fervent opposition from Democrats, Trump’s fiscal 2020 budget proposal will seek an additional $8.6 billion for the border wall, according to reports. 

Pushing for additional wall funding, however, could lead to another partial government shutdown, Democratic leaders warned Sunday. 

To further address the situation at the southern border, the president’s budget calls for increases in the workforce for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, as well as policy changes to end sanctuary cities, which Trump has attempted to penalize through other actions. 

To combat the opioid epidemic, a key priority for the Trump administration, the fiscal blueprint envisions continued investments in prevention, treatment, research, and recovery. It also calls for the creation of new platforms “for delivering services to the American people” as part of the administration’s efforts to modernize the federal government.

Vox had an even more detailed breakdown:

President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled its third budget proposal Monday, cementing a vision for the United States that bolsters funding for defense and border walls, while severely cutting social programs for the nation’s poorest.

The $4.7 trillion budget proposal, which encompasses everything from funding for food aid, education, and health care to national defense, seeks to slash $845 billion from Medicare — a program Trump notably promised to leave untouched — $241 billion from Medicaid through major structural reforms, as well as a 9 percent cut across non-defense programs, all while increasing the defense budget to $750 billion, 5 percent more than the 2019 budget. 

Additionally, Trump’s administration has asked Congress for $8.6 billion for the president’s border wall, a project the president declared a national emergency over earlier this year amid the nation’s longest government shutdown in history. 

The proposal also predicts significant economic growth over the next decade — at about 3 percent annually — with the expectation that the government will continue to enact tax cuts and a deregulatory agenda. The projections are far rosier than what outside forecasters expect.

Trump’s proposal comes during a tense time in congressional budget negotiations. As Dylan Scott has explained for Vox, in the coming weeks lawmakers will have to reach a new deal over budget caps to prevent automatic spending cuts, because of a sequestration policy Barack Obama negotiated with Republicans in 2011. The federal debt ceiling — a legal cap to how much money the government can borrow — was technically breached on March 1, but the Treasury Department has been able to implement extraordinary measures to buy Congress more time.

With a Democrat-controlled House, and a number of Republican senators facing difficult reelection bids next year, the White House’s budget proposal will likely have a short lifespan in Congress.

But ahead of a 2020 election cycle, as Democratic presidential candidates continue to unveil proposals to increase taxes on the wealthy to boost the nation’s social safety net, it’s clear Trump is offering the opposite vision.

Trump’s budget wants to cut the social safety net and build a wall

Trump’s budget proposal has a clear trade-off: The White House wants to gut the nation’s social safety net to give more funding to nation’s defense programs and allow for tax cuts primarily benefiting corporations and America’s wealthiest.

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The White House is proposing cutting programs like Medicare and Social Security — that Trump campaigned on protecting — and increasing defense and border security spending.

If Trump’s budget were to be enacted, some of the biggest policy changes would include:

• $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years, implementing work requirements as well as eliminating the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The budget instead adds $1.2 trillion for a “Market Based Health Care Grant” — block grant to states, instead of paying by need. It’s not clear whether that would be part of Medicaid.
• An $845 billion cut to Medicare over 10 years, about a 10 percent cut, to be achieved through targeting wasteful spending and provider payments and lowering prescription drug costs.
• $25 billion in cuts to Social Security over 10 years, including cuts to disability insurance. 
• A $220 billion cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps, over 10 years, including mandatory work requirements. The program currently serves around 45 million people.
• A $21 billion cut to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, an already severely underfunded cash-assistance program for the nation’s poorest.
• $207 billion in cuts to the student loan program, eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and cutting subsidized student loans.
• Increases defense spending by $34 billion next year, to a $750 billion budget baseline. That makes up a 5 percent boost to defense and military spending. To keep the defense budget within current caps, the White House uses a gimmick, putting $164 billion of this budget increase in an uncapped overseas contingency (OCO) fund.
• $8.6 billion in funding for the southern border wall, separated between increased funding for the Department of Homeland Security and funding for military construction.
• Overall, there is a 9 percent cut to non-defense programs, which would hit Section 8 housing vouchers, public housing programs, Head Start, the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program, and Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, among others.

The Trump administration is proud of the proposed cuts.

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