Poor and disabled big losers in Trump budget; military wins

There were photo-ops and a public push from the administration to tout its plan as evidence it is doing what the billionaire businessman turned reality star said he would do during the 2016 campaign: Slash federal programs and balance the budget.

Trump would keep campaign pledges to leave core Medicare and Social Security benefits for the elderly alone, but that would translate into even deeper cuts in programs for the poor such as Medicaid and food stamps.

Defense spending and border security would get significant boosts. Trump’s plan, drawn up by White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, lands as Trump’s GOP allies in Congress are grappling with repealing and replacing former President Barack Obama’s health care law and looking ahead to a hard rewrite of the loophole-clogged USA tax code.

New Mexico has the nation’s largest percentage of young children receiving food stamps, with almost half of children ages 4 and under participating in the program, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. In 2008, there were 28 million recipients.

“ARC is very much needed”, Manchin said.

MULVANEY: We need folks to work.

MULVANEY, head of the Office of Management and Budget: “I went back and looked at some of the economic assumptions that the Obama administration made in its first couple of years. We need everybody pulling in the same direction”.

“Through streamlined government, we will drive an economic boom that raises incomes and expands job opportunities for all Americans”, Trump said in his budget message.

“We are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs or the number of people on those programs, but the number of people we help get off of those programs”, he said, arguing that it is actually compassionate to cut government spending on inefficient programs. It is possible that the Republican-led Congress will give Trump all or some of what he wants for the wall, but the issue is extremely unpopular among many Democrats and a bruising fight can be expected.

The idea that the tax cuts would pay for anything already was criticized. In states that reinstated the limit, such as Kansas and ME, many of those who had their benefits stopped were still not working a year later. The administration, for example, projects an average growth rate of 3 per cent over the coming decade while the Federal Reserve and the Congressional Budget Office estimate the average growth rate will be less than 2 percent.

All of this, of course, is merely a proposal for Congress to consider, and by all indications, Congress is inclined to reject much of it.

He asked for money for 500 new Border Patrol agents and 1,000 new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers to work the country’s interior.

Engel said he would work with Republican lawmakers – some of whom also oppose the cuts – to maintain funding levels as best as possible. Certain school grants would be handcuffed, University of California research would be curtailed and reimbursements ended for the state’s incarceration of law-breaking unauthorized immigrants.

Mulvaney said it’s unfair to use taxpayer money to provide payments to those working in the country illegally.

Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, who chairs the Agriculture Committee in the Senate, said cuts to crop-insurance were a no-go.

The budget also calls for a 15 percent, or $7.4 billion reduction, in housing and community development assistance. The new program has been championed by Trump’s daughter, Ivanka.

The plan would also sell off half of the nation’s emergency oil stockpile to raise $16.5 billion and open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling to raise $1.8 billion. “While nowhere near ideal or the final product that will be crafted by Congress, President Trump’s proposal forces a much-needed conversation on our nation’s spending priorities”.

Trump administration officials defend the cuts by saying the rest of the world must do its “fair share” as the United States retreats from its traditional spending overseas.

Among those key promises was to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, and Trump’s proposed budget attempts to do just that by slashing the agency’s budget by 31 percent in 2018 to $5.65 billion. Brown told our Washington bureau Tuesday.