Trump budget chief defends plan in face of opposition

As a candidate and as president Trump has frequently talked about making health care more affordable for regular folks, including by lowering premiums and deductibles.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, meanwhile, gave Republicans the unwelcome news that they may have to cast a dreaded vote on increasing the government’s borrowing authority before they break for the August recess. “While we believe that increased access and funding for school choice important, it can not come at the expense of other federal programs”.

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 24, 2017, before the House Budget Committee hearing on President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2018 federal budget.

But Democrats on the committee slammed the administration, and charged that much of the cuts would rip apart the nation’s “social safety net”.

Trump’s budget also plans a $193 billion cut from food stamps, also known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP.

-Veterans: The budget proposal calls for an increase for the Veterans Administration, including $29 billion over the next decade for the Choice program.

This might shock some of you, but I am for cuts across the board to every single department there is!

“Regarding the double-counting”, Mulvaney said, “here’s one of the things I think that a lot of folks have overlooked – and we did it on objective because it’s sort of hard to count this, and you don’t want to make too many assumptions – you have to make assumptions about a budget”.

When it suits the administration’s case, Mulvaney relies on this same metric for measuring the budget as a proportion of the economy. “It assumes that the stars perfectly align”.

Some Republicans don’t seem too fond of President Donald Trump’s budget plan.

Idaho public schools would take a $16.1 million hit if the Trump budget passes, the center estimated.

Casey carries a much different perspective than Mulvaney.

Women are twice as likely as men to rely on food stamps, and over 7.8 million women and children relied on WIC benefits in 2016. She said that’s “cruel”, “heartless” and “inhumane”.

“It’s never happened, ” Sanford said.

“The Trump budget is shockingly extreme, the antithesis of what the American people have said they want from their government”, Jayapal said. The new program has been championed by Trump’s daughter, Ivanka.

Perdue had no defense: “I think your comments are essentially irrefutable”, he said.

The White House delivered to Congress Tuesday a proposed fiscal 2018 budget that would deeply cut programs for the poor and rural America, as well as diplomacy and foreign aid, while boosting defense and border security.

DeVos answered that that was not the federal government’s business, but was for states and locales to decide.

Talking about his small business experience, Smucker asked Mulvaney to respond to his idea that “the best possible thing that we can do is have the higher economic growth”. “We are not spending less money one year than we spent before”.

Trump’s balanced-budget goal depends not only on 3 percent growth projections that most economists view as overly optimistic but also a variety of accounting gimmicks, including an nearly $600 billion peace dividend from winding down overseas military operations and assuming that overhauling the tax code in a way that provides no net tax cuts would spark that growth and generate more than $2 trillion in higher revenues.

Democrats quickly criticized the proposed deep cuts, highlighting funding reductions for safety net programs, and even Republicans expressed hesitation. Sen. “(The) State (Department) still has some flexibility to come up with a final plan on that, but I do know that writ large we have proposed to move several countries from a direct grant programme to a loan guarantee programme”, he said. “Their efforts against terrorism and other disasters won’t immediately collapse”.

Rogers, a 36-year congressman, said the Republican president remained popular in his district, but added: “We have not yet had a chance to see how (voters) will react to his budget proposals”.

The budget proposes ending five earth-science programs at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, including one that would have measured carbon dioxide emissions and concentrations.