US seeks $3.6 trillion spending cut to balance budget

Mainly, the cuts to these SSI programs would be realized through tightened eligibility requirements – meaning, stricter oversight and accountability.

The proposed budget, for the fiscal year that begins October 1, was being delivered to Congress Tuesday, setting off an extended debate in which Democrats are already attacking the administration for trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. Over a decade, it calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits. The administration is unbowed.

“What Trumponomics is and what this budget is a part of, is trying to get to sustained three percent economic growth in this country again”, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said in a briefing with reporters on Monday.

That included Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s all-out rejection of the elimination of the Appalachian Regional Commission, a key promoter of economic development in his home state.

United States military assistance to partners and allies reached US$13.5 billion in 2015, or 28 per cent of all U.S. foreign aid spending that year, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The tax cuts would particularly benefit the wealthiest Americans, as Trump has proposing cutting the estate tax, capital gains and business tax rates.

President Donald Trump’s proposed $4.1 trillion budget proposes a $54 billion 10 percent increase for the military above an existing cap on Pentagon spending, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

The budget doesn’t touch Medicare or Social Security benefits for the elderly, which is consistent with Trump’s campaign promises.

The formal budget is at best a blueprint that guides negotiations even when a popular president’s own party controls Congress.

Trump’s proposal, which is the more complete version to the “skinny budget” the White House released in March, seeks to dramatically cut programs for low-income Americans while exponentially increasing defense spending.

The plan drew immediate fire from lobby groups, including from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which said it relied on “rosy assumptions”, gimmicks and unrealistic cuts. She added that to see three or four percent growth “is almost unprecedented”.

Our nation must get our fiscal house in order now, or else we may never have another opportunity, and President Trump has provided a pathway to bring our nation back from the brink of insolvency.

But the budget has virtually no detail to prove it would deliver on Trump’s promise for “massive” tax cuts.

Fiscal watchdogs say while the goal of a balanced budget might be commendable, they’re doubtful that it’s realistic.

Because of the aging population, Trump can not return the economy to 3 percent growth, said Bill Hoagland, a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center who formerly served as a Republican aide on the Senate Budget Committee.

Additionally, Trump’s proposal adds one-quarter of a trillion dollars of cuts over ten years to low-income assistance programs, such as food stamps; the food program for women, infants and children, WIC; health insurance for low-income children, known as S-CHIP; and welfare, or TANF.

The budget also makes use of several other classic accounting gimmicks.

The White House document claims that Trump’s tax plan will provide “one of the biggest business and middle-class tax cuts in history” and will also eliminate loopholes and deductions.

However, over 10 years, the budget proposes an increase of only $469 billion in total, which falls below levels consistent with the kind of build-up being promised. The new program has been championed by Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. It is just as much a sign of Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for the policy detail and message discipline that is required to marshal support to enact politically challenging changes.