Tag: Trump 2020 budget

Budget sets up a contrast with Trump’s Democratic rivals as it slashes safety net programs

Washington Post logoThe White House on Monday proposed a $4.8 trillion election-year budget that would slash major domestic and safety net programs, setting up a stark contrast with President Trump’s rivals as voting gets under way in the Democratic presidential primary.

The budget would cut Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program and also wring savings from Medicare despite Trump’s repeated promises to safeguard Medicare and Social Security.

It takes aim at domestic spending with cuts that are sure to be rejected by Congress, including slashing the Environmental Protection Agency budget by 26.5 percent over the next year, and cutting the budget of the Health and Human Services department by 9 percent. HHS includes the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will see a budget cut even as the coronavirus spreads — although officials said funding aimed at combating the coronavirus would be protected. Continue reading.

Five things to watch in Trump’s budget proposal

The Hill logoPresident Trump is set to release his budget proposal for fiscal 2021 on Monday, highlighting his spending priorities as he seeks reelection.

Congressional Democrats are expected to declare the overall budget request dead on arrival, but the blueprint is likely to shape GOP spending objectives as the annual appropriations process gets underway.

Here are five things to watch for Monday.

Trump vowed to eliminate the debt in 8 years. He’s on track to leave it at least 50 percent higher.

In March 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump told The Washington Post he could eliminate the entire U.S. debt in eight years. Now that he’s president, Trump is doing the exact opposite.

Trump’s budget — his own budget — projects debt held by the public will hit $22.8 trillion by 2025, more than 50 percent higher than the year he took office. (Debt held by the public was $14.7 trillion in 2017.)

That’s the rosy forecast. Trump’s budget relies on “gimmicks” to keep the debt rising by “only” that much, experts across the political spectrum say. Trump predicts the economy will grow at a home-run pace with no recessions for the next decade, and he proposes massive cuts to education, health care and other nondefense parts of the budget that will not be enacted.

View the complete March 12 article by Heather Long on The Washington Post website here.

Trump’s FY 2020 Budget Exposes His False Promises and Misplaced Priorities

If there is truth in the old adage that “budgets are moral documents,” then President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2020 budget, its first part released today, is morally bankrupt. It aims debilitating cuts at programs on which American families rely in order to pay for tax cuts, strips regulators’ ability to stop corporate wrongdoers and polluters, and launches yet another brutal attack on Americans’ health care. Every year, pundits declare the president’s budget “dead on arrival,” but Americans should make no mistake: Trump’s FY 2020 budget is a clear statement of his priorities, and its policies are those the president would enact if given the opportunity. And Trump’s priorities and policies reveal his sheer contempt for the “forgotten men and women” for whom he pledged to fight.

In fact, this year, Trump’s first ruse—even before his accounting gimmicks begin—is the budget rollout itself. The budget is already more than a month late thanks to Trump’s 35-day government shutdown, but it is being released in two parts: Today, Trump revealed a message-heavy budget overview. But Americans will have to wait another week before learning many of the specifics of his deep cuts; the complete budget is slated for March 18. While this ruse may obfuscate details of Trump’s devastating policies, it does not change the reality that the administration will be seeking drastic cuts to key priorities that the American people strongly support.

View the complete Seth Hanlon, Lily Roberts and Rachel West on the Center for American Progress website here.