Editorials Across the Country Blast Trump Budget That “Leaves Working Class Base Behind” – “This Won’t End Well”
Detroit Free Press (MI) Editorial: Trump Budget Leaves Working Class Base Behind
“So much for populism. If blue-collar Americans battered by global competition and automation imagined that President Donald Trump would harness the resources of the federal government to improve their lot, the budget the White House plans to propose to Congress today should disabuse them of that delusion. Like the deeply unpopular health care overhaul House Republicans sent to the Senate last month, the president's spending plan seems designed primarily to pave the way for a tax cut that would disproportionately benefit the most affluent Americans. It would reduce medical costs in the most heartless way imaginable -- by stripping 14 million Americans who obtained health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act of their eligibility for Medicaid. The budget includes the $800 million in Medicaid cuts that are part of the House GOP's American Health Care Act that repeals the Medicaid expansion.” [Detroit Free Press, 5/23/17]
Kansas City Star (MO) Editorial: Trump Budget Replicates Disastrous Kansas Approach. This Won’t End Well.
“So it’s beyond distressing that President Donald Trump has proposed a national budget that mirrors the Kansas disaster in almost every important way… The president’s budget slashes safety net spending, too, just like lawmakers did in Kansas. The Trump budget cuts Medicaid in half over 10 years, whacks at food stamps, cuts welfare payments, squeezes disability payments and decimates a handful of lesser programs. Kansans know what happens next. It’s ugly.” [Kansas City, 5/23/17]
Houston Chronicle (TX): No Help From Trump
“Every line of that budget seems to slash those irreplaceable programs that help keep people upright and moving when the rest of their world starts to fall apart. Programs that Trump once swore he'd never touch - Medicaid and Social Security Disability - are now subject to his reaper. A man who promised to care for blue-collar workers and returning veterans now takes aim at a social safety net that provides a last line of defense in a changing global economy. The whole point of these cuts, $4.5 trillion over the next decade, is to get people working, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said. Yet the programs that encourage people to join the workforce, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, suffer a blow under Trump's budget. The policies that help Americans too young to work - such as the Children's Health Insurance Program, which covers 38 percent of all Texas children - earn no reprieve.” [Houston Chronicle, 5/23/17]
Washington Post (DC) Editorial: Another Bad Budget From Trump Targets The Poor
“Not surprisingly, Mr. Trump has decided to embrace the House Republican health-care bill’s $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid (over the next decade), according to The Post’s Damian Paletta. To do this, he would apparently add cuts to other safety-net programs, including housing and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, also known as food stamps. The latter could be changed by enabling states to stiffen work requirements for those who receive the assistance. Such cuts are being contemplated, of course, at a time when Mr. Trump is also promising huge reductions in taxes, mostly for upper-income individuals and corporations. This reverse redistribution is unconscionable on its own terms. In addition, Mr. Paletta reports that the Trump budget documents may claim that tax cuts drive so much additional growth that they — plus the safety-net cuts — will restore federal budget balance a decade hence. Thus do warped budgetary priorities produce warped budgetary arithmetic.” [Washington Post, 5/22/17]
Los Angeles Times (CA) Editorial: Trump's Budget Punishes The Sick And The Poor While Rewarding The Wealthy
“President Trump has set one goal that all Americans can get behind, and that's making the sluggish U.S. economy grow faster. Yet key parts of the $3.8-trillion budget he proposed Tuesday abandon that goal, seeking instead to cut federal spending at the expense of the long-term strength of the economy and the American people. That's particularly evident in its cynical and counterproductive approach toward the poor… The crackdown on the neediest and most vulnerable seems even more craven when considering the billions Trump's budget would shower on defense, border security and tax cuts for high-income Americans, corporations and partnerships.” [LA Times, 5/24/17]
Sacramento Bee (CA) Editorial: Trump Meets The Pope While His Budget Threatens The Least Of Us
“Blessed are the poor, a great leader once suggested. Suffice it to say that leader was not President Donald Trump. On Tuesday, as Trump prepared to meet Pope Francis – conveniently far from the suspicions gathering at his White House – his tea party budget director Mick Mulvaney released the proposed 2018 budget that showed just what ‘love thy neighbor’ means, in dollars and cents, to The Donald. Put it this way: It’s a good thing the poor are blessed. If Trump’s budget were to pass, there wouldn’t be a prayer for the least of us.” [Sacramento Bee, 5/23/17]
Baltimore Sun (MD) Editorial: Trump's Assault On Working Voters
“The budget outline President Donald Trump issued in March was horrifying, with massive cuts to everything from the Environmental Protection Agency to the National Institutes of Health. The detailed proposal he is expected to release tomorrow is even worse, driven by wildly unrealistic assumptions about the economy and deeply cynical ones about the millions of Americans struggling in it. Far from the populist rhetoric on which Mr. Trump campaigned, it represents a complete reversion to self-serving conservative ideas about ‘makers and takers’ that provide huge benefits to the wealthy and leave the working poor behind.” [Baltimore Sun, 5/22/17]
Bergen Record (NJ) Editorial: Budget Cuts Include U.S. Heart
“On Tuesday, President Trump’s 2018 proposed budget was unveiled. The president was out of town. Perhaps not a bad idea. This will be a very hard sell. To Congress. To the American people. It’s called ‘A New Foundation for American Greatness,’ and would slash federal spending by $4.5 trillion over 10 years. The cuts come with a huge price that would be paid disproportionately by the poor, disabled and elderly.” [Bergen Record, 5/23/17]
Star-Ledger (NJ) Editorial: Meatloaf Again: Christie Meekly Accepts Trump's Medicaid Cuts
“In reality, Trump is doing what many predicted all along: Breaking his promise to the working class. At campaign rallies, he pledged to put their interests first. He promised, again and again, to ‘save’ Medicaid, along with Medicare and Social Security. But today he's gutting Medicaid. And for what? To give a gigantic tax cut to the rich. Trump also promised to take care of people who are ‘really, really sick’ – ‘You cannot let people die on the street, OK?’ But more addicts will die, thanks to this cut.” [Star-Ledger, 5/23/17]
New York Times (NY) Editorial: A Budget That Promises Little but Pain
“If President Trump’s 2018 budget, to be unveiled on Tuesday, was worthy of praise, you can bet Mr. Trump would be in Washington to bask in it. But his overseas trip keeps him at a distance physically, if not politically. As detailed in a preview on Monday by Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, the budget is a naked appeal to far-right Republicans aiming for a partisan rallying cry, even as a legislative victory most likely remains out of reach. Of 13 major initiatives in the budget, nine are drastic spending cuts, mostly aimed at low-income Americans. The biggest of those, by far, is an $866 billion reduction over 10 years in health care spending, mostly from Medicaid.” [NY Times, 5/23/17]
Charlotte Observer (NC) Editorial: The Harsh Budget Americans Voted For
“Trump’s budget cuts more than $800 billion from Medicaid over the next decade. It makes significant cuts to the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It cuts $272 billion from all welfare programs, including food stamps. It makes large cuts to the student loan program for low-income families. The president and Republicans believe such programs encourage dependence on government and discourage people from going out and getting jobs. But the reality is that, in large part, government assistance programs do exactly what they intend: They provide help that’s temporary. They reduce child poverty. They encourage work and aspiration. Can these programs be more efficient? Yes, but gutting them isn’t how to get there.” [Charlotte Observer, 5/23/17]
