The Reviews Are In: President Trump’s Budget Is Bad For Middle-Class Americans
Washington Post: Trump Proposes Big Cuts To Health Programs For Poor, Elderly And Disabled
Reuters: Trump Budget Proposes Subsidy Cuts To Farmers As They Grapple With Crisis
CNBC: Trump Pledged To Protect Medicare And Medicaid, But His 2020 Budget Calls For Major Spending Cuts
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S BUDGET CUTS THE PROGRAMS MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS DEPEND ON
CNBC: Trump Pledged To Protect Medicare And Medicaid, But His 2020 Budget Calls For Major Spending Cuts. “Critics of President Donald Trump’s new budget are accusing him of breaking a key campaign promise ahead of his 2020 re-election bid. His fiscal 2020 proposal unveiled Monday calls for reductions in funding for Medicare and Medicaid relative to current law. Over a decade, the plan would shave an estimated $800 billion or more off Medicare, which covers older Americans, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and various reports. It would also cut spending on Medicaid, the federal-state program that insures low-income Americans, by more than $200 billion while setting up block grants to states.” [CNBC, 3/12/19]
Washington Post: Trump Proposes Big Cuts To Health Programs For Poor, Elderly And Disabled. “The Trump administration is proposing a sharp slowdown in Medicaid spending that would shift more than $1 trillion over 10 years by steering the entitlement program into a system of block grants that would give states far more freedom to set their own rules about how to cover the poor. The budget released by the White House on Monday also calls for a sizeable reduction for Medicare, the federal insurance for older Americans that President Trump has consistently vowed to protect.” [Washington Post, 3/11/19]
New York Times: Trump Lauded Farmers, Medicare And AIDS Programs. Then Came His Budget Knife. “The Trump administration’s annual budget proposal on Monday envisioned a series of cuts that contrasted with the president’s own words of support for both programs and people — including some groups that make up his political base. To help make way for more military and border spending, it would slash programs large and small, from Medicaid and Medicare — which President Trump as a candidate promised to protect — to safety nets for farmers.” [New York Times, 3/12/19]
Reuters: Trump Budget Proposes Subsidy Cuts To Farmers As They Grapple With Crisis. “President Donald Trump’s 2020 budget on Monday proposed a 15 percent cut for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, calling its subsidies to farmers ‘overly generous’ at a time when they are going through the worst crisis in decades due to depressed commodity prices and Trump’s trade tariffs.” [Reuters, 3/11/19]
Mother Jones: Trump’s Budget Cuts Spending On Vets, Farmers, Students, Seniors And The Poor. “You get the idea. Give big tax breaks to the rich and then cut spending on vets, farmers, students, seniors, and the poor. What’s not to like?” [Mother Jones, 3/11/19]
Newsday: Trump Budget Funds Defense And A Wall, Cuts Medicare, Social Security. “The president’s proposed budget sets up another grueling fight between Trump and a divided Congress which has previously rejected his requests for $5.7 billion in border wall funding. Trump’s new budget calls for $8.6 billion to build new security barriers along the U.S. and Mexico border. Trump’s 2020 budget calls for a 5 percent across-the-board cut in domestic spending, though some agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture received heftier proposed cuts. The departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs would all see at least a five percent uptick in spending under the plan.” [Newsday, 3/11/19]
Curbed: Trump Administration Proposes Dramatic Cuts To Public Housing—Again. “The Trump administration released its budget proposal today for fiscal year 2020, and like its previous budget requests for 2017, 2018, and 2019, the administration is proposing steep cuts to both the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Transportation (DoT). For HUD, the budget requests $44.1 billion in discretionary funding, a 16.4 percent decrease from 2019 funding levels. For DoT, the budget requests $21.4 billion in discretionary spending, a 22 percent decrease from 2019 funding levels.” [Curbed, 3/11/19]
Washington Post: Federal Workers Would Pay More Toward Retirement With Trump Budget. “Federal employees would pay more toward their retirement benefits from salaries that generally would be frozen, under the Trump administration’s budget proposal released Monday. The budget plan repeats numerous ideas from President Trump’s prior two budget proposals that failed to gain enactment even with Congress fully under Republican control. With Democrats now in charge of the House, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) called it a ‘nonstarter’ that ‘once again attacks our hard-working federal workforce by freezing their pay and threatening their retirement savings.’” [Washington Post, 3/11/19]
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S BUDGET MAKES STEEP CUTS TO EDUCATION
CNBC: Education Dept. Faces 10% Funding Cut Under Trump’s 2020 Budget Proposal. “President Donald Trump’s budget proposal unveiled on Monday would slash funding for the U.S. Education Department by more than 10 percent. The plan, titled ‘A Budget for a Better America,’ requests $62 billion for the Department of Education, or $7.1 billion less than the agency’s allowance in 2019. The budget eliminates subsidized student debt, in which interest doesn’t accrue on the loans while borrowers are in school or in economic hardship. It also reduces the number of repayment plans for borrowers and scratches the popular, if challenged, public service loan forgiveness program.” [CNBC, 3/11/19]
Washington Post: Trump Seeks To Slash $8.5 Billion From Education Department Budget. “President Trump is again proposing to cut billions of dollars from the Education Department, seeking to eliminate after-school programs, teacher training and grants for other school needs. But his budget proposal would create a $5 billion program to help children attend private schools. The administration’s request to cut more than $8.5 billion — about 12 percent — from the Education Department budget is unlikely to gain traction in Congress, where members of Trump’s party have rejected previous proposals to gut the agency. With Democrats controlling the House, the proposal faces even higher hurdles.” [Washington Post, 3/11/19]
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S BUDGET REDUCES INVESTMENTS IN SCIENCE
Washington Post: Trump Budget Seeks Cuts In Science Funding. “President Trump’s third budget request, released Monday, again seeks cuts to a number of scientific research enterprises, including a 9 percent cut to the National Science Foundation and the termination of an Energy Department program that funds speculative technologies deemed too risky for private investors. Also not spared is NASA, though the proposed cut is modest — just 1.4 percent lower than the agency’s 2019 funding, which was approved last month by Congress. The proposed NASA budget does not include money for a new space telescope, WFIRST, which would look for distant planets and study the mysterious ‘dark energy’ permeating the cosmos. Two Earth science missions aimed at understanding climate would be eliminated, as would an educational effort, the Office of STEM Engagement.” [Washington Post, 3/11/19]
Wired: Trump's Budget Guts Science Agencies—But Favors The Moon. “Despite two failed attempts in as many years, President Trump has not been moved to change his tactics. At least not when it comes to this year’s federal budget request, a $4.75 trillion spending plan that guts domestic programs and federal scientific research in favor of boosting the US military and building a wall along the Mexican border.” [Wired, 3/11/19]
Houston Chronicle: Trump Proposes $500 Million Cut To NASA. “NASA would face a $500 million cut in the coming budget year under a proposal released Monday by President Donald Trump's administration -- but NASA officials say the budget still is strong.” [Houston Chronicle, 3/11/19]
PRESIDENT TRUMP BUDGET UNDERMINES EFFORTS TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE AND PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT
Washington Post: Trump's Budget Seeks Cuts To Climate Research And Renewable Energy Programs. “The 2020 Trump administration budget overview document, released on Monday, doesn’t even bring up the subject of climate change in laying out the president’s major priorities. Yet as in prior years, it telegraphs what the U.S. government thinks of climate change -- mostly by proposing, in the fine print released individually by separate agencies, numerous cuts to climate research, adaptation, and renewable energy programs.” [Washington Post, 3/12/19]
Detroit News: Trump Budget Again Slashes Aid To Great Lakes Cleanup Program. “President Donald Trump's latest budget proposes a 5-percent reduction in non-defense spending, including a 90-percent cut for a popular Great Lakes cleanup program that bipartisan Michigan lawmakers pledged to fight. Funding for the $300 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative would be cut by $270 million to $30 million under the budget released Monday — the third year in a row the Trump budget team proposed cuts to the program.” [Detroit News, 3/11/19]
Columbus Dispatch: Trump Takes Aim At Domestic Programs Such As Lake Erie Clean-Up In New Budget. “President Donald Trump unveiled a $4.7 trillion budget proposal Monday that includes sweeping cuts to programs such as one to clean up the Great Lakes while it also increases military spending by 5 percent and provides $8.6 billion for the next stage of a wall on the border with Mexico.” [Columbus Dispatch, 3/11/19]
Michigan Live: Trump’s 2020 Budget Proposes 90 Percent Cut To Great Lakes Funds. “President Donald Trump is seeking to cut a majority of funds from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative for the third time, again attracting bipartisan opposition from Michigan lawmakers.” [Michigan Live, 3/12/19]
Toledo Blade: Great Lakes Restoration Nearly Cut In President Donald Trump's Budget. “Ohio lawmakers are fuming over President Trump’s plan to gut federal funding for cleaning up toxic pollution and combating invasive species in the Great Lakes. As he’s done twice before, the President practically dropped the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative from his budget proposal unveiled Monday. Lawmakers from both parties panned the move, which slashes funding by 90 percent — from $300 million to $30 million.” [Toledo Blade, 3/11/19]
Baltimore Sun: President Trump's Budget Increases Defense Spending, Slashes Domestic Programs, Including For Chesapeake Bay. “President Donald Trump proposed a record $4.7 trillion federal budget for 2020 on Monday, which increases military spending while making historic cuts to domestic programs. Troubling to Maryland environmental advocates is a 90 percent cut to funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program, which they say has been an essential tool for the estuary’s recovery in recent years.” [Baltimore Sun, 3/11/19]
Reuters: Trump Budget Proposes Ending Electric Vehicle Tax Credit. “The White House proposed on Monday eliminating a tax credit worth up to $7,500 on the purchase of new electric vehicles, a move it says would save the U.S. government $2.5 billion over a decade. Major automakers have been lobbying Congress to extend the credit that phases out after companies hit 200,000 vehicles sold. They are hopeful Congress could expand the benefit by including it in a package of extended tax provisions that would otherwise expire that could win approval this year.” [Reuters, 3/11/19]
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S BUDGET IGNORES THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC
Vox: Trump’s Budget Proposal Does Nothing For The Opioid Epidemic. “President Donald Trump’s budget proposal shows that his administration isn’t interested in spending much more to combat the opioid epidemic, even as drug overdoses were linked to more than 70,000 deaths — a record high — in 2017.” [Vox, 3/11/19]
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S BUDGET THREATENS NATIONAL SECURITY
Washington Post: Budget Calls For Deep Cuts To Foreign Aid, Especially For Refugees And In Humanitarian Crises. “The Trump administration is proposing slashing the budget for the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by almost 24 percent, with particularly steep cuts to humanitarian aid, refugee assistance and global health programs. The proposed 2020 budget would take three funds that collectively are funded by more than $9 billion and consolidate them into an International Humanitarian Assistance fund that would be allotted about $6 billion, a one-third drop. In addition, the administration proposes cutting global health programs from $8.7 billion this year to $6.3 billion next year, a cut of almost 28 percent.” [Washington Post, 3/11/19]
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S BUDGET IGNORES THE GROWING DEFICIT
New York Times: Trump’s Economic Outlook Is Rosy. That Could Be A Problem. “President Trump’s $4.75 trillion budget proposal unveiled on Monday brims with confidence that the United States economy will continue to expand rapidly, despite recent data suggesting growth is slowing.” [New York Times, 3/11/19]
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Trump Budget Projects Four Straight Deficits Over $1 Trillion. “As President Donald Trump sent Congress on Monday a $4.7 trillion budget proposal for 2020, the estimates of his own budget experts predict that this spending plan will result in four straight years of deficits exceeding $1 trillion, with no budget surplus until the mid-2030's.” [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3/11/19]
Roll Call: Trump’s Budget Assumes A Much Rosier Economic Outlook Than Other Forecasts. “The president’s budget assumes a much rosier economic outlook for the country than other government prognosticators do, translating into trillions of dollars in added revenue over the next decade. The underlying economic assumption of the fiscal 2020 budget request is that the economy will grow this year at a robust 3.2 percent real growth rate, which is growth after subtracting the effects of inflation. That is far higher than a January forecast by the Congressional Budget Office of 2.3 percent, which is the same figure arrived at by the Federal Reserve in its latest forecast in December.” [Roll Call, 3/11/19]
The Hill: Fiscal Responsibility Advocate Calls Trump Budget 'Unrealistic.' “Fiscal responsibility advocate Bob Bixby on Tuesday told Hill.TV that President Trump's proposed 2020 budget is ‘unrealistic.’ ‘I think the mix here of policies is unrealistic,’ Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, told hosts Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball on ‘Rising.’ ‘I would say we probably need to have something on the revenue side, and maybe some more realistic spending targets,’ he continued.” [The Hill, 3/12/19]
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