This week, President Trump released his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2018 to well-deserved backlash. This budget—based on bad math and accounting tricks—recklessly cuts $3.6 trillion from critical investments that create jobs and provide needed resources for working families. It abandons the poor while providing tax breaks to the wealthy, slashes funding for investment in clean energy innovation and jobs of the future, and cuts cancer research and public health programs. Here are just some of the stories that outline this reckless and cruel budget proposal:
New York Times - Trump’s Budget Cuts Deeply Into Medicaid and Anti-Poverty Efforts
“To compensate, the package contains deep cuts in entitlement programs that would hit hardest many of the economically strained voters who propelled the president into office. Over the next decade, it calls for slashing more than $800 billion from Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor, while slicing $192 billion from nutritional assistance and $272 billion over all from welfare programs.”
NPR - Trump Budget Deals 'Devastating Blow' To Low-Income Americans, Advocates Say
“President Trump's proposed budget, released Tuesday, calls for a major reworking of the nation's social safety net for low-income Americans. It would impose more stringent work requirements and limits on those receiving aid, including disability and food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. It would also give states more control of, and responsibility for, such spending. Anti-poverty advocates have vowed to fight the budget plan, which requires congressional approval to go into effect.”
CNN - Trump's budget cuts children's health insurance program
“President Donald Trump's budget plans to cut the Children's Health Insurance Program by at least 20% over the next two fiscal years and slash Medicaid, which covers millions more children. Millions of poor and working families could lose their health coverage if his proposed budget, released Tuesday and called "A New Foundation for American Greatness," gets through as-is. It would hit children's health care hard and break Trump's campaign promise to "save" Medicaid ‘without cuts.’”
Washington Post (Wonkblog) - Trump’s plans to cut food stamps could hit his supporters hardest
“President Trump’s anticipated cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, will likely be felt most in regions of the country with chronic high rates of unemployment — from the rural Southeast to aging manufacturing towns to Indian reservations. People in those regions are temporarily exempt from national work requirements for the SNAP program, because there are not enough jobs there for everyone who wants one.”
New York Magazine - Trump Budget Based on $2 Trillion Math Error
“But then the budget assumes $2 trillion in higher revenue from growth in order to achieve balance after ten years. So the $2 trillion from higher growth is a double-count. It pays for the Trump cuts, and then it pays again for balancing the budget. Or, alternatively, Trump could be assuming that his tax cuts will not only pay for themselves but generate $2 trillion in higher revenue. But Trump has not claimed his tax cuts will recoup more than 100 percent of their lost revenue, so it’s simply an embarrassing mistake.”
Bloomberg - Trump's Path to a Balanced Budget Paved With Accounting Gimmicks
“The White House said Trump’s request for fiscal 2018 would generate a fiscal surplus by 2027 after $3.6 trillion in spending reductions and $2.1 trillion in economic growth-induced revenue increases. Those conclusions rely on phantom tax increases, unachievable spending cuts and unrealistic growth assumptions to avoid making hard choices that would be needed to get anywhere near a balanced budget.”
The Atlantic - Trump’s Education Budget Takes Aim at the Working Class
“But other aspects of Trump’s funding plan fly in the face of his past statements on education, raising confusion about his priorities. He wants to cut state grants for career and technical education (CTE), for example, by $166 million, and nearly halve funding for the roughly $1 billion federal work-study program. Both CTE and work-study are education models that enjoy broad bipartisan support and are particularly palatable to Republicans and the white, working-class voters who clinched Trump’s election.”
Los Angeles Times - Cancer research, public health and worker safety would all see steep cuts under Trump budget
“Under the heading “Putting America’s Health First,” the Trump administration’s 2018 budget blueprint includes a $5.8-billion cut for the National Institutes of Health, a move that would slash the medical research agency’s funding by just over 18%. It would reduce public health spending by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by $1.32 billion, a 17% decline from 2017 spending levels.”
Huffington Post - Trump’s Budget Sets Aside A Fraction Of What He Says Is Needed To Fix Infrastructure
“President Donald Trump hasn’t unveiled his promised $1 trillion infrastructure initiative, but the White House offered an early outline of the plan Tuesday when it released the budget blueprint for fiscal year 2018. The 62-page document, which calls for draconian cuts to safety net programs while boosting military spending, seeks $200 billion in federal funding over the next 10 years to overhaul the nation’s crumbling roads, bridges and waterways. Trump’s plan will otherwise rely on “incentivized non-federal funding,” or private tax incentives meant to spur investment in infrastructure projects.”
New York Times - Trump Budget Proposes Deep Cuts in Energy Innovation Programs
“At the same time, the budget would cut $3.1 billion from energy research programs at the Energy Department, an 18 percent reduction from last year’s spending. These programs are aimed at developing innovative technologies like better batteries for electric vehicles or carbon capture for coal and gas plants — all of which could one day help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat global warming. Critics say these cuts could imperil American leadership in cutting-edge clean energy industries.”
