The $4.8 trillion budget proposed by President Trump on Monday would shrink domestic spending, especially safety net programs like Medicaid and Medicare prescription benefits.
The budget would also slash funding for the Departments of Education, Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, Energy, State and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency.
But it would increase spending on homeland security and NASA, while holding the Pentagon budget steady. It also seeks $2 billion in new funding for Trump’s border wall.
One result: a projected deficit of nearly $1 trillion for fiscal year 2021, which begins Oct. 1.
Another: Congress will ignore it, and stick with the deal hammered out between the White House and the House and Senate last summer.
“Everyone knows the latest Trump budget is dead on arrival in Congress. It’s merely a political stunt to gratify extremists in his party,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), according to The Hill.
In a statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said: “Year after year, President Trump’s budgets have sought to inflict devastating cuts to critical lifelines that millions of Americans rely on.”
Over the next decade, reports the Wall Street Journal, the budget proposal “targets $2 trillion in savings from mandatory spending programs … including $130 billion from changes to Medicare prescription-drug pricing, $292 billion from safety-net cuts — such as work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps — and $70 billion from tightening eligibility access to disability benefits.”
But all this would depend on growing the economy at what the Washington Post calls “an unprecedented, sustained 3% clip through 2025, levels the administration has failed to achieve for even one year so far.”
