Trump’s $4.4 trillion budget moves deficit sharply higher

President Donald Trump unveiled a $4.4 trillion budget for next year that heralds an era of $1 trillion-plus federal deficits and - unlike the plan he released last year - never comes close to promising a balanced ledger even after 10 years.

The budget submitted Monday shows the growing deficits despite major cuts for domestic programs, largely because of last year’s tax overhaul, which is projected to cause federal tax revenue to drop. This budget does not yet reflect last week’s twoyear bipartisan $300 billion pact that wholly rejects Trump’s plans to slash domestic agencies.

The president’s budget proposes dramatic cuts to a wide range of domestic agencies from the Departments of Labor and Interior to the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation. Unlike last year’s submission, the 2019 Trump plan would cut Medicare by $554 billion over the next 10 years, a 6 per cent reduction from projected spending, including cuts in Medicare payments going to hospitals and rehabilitation centres.

Presidential budgets are often declared dead-on-arrival in Congress where lawmakers have their own ideas about spending priorities. But the documents do represent the most detailed elaboration of an administration’s priorities.

Tax revenue would plummet by $3.7 trillion over the 201827 decade relative to last year’s

“baseline” estimates, the budget projects. Trump is requesting a record $686 billion for the Pentagon, a 13 per cent increase from the 2017 budget enacted last May.

In remarks Monday, Trump focused on the spending increases he favours rather than the deficits he and other Republicans have pledged to reduce.

“We’re going to have the strongest military we’ve ever had, by far,” Trump said. “In this

budget we took care of the military like it’s never been taken care of before.”

Also getting a boost would be border security. Trump’s budget includes money to start building 65 miles of border wall in south Texas as well as money to bring immigration jails up to a capacity of 47,000 and add 2,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees and 750 Border Patrol agents.

The spending spree, along with last year’s tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington. Trump’s plan sees a 2019 deficit of $984 billion, though $1.2 trillion is more plausible after last week’s budget pact and $90 billion worth of disaster aid is tacked on.

That’s more than double the 2019 deficit the administration promised last year.

AP PHOTO Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney talks during a television interview outside the White House in Washington on Jan. 22. Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that...