Guv: Budget threatens “hard-earned progress”

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Tuesday slammed President Donald Trump’s budget proposal, calling it a “devastating” plan that would benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.

“It really is Robin Hood in reverse — stealing from the poor (and the middle class) to give to the rich,” Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said in a statement.

The $4.1 trillion spending plan, unveiled by the Republican president earlier in the day, proposes deep cuts to an array of domestic programs, including Medicaid, food stamps, highway funding and medical research.

It also cuts taxes, with the rich seeing more relief than the typical middle-class American.

The cuts are so steep that even Republicans greeted the plan with skepticism. John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, said the Trump plan follows a tradition of White House budgets that are “basically dead on arrival,” The Washington Post reported.

“These cuts that are being proposed are draconian,” U.S. Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., told the newspaper. “They’re not mere shavings, they’re deep, deep cuts.”

Hickenlooper said the impact of the proposed cuts would be felt deeply in Colorado, a state that already faces an annual budget crunch, even in good economic times.

“The impact of cuts to Medicaid, Social Security and other programs — for the purpose of funding massive tax breaks for the wealthy — is out of step with Colorado’s values,” Hickenlooper said in a statement. “It threatens our hard-earned progress, pushes costs back to the state and transfers additional burden to those who can least afford it.”

Trump envoy Haley defends budget •

ankara, turkey» U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says President Donald Trump’s budget proposal is the start of a conversation with Congress about funding for overseas and diplomatic programs.

Trump’s budget cuts 31 percent from the State Department and international assistance. But Haley says it doesn’t mean that’s where funding will end up. She says Trump “had to show some signs” of commitment to reducing the U.S. deficit and eliminating waste in federal spending.

The budget proposal comes the day after Haley visited a UNICEF center providing emotional support for Syrian refugee children.