Winners and losers in Trump’s first budget plan

WASHINGTON » Military spending would get the biggest boost in President Donald Trump’s proposed budget. Environmental programs, medical research, Amtrak and an array of international and cultural programs — from Appalachia to the arts — would take big hits, among the many parts of the government he’d put on a crash diet.

The budget proposal out Thursday is a White House wish list; it’ll be up to Congress to decide where money goes. If Trump gets his way, there will be more losers than winners among government departments and programs.

Some programs would tread water: WIC grants — money to states for health care and nutrition for low-income women, infants and children — are one example. Money for state grants for water infrastructure projects would be held level as well. The plan would keep money flowing to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a leading global effort to provide treatment for victims of the HIV/ AIDS epidemic, mainly in Africa.

Some programs would lose everything: Trump proposes to eliminate money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the national endowments for arts and humanities and more than a dozen other independent agencies financed by the government.

A sampling:

WINNERS

• The Pentagon. Trump proposes a 10 percent increase in the massive defense budget, with an extra $52 billion going to accelerate the war against the Islamic State group and address insufficient weapons stocks, personnel gaps, deferred maintenance and cyber vulnerabilities. An additional $2 billion would go to nuclear weapons.

• Veterans Affairs. Up 5.9 percent. That’s an additional $4.4 billion, driven by ever-growing health care costs. The plan would allocate $3.5 billion to extend an expiring Veterans Choice program, which allows eligible veterans to seek care from a private doctor outside the VA network.

• Homeland Security. Up 6.8 percent. That’s $2.8 billion more. Most of the increase, $2.6 billion, would be to help kick-start Trump’s promised border wall. The president has repeatedly said Mexico would pay for the wall; Mexican officials are adamant that they won’t. Trump also wants an extra $1.5 billion for more immigration jails and deportations, and $314 million to hire 1,500 immigration enforcement and border patrol agents.

• The National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the maintenance and safety of the nuclear arsenal and its research labs. The agency would grow by 11.3 percent, or $1.4 billion, so that it takes up more than half the Energy Department’s budget, which would shrink overall.

• Opioid prevention and treatment: a proposed $500 million increase in the Health and Human Services Department to counter the epidemic and more money for the Justice Department to combat the problem.

• School choice: $1.4 billion more to expand school choice programs, bringing spending in that area to $20 billion, even as the Education Department’s overall budget would be cut by $9 billion, or 13 percent.

LOSERS:

• State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development. Down 31 percent, or $17 billion. Foreign aid would be reduced, as would money to the U.N. and to multilateral development banks including the World Bank. Some foreign military grants would be shifted to loans. Money would be cut off to the U.N. Green Climate Fund, which helps developing nations reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to other U.N. climate change programs

• Transportation Department. Trump proposes a cut of nearly 13 percent, or $2.4 billion. Amtrak, local transit agencies, and rural communities that depend on federal subsidies to obtain scheduled airline service would take the brunt. Trump would eliminate subsidies for Amtrak long-distance train routes, which would most likely mean the end of those routes since they are generally not profitable.