Agency-by-agency look at budget
How President Trump’s proposed budget would affect individual government agencies.
AGRICULTURE
Up or down? Down 5 percent Highlight: The proposed budget would limit subsidies to farmers, including a cut in government help for purchasing crop insurance. Crop insurance is overwhelmingly popular program with farm-state senators in both parties, and previous farm bills have only increased spending. The budget would also limit spending on environmentally-friendly conservation programs and some rural development dollars that help small towns build infrastructure.
Trump isn’t the first president to try to limit farm subsidies. Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush also proposed major reductions, but farm-state lawmakers have always kept them going. The Republican chairmen of the Senate and House agriculture committees both said Tuesday they oppose Trump’s proposed cuts. The numbers:
Total spending: $132.3 billion. Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $18 billion.
DEFENSE
Up or down? Up 3.3 percent Highlight: The Pentagon’s proposed 2018 budget would fund increases of almost 43,000 in the size of the active duty military and 13,000 in the Reserves. It provides troops a 2.1 percent pay raise, adds F/A-18 fighter jets and seeks a new round of base closures, which Congress routinely rejects. It also increases the amount of money used for training Afghan forces and conducting counterterror operations in Afghanistan.
The numbers:
Total spending: $647 billion. Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $574.5 billion.
EDUCATION
Up or down? Down 46.9 percent
Highlight: Eliminates after-school and teacher training programs, ends subsidized federal student loans and loan forgiveness programs for public servants, funds year-round Pell grants and expands funding for school choice for low-income students.
The numbers:
Total spending: $61 billion Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $59 billion
ENERGY
Up or Down? Down 5.7 percent
Highlight: Trump’s budget would hike spending for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is responsible for maintaining the nuclear stockpile, while cutting other energy spending. The budget seeks $120 million to revive the mothballed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which is hugely unpopular in Nevada and was largely stopped by the
efforts of former Democratic Sen. Harry Reid.
The budget also slashes $700 million from an Energy Department office that promotes energy efficiency and renewable energy and eliminates the Office of Science and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which supports research into new energy technologies.
The numbers:
Total spending: $28 billion Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $28 billion
INTERIOR
Up or Down? Down 9.2 percent Highlight: The budget calls for opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, where it is now prohibited, while eliminating offshore oil revenues used by Gulf Coast states to restore disappearing shorelines. Arctic drilling, a contentious issue that would require congressional approval, would generate an estimated $400 million a year in tax revenues by 2022, according to the White House. Elimination of revenue-sharing to the four Gulf Coast states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — would generate $1.6 billion over the next five years, the document says. The proposal also includes money for seismic surveys to provide data for possible offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean where it is now barred.
The numbers:
Total spending: $12.5 billion Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $11.7 billion
LABOR
Up or down? Down 3.3 percent. Highlight: Trump is proposing cuts in job training programs including
$434 million for the Senior Community Service Employment Program, $238 million by closing Job Corps centers, and $68 million for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs. He is proposing
$90 million more for apprenticeships that result in jobs and a parental leave program of six weeks.
The numbers:
Total spending: $45.8 billion. Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $28.2 billion
STATE
Up or down? Down 29 percent Highlight: Eliminates funding for the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, as part of a $780 million cut to international organizations. Also eliminates $1.6 billion in funding for climate change and slashes assistance for refugees and global health. That includes $222 million cut in an international fund for fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Proposal also ends $523 million for international family planning programs.
The numbers:
Total spending: $40.2 billion. Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $28.2 billion
VETERANS AFFAIRS
Up or down? Up 3.7 percent Highlight: The budget proposes a $4.3 billion increase in discretionary spending, mostly to pay for medical care at more than 1,200 VA facilities nationwide serving about 9 million enrolled veterans. That’s a 5.8 percent increase as the Department of Veterans Affairs expands its network to include more private health providers. The budget also calls for $2.9 billion in mandatory budget authority for 2018 and $3.5 billion in 2019 to pay for expansion of the Veterans Choice private-sector program. To help pay for rising costs from that program, the VA would cap the amount of educational benefits veterans receive under the GI bill to roughly $21,000 a year and halt “individual unemployability” benefit payments to out-of-work disabled veterans once they reach retirement age. The numbers:
Total spending: $183.1 billion Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $78.8 billion