Trump pitches Congress massive military buildup
Deficit would balloon along with arsenal
WASHINGTON – A $4.4 trillion budget proposal President Trump sent to Congress Monday would provide a big boost in military spending and new funding for infrastructure, a border wall and opioid treatment.
It would do so at the cost of longrunning deficits — $984 billion next year and continuing throughout the
10-year budget window. In all, the budget adds more than $7 trillion in debt by the end of the decade.
Trump’s $716 billion request for defense would represent a 7% increase over last year’s spending. It would be the greatest buildup since Ronald Reagan was president, adding 25,900 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to the force of 1.3 million, building 10 warships and increasing production of
F-35 and F-18 warplanes.
“So we’re going to have the strongest military we’ve ever had by far. We’re increasing arsenals of virtually every weapon,” Trump said Monday. “We’re modernizing and creating ... a brand new nuclear force.”
Although the budget proposal covers Trump’s priorities, it contains $57 billion less in domestic spending than Congress authorized three days ago.
Those higher domestic spending caps, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said in a message to Congress, do not comport with Trump’s “vision for the proper role and size of the federal government.”
Last year’s budget proposed eliminating 62 federal programs — recommendations Congress ignored.
Trump is making them again, proposing to eliminate popular line items such as community development block grants, after-school programs, Energy Star appliance certification and public broadcasting.
Trump would sell off a wide range of public assets to raise money: radio frequencies below 6 gigahertz ($6.6 billion), the Washington, D.C., aqueduct
($120 million) and electric power systems in the Tennessee Valley and Western states ($9.4 billion).
He proposes privatizing the U.S. stake in the International Space Station, using the money to fund a mission to the moon.
The centerpiece of Trump’s budget proposal is a long-awaited $200 billion infrastructure spending program, which Trump said would be matched with private and public funds to provide
$1.5 trillion in investment.
In a meeting with state and local leaders at the White House on Monday, Trump blamed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for depleting funding for roads and bridges at home.
“We have to rebuild our infrastructure,” he said. “As of a couple months ago, we have spent $7 trillion in the Middle East — $7 trillion. What a mistake. But it is what it is. This is what I took over. And we’re trying to build roads and bridges and fix bridges that are falling down. And we have a hard time getting the money. It’s crazy.”
The budget plan is the first step toward filling in the details of a two-year budget framework passed by Congress last week, which increased caps on military and domestic spending. That compromise — specifically designed to win the support of Senate Democrats and avoid a filibuster — ended an eight-hour partial government shutdown Friday and signaled a budget truce for at least the next 19 months.