Trump proposes budget favoring military spending

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump sent Congress a $4.4-trillion budget proposal on Monday outlining steep cuts to domestic programs, large increases in military spending and a ballooning federal deficit that illustrates how far Republicans have strayed from their longtime embrace of balanced budgets.

The blueprint has little to no chance of being enacted as written and amounts to a vision statement by Trump, who as a businessman once called himself the “king of debt” and has overseen a federal spending spree that will earn him that title in an entirely different arena.

The White House budget request would add $984 billion to the federal deficit next year, despite proposed cuts to programs like Medicare and food stamps and despite leaner budgets across federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency.

Trump’s budget statement calls deficits the harbingers of a “desolate” future, but the White House plan would add $7 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.

Last week, Trump signed a two-year bipartisan budget deal, struck by congressional leaders largely without his involvement, to boost both domestic and military spending by $300 billion.

Trump’s budget, which was drawn up before that package was completed, does not entirely embrace the law that he signed just days ago and proposes spending less on domestic programs than what Congress — and Trump — agreed to last week.

On Monday, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget director, informed House Speaker Paul Ryan, in a letter that the administration “does not believe these nondefense spending levels comport with its vision for the proper role and size of the federal government.”