Trump budget boosts defense, slices domestic programs

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump released a spending plan Thursday that would slash programs across government with a machete to pay for sharp increases in the military, veterans’ health and the construction of a wall along the southwest border.

On the chopping block: billions of dollars in research aimed at fighting diseases and climate change; job training programs; grants to local communities that pay for public transit and housing; heating oil for the poor; diplomatic efforts across the globe; and libraries.

Proposed for elimination: at least 19 independent agencies including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities

and the Appalachian Regional Commission, which provides education, broadband and other investments in rural communities.

Trump argued that many of the programs he wants to slash are ineffective, outdated or duplicative. Beyond that, he says the budget is sending a message to reorder $1.1 trillion in the federal government’s discretionary spending around his “America First” agenda, putting defense and border security at the center while curtailing other government functions.

“We can’t spend money on federal programs just

because they sound good,” said Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget and a conservative former congressman from South Carolina.

In addition to proposing cuts across the spectrum, Trump would increase funding for school choice, counterterrorism and the hiring of more border agents and immigration judges and prosecutors. But the biggest increase, by far, would go to the military in the form of an additional $54 billion in annual spending.

The budget, which lacks many details Trump and his agency leaders will add in the coming months, will not become law in its current form.

Nearly every plank will face significant obstacles from both parties in Congress, which has been unable in recent years to reach agreement on even the most basic spending measures. But it lays out the president’s vision more specifically than any speech or statement Trump delivered during his 17 months on the campaign or the four months since he won election.

Aides said the plan was adapted directly from Trump’s campaign rhetoric, starting with his pledge to restore the military. The proposed boost in Pentagon funding itself is greater than the overall budgets of 11 other cabinet departments.

Many of the costs taken out of the budget would be shifted to states and localities — which would lose grants they depend on to build bus lines, support teacher salaries or provide clean water to rural communities.

The EPA suffers most under the spending plan, with a 31.4% reduction in its budget. The Departments of Agriculture and Labor face a 20% funding cut, while five more cabinet-level departments see cuts in the teens.

A memo from Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), warned that Trump’s plan “would cause even more economic pain and suffering to the elderly, the children, the sick and the most vulnerable.”

The plan released Thursday is the first step in a months-long process leading up to the beginning of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. A more detailed, line-by-line budget document that would address mandatory spending programs will come in May.

The Oct. 1 deadline is particularly important this year because spending levels from a past budget accord are set to expire. Without a new deal, automatic cuts would take effect that many in Congress want to avoid.

While Trump’s budget reflects long-held ambitions of conservatives eager to shrink the size and scope of the federal government, it leaves unaddressed spending on entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security that are among the biggest drivers of federal spending.

The latter point is where Trump, who pledged to protect and strengthen those entrenched safety net programs, differs most dramatically with a fellow Republican who has long pushed for a new approach, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).

“Do I think we can cut spending and get waste out of government? Absolutely. Where and how, and what numbers, that’s something we’ll be figuring out as time goes on,” Ryan told reporters.