Trump will ask Cabinet to cut 5%
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would cut the federal budget with the help of his Cabinet, a proposal that analysts said was aspirational at best and unlikely to affect the skyrocketing federal deficit.
“We’re going to ask every Cabinet secretary to cut 5 percent for next year,” Trump said before a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
The president’s request is likely for his fiscal 2020 budget proposal, which is due to Congress early next year.
Although Trump can ask his Cabinet secretaries to cut their budget proposals, the federal budget is approved by Congress. Lawmakers are free to draw up their own spending plans for federal agencies and the rest of the government.
The president does have the leverage of his veto. After approving the $1.3 trillion budget plan Congress sent him in March, Trump threatened he would “never sign another bill like this again.”
The Treasury Department reported that the federal budget deficit rose this year to $779 billion. That amounts to a 17 percent increase over the previous year, and it’s the highest deficit in six years.
Trump has called for deep, doubledigit-percentage reductions for federal departments that were rejected by Congress. His first proposed budget last year included the elimination of 62 agencies, which lawmakers ignored.
Conservatives are increasingly restive about budget deficits, which have received far less attention from Republicans lately than they did during the Obama administration.
The Treasury Department reported that the federal budget deficit rose this year to $779 billion. That amounts to a 17 percent increase over the previous year, and it’s the highest deficit in six years.
Trump blamed Democrats in Congress for seeking increased spending on domestic programs in exchange for his desire to build up the military.
This week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggested that deficit increases were the “dire consequences of irresponsible and unnecessary spending.”
A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, released this month, said tax cuts Congress approved last year partially led to the deficit jump.
Budget analysts said Trump’s cuts are very unlikely and would have little impact on the budget deficit in any event.
Stan Collender, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, said that if the entire annual federal budget was cut by 5 percent, it would be
$200 billion to $300 billion – and the federal budget deficit for next year is projected at $1.1 trillion.
Chris Lu, a former deputy Cabinet secretary under President Barack Obama, mocked Trump’s request.
“That’s a 5 percent cut for veterans, national security, law enforcement, healthcare, farmers, roads/bridges, workers, environment, food and housing aid. Everything,” he wrote on Twitter. “And it would still only amount to
$60 billion a year – a fraction of
$1.5 trillion Trump/GOP tax cut.”