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2/13/2018 6:01 am  #1


Less Money for Grandma, But $7 Trillion in New Debt

White House Proposes $4.4 Trillion Budget That Adds $7 Trillion to Deficits

WASHINGTON — President 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 Mr. 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.

Mr. 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, Mr. 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. Mr. 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 Mr. Trump — agreed to last week.

On Monday, Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s budget director, informed Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, 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.”

That law increases military spending by $195 billion over the next two years and nondefense spending by $131 billion over the same period. The White House is proposing $540 billion in nondefense spending for 2019 — $57 billion below the new spending cap set by Congress.

The plan contains at least $1.8 trillion in cuts to federal entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps.

The White House is proposing to cut funding for a low-income food program known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, by more than 30 percent over a decade. It would also impose work requirements for “able bodied” recipients of food stamps and change how they get their benefits, replacing a portion of the coupons that allow them to purchase food at a grocery store with a premade box of “100 percent American grown foods provided directly to households.”

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s budget proposes allowing public housing authorities and property owners to set minimum work requirements for those in public housing as a way to control costs.

Mr. Mulvaney, in his letter, said domestic spending at the levels Congress authorized would add too much to the federal deficit.

Instead, he proposed using about $11 billion of the money to scale back the social safety net by changing the way health entitlement programs are paid for. That would essentially mean getting rid of mandatory programs now funded automatically and without congressional approval, and covering the cost with discretionary funds that could be cut or redirected in the future.

The message, Mr. Mulvaney said, was, “You don’t have to spend all of this money, Congress, but if you do, here’s how we would prefer to see you spend it.”

Yet for all of the talk of fiscal restraint, Mr. Trump’s budget also amounted to an institutional surrender to the free-spending ways of Capitol Hill, which Mr. Mulvaney said had surprised the president and prompted him to refrain from even bothering to advocate deficit reduction.

“I probably could have made it balance,” Mr. Mulvaney, a former anti-deficit absolutist, said ruefully of his plan on Monday, but “it would have taken funny numbers to do it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/us/politics/white-house-budget-congress.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news


We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists. 
 

2/13/2018 8:08 am  #2


Re: Less Money for Grandma, But $7 Trillion in New Debt

“I probably could have made it balance,” Mr. Mulvaney, a former anti-deficit absolutist, said ruefully of his plan on Monday, but “it would have taken funny numbers to do it.”

Mr Mulvaney just capsulized the federal budgetary process.


On Monday, Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s budget director, informed Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, 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.”

So Mr. Mulvaney, Mr Trump’s budget director, thinks spending on plans and programs that directly benefit “the American People” also expands the size of the federal government more than military spending? Has Mulvaney ever visited the Pentagon? Has he ever audited military projects that historically bust the budget, take more time than the contract allowed, and provide less than high quality products for our men and women in uniform? Does he understand that we spent more money on our military than the next 6 nation’s in the world combined? Does he understand that only 1% of our population serves on active duty at any one point in time, so the majority of military spending goes to non-military contractors and not for the benefit of individual active duty and inactive duty military personnel?

Mr. Mulvaney cannot pass himself off as a fiscal conservative that wails about deficit spending, advocates for balanced budget standards and, at the same time, supports a budgetary plan such as this. If he does continue to push this budget, he’s either ignorant, naive in the budgetary process, or just a boldfaced liar.

Last edited by Rongone (2/13/2018 8:24 am)

 

2/13/2018 11:37 am  #3


Re: Less Money for Grandma, But $7 Trillion in New Debt

This Admin is truly a clown show !  

 


"Do not confuse motion and progress, A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress"
 
 

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