US President Donald Trump’s new US$1.15 trillion budget would reshape the government with the broad strokes he promised as a candidate, ordering generous increases for the military, slashing domestic programs and riling fellow Republicans and Democrats by cutting funding for favored programs.
The president’s initial budget proposal, submitted to the US Congress on Thursday, would boost defense spending by US$54 billion, the largest increase since then-US president Ronald Reagan’s military buildup of the 1980s.
That means deep cuts elsewhere — the environment, agriculture and the arts — but Trump said that is imperative to take on the Islamic State group and others in a dangerous world.
Photo: Reuters
“To keep Americans safe, we have made the tough choices that have been put off for too long,” he said in a statement titled “America First” that accompanied the budget.
“This is a hard-power budget, not a soft-power budget,” said US Representative Mick Mulvaney, who is the budget director.
It would make a big down payment on a US-Mexico border wall.
Thursday’s proposal calls for an immediate US$1.4 billion infusion with an additional US$2.6 billion planned for next year’s budget year starting on Oct. 1.
Parts of the spending plan for the next fiscal year angered congressional Democrats and Republicans, who will have the final say on it.
While it targets Democratic priorities like housing, community development and the environment, it also would slash Republican sacred cows like aid to rural schools and subsidized airline service to Trump strongholds, and it would raise fees on participants in the federal flood insurance program.
The budget would eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, legal aid for poor people, low-income heating assistance and the AmeriCorps national service program established by former US president Bill Clinton.
Trump’s proposal covers only roughly one-fourth of the approximately US$4 trillion total federal budget.
This is the discretionary portion that the Congress passes each year, not addressing taxes, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Nor does it make predictions about deficits and the economy.
Those big-picture details are due in May.
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