It doesn’t matter that Trump’s preposterously named “A New foundation for American Greatness” budget is “dead on arrival” according to even staunch Republican, Texas Sen. John Cornyn.
Much of it is the long-time dream of Paul Ryan and Republicans whose singular ambition has been to destroy the New Deal, Square Deal, Great Society.
They would eliminate the minimum wage, child labor laws, food and product safety, clean air and water protections, Social Security and Medicare and most notably Medicaid, sell off national parks and monuments to mining and oil and gas industrialists. And this is before taking into account tax “reform” that would take $2 trillion out of the national budget to put into the pockets of the wealthiest and corporations, so they have even more extra pocket change to spend on political campaigns.
Indeed, the Trump budget is everything that the Republicans have been dying to do, but didn’t dare. But Trump doesn’t care.
The Trump Budget is built on “Trumponomics, as Office of Management and Budget Director Mike Mulvaney proudly exclaimed, “It’s a taxpayer-first budget, going line by line through the budget, trying to put yourself in the shoes of the people who are paying for those lines….What Trumponomics is and what this budget is a part of is an effort to get to sustained 3 percent economic growth in this country again..And by the way, we do not believe that that is something fanciful.”
But the figures don’t actually add up.
Economists from across the spectrum say that the math that underlies the main selling point for Trump’s budget, that it will “balance the budget” in 10 years, is a crock. It doesn’t take into account the $1 trillion or so in tax cuts that will go entirely to the wealthiest and to corporations that Trump sketched out; it assumes a 3 percent rate of annual economic growth, which would mean 50 percent more economic activity, which everyone says is beyond pie-in-the-sky; and it actually double-counts $2 trillion, prompting headlines like this one from Slate, “
Health care a right, not a privilege?
Trump’s budget projects a 28.3 percent drop in spending for health services, $2 trillion less spending, over a 10-year period — despite the aging and increase in population.
This includes a 27 percent decrease in spending for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (imagine another Ebola, Zika or Swine Flu outbreak); 25 percent drop in Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (even as Trumpcare will no longer include mental health or addiction), 25 percent less spending for research and training, including 25 percent cut for the National Institutes of Health (no interest in finding therapies or cures for Zika, Alzheimers or “orphan” diseases that wouldn’t be profitable enough for Big Pharma); 40 percent cut for the Food & Drug Administration (let Big Pharma do what they will); 15 percent drop in food safety and inspection; 17 percent cut to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, 16 percent cut in already strapped Occupation and Mine Safety and Health spending even as he overturned regulations.
$1.4 trillion gap in infrastructure spending to repair decaying roads, bridges airports?
Trump would cut transportation spending by 25 percent cut (65 percent cut to National Infrastructure Investments; 50 percent cut to air transportation which is already woefully in need of upgrades); 28 percent cut to education, training, employment and social services.
His cuts to environmental protection — on top of slashing regulations that give communities a fighting chance to protect their air, water and public health — amount to Hague Tribunal level of war criminality for what he will do to the planet, let alone our communities.
The allocation is cut 27.1 percent — $132 billion worth — including a 34 percent cut in pollution control and abatement, 42 percent cut in regulatory, enforcement and research programs, 37 percent cut in hazardous substance superfund ($330 million less in 2018).
Trump would end funding for the Clean Power Plan, international climate change programs, climate change research and partnership programs, and related efforts —“saving” over $100 million in 2018.
He cuts out $129 million in funding for the EPA’s Office of Enforcement. He cuts out $233 million in 2018 for the EPA’s Research and Development (ie. climate change science). It eliminates more than 50 EPA programs, $347 million worth in 2018; and ends funding for specific regional efforts such as the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Chesapeake Bay, amounting to $427 million in 2018.
Trump would cut general science, space and technology spending by 14.7 percent, including 18.9 percent cut to general science and basic research.
International affairs would be cut nearly in half, including 26 percent cut in spending for global health programs; 74 percent cut in refugee programs; 66 percent cut in International disaster assistance, 83 percent cut in “other” development and humanitarian assistance.”
(See the New York Times, “How Trump’s Budget Would Affect Every Part of Government,”
No matter: the extremity of Trump’s proposed budget, the callousness of it, will give cover to Ryan and the House Republicans and make anything they do seem “moderate”, even “compassionate.”
So they cut Medicaid by $600 billion instead of $866 billion and call it a “win” for the little people; they cut the State Department by 20 percent instead of 30 percent and pat themselves on the head; they cut the EPA by 25 percent instead of 31 percent.
Trump and the Republicans would cut out all the things that have “made America great,” and a world leader in innovation and entrepreneurship, not to mention the main tools for spreading democracy and human rights across the globe (through capitalist investment, which is what China and Russia are now doing).
This is the midst of an actually strong economy, near “full employment” and as we keep hearing, a record stock market.
New York State, along with other “blue” states, already send way more income tax money to Washington than we get back while the “red” states, which so pride themselves in low state taxes and low wages get far more than they send. Like tenants with a legal fight against their landlord, I would propose that New Yorkers collect their federal income tax money in an escrow account, to pay for services that should be paid by the federal government, such as police and security protection (which Trump is threatening to cut to New York and other states that don’t cooperate in his roundup of undocumented individuals), environmental restoration, health care for those whose subsidies have been eliminated, public schools, infrastructure repair, food stamps and school lunch program.
