Trial Balloons!
As we read this budget proposal, and listen to the Fallout it causes,
it is important to think through what is being done. Trump's proposed
budget is just that, "proposed". Congress will hammer out the final
budget. What is most likely to happen is that elected officials on
both sides of the Aisle will come under severe pressure from their
constituents effected by the proposed cuts. What will probably occur
is a softening of these proposals. Congress will then assure voters
that they have been heard, and their Programs have been "protected to
the best of our ability, under existing conditions". But hang onto
this Trump Budget. Tuck it away for later reference. What has been
presented represents the Trump administration's ultimate goal.
Additional conversation by Ralph Nader can be heard on:
democracynow.org
It is also important to remember that President Donald Trump is a
product of Corporate Capitalism. He has also considerable experience
as an Entertainment Personality. Selling the customer what you tell
them they want, is a skill already well demonstrated by Trump. Bait
and switch, another trick practiced by Wall Street and Madison Avenue,
is being applied. Note that Mexico is no longer being billed for that
wall Trump promised to build in order to keep us "safe". Along with
cuts in programs such as Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and
environmental Programs, the budget would reduce funds to our Coast
Guard. Cut funds to our Coast Guard? Doesn't the Coast Guard...guard
our Coast? Build a Wall between us and Mexico, while opening our
Coasts to anyone with a boat? Is that Wall another distraction, like
the Bomb Shelters during our fear of Communist invasion back in the
50's? Or perhaps it is a reflection of that perceived invasion by
Japanese during the Second World War. Before we allow ourselves to be
stampeded like a herd of Sheep, we need to sort out what is real and
what is smoke and mirrors.
Also, as much as I have complained about the NPR's slide to the Right,
think of what it means to the Media if funds are cut. Already the
only "reporter" allowed to officially travel with the Secretary of
State on his Asian Tour, was a Right Wing representative.
Through threats of being shut out, the Media will most likely soften
and become compliant. Sadly, our nation's journalists have come under
the spell caste by Greed. The pressure to sell product, to please
wealthy supporters, and to simply hang onto their jobs, has colored
the so called News.
One positive bit of news is that town meetings are growing in
attendance, and when congress comes home, they are met with crowds of
very unhappy voters. Remember, we working class Americans hold the
power to either send our representatives back to Washington D.C. with
new instructions, or if they can't cut the strings that connect them
to Wall Street, then we can replace them with people who know who
their real bosses are.
Carl Jarvis
Sent on 3/16/17:
some hard facts about Trump's proposed budget.
President Donald Trump. (photo: Getty)
Trump Proposes Federal Budget With Massive Cuts to the Arts, Science, and
the Poor
By Damian Paletta and Steven Mufson, The Washington Post
16 March 17
resident Trump on Thursday will unveil a budget plan that calls for a sharp
increase in military spending and stark cuts across much of the rest of the
government including the elimination of dozens of long-standing federal
programs that assist the poor, fund scientific research and aid America's
allies abroad.
Trump's first budget proposal, which he named "America First: A Budget
Blueprint to Make America Great Again," would increase defense spending by
$54 billion and then offset that by stripping money from more than 18 other
agencies. Some would be hit particularly hard, with reductions of more than
20 percent at the Agriculture, Labor and State departments and of more than
30 percent at the Environmental Protection Agency.
It would also propose eliminating future federal support for the National
Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Within EPA alone, 50 programs and
3,200
positions would be eliminated.
The cuts could represent the widest swath of reductions in federal programs
since the drawdown after World War II, probably leading to a sizable
cutback
in the federal non-military workforce, something White House officials said
was one of their goals.
"You can't drain the swamp and leave all the people in it," White House
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters.
(photo: The Washington Post)
Many of Trump's budget proposals are likely to run into stiff resistance
from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, even from Republicans, whose support is
crucial because they must vote to authorize government appropriations.
Republicans have objected, for example, to the large cuts in foreign aid
and
diplomacy that Trump has foreshadowed, and his budget whacks foreign aid
programs run by the Education, State and Treasury departments, among
others.
"The administration's budget isn't going to be the budget," said Sen. Marco
Rubio (R-Fla.). "We do the budget here. The administration makes
recommendations, but Congress does budgets."
Trump's budget would not take effect until the new fiscal year on Oct. 1,
but the president must still reach a separate agreement with Congress by
the
end of April, when a temporary funding bill expires. If they can't reach an
agreement, and if Trump's new budget plan widens fault lines, then the
chances would increase for a partial government shutdown starting on April
29.
The president and Congress must also raise the debt ceiling, which has
become a politically fraught ritual. Although the ceiling was extended
until
March 15, budget experts say the government should be able to continue
borrowing money by suspending or stretching out payments through August or
September.
White House budget proposals are often changed by lawmakers, but they serve
as a marker for how the president plans to govern and as an opening bid on
budget talks. Mulvaney said the White House was open to negotiation, but he
was unapologetic about the size and scope of the reductions.
"This budget represents a president who is beholden to nobody but the
voters," Mulvaney said. "He is following through on his promises. We did
not
consult with special interests on how to write this budget. We did not
consult with lobbyists on how to write this budget. The president's team
wrote this budget and that's what you'll see in the numbers."
The 53-page budget plan offers the clearest snapshot yet of Trump's
priorities. Yet it is also far shorter and vaguer than White House budget
plans normally are. One of the missing details is precisely where and how
many jobs would be eliminated across the federal government.
Parts of the budget proposal also appear to contradict Trump's agenda.
Trump
has said he wants to eliminate all disease, but the budget chops funding
for
the National Institutes of Health by $5.8 billion, or close to 20 percent.
He has said he wants to create a $1 trillion infrastructure program, but
the
proposal would eliminate a Transportation Department program that funds
nearly $500 million in road projects. It does not include new funding
amounts or a tax mechanism for Trump's infrastructure program, postponing
those decisions.
And the Trump administration proposed to eliminate a number of other
programs, particularly those that serve low-income Americans and
minorities,
because it questioned their effectiveness. This included the Low-Income
Home
Energy Assistance Program, which disburses more than $3 billion annually to
help heat homes in the winter. It also proposed abolishing the Community
Development Block Grant program, which provides roughly $3 billion for
targeted projects related to affordable housing, community development and
homelessness programs, among other things.
The budget was stuffed with other cuts and reductions. It calls for
privatizing the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control
function, cutting all funding for long-distance Amtrak train services and
eliminating EPA funding for the restoration of Chesapeake Bay. Job training
programs would also be cut, pushing more responsibility for this onto the
states and employers.
Many Republicans have criticized these programs in the past as wasteful and
ineffective, but supporters have said the programs are vital for
communities
in need.
The proposed budget extensively targets Obama programs and investments
focused on climate change, seeking to eliminate payments to the United
Nations' Green Climate Fund - one key component of the U.S. commitment to
the Paris climate agreement - and to slash research funding for climate,
ocean and earth science programs at agencies such as NASA and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. At the same time, clean-energy
research, heavily privileged by the Obama administration, would suffer
greatly under the budget with the elimination of the ARPA-E program
(Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy) at the Energy Department and an
unspecified cut to the agency's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy.
"I think one of the reasons they're proposing them [big spending cuts] is
that they know they won't ever get through Congress," said Sen. Patrick J.
Leahy (D-Vt.). "They know they'd be a disaster for their own party if they
did. It makes for a great talking point. It actually fits on a tweet."
There were several areas in which Trump proposed increasing spending. He
proposed, for example, $168 million for charter school programs and $250
million for a new private-school choice program, which would probably
provide tuition assistance for families who opt to send their children to
private schools.
The biggest increase in spending would be directed at the Pentagon, but the
budget plan does not make clear where the new $54 billion would go. The
budget plan would boost funding for the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air
Force. It would, among other things, acquire new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters
and rebuild what it says are depleted munitions inventories. But it stops
short of saying how these new funds would support new tactics to combat the
Islamic State.
The bump in defense spending was a marked contrast to the cuts Trump
proposed in diplomatic and international programs. He proposed cutting
combined spending for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for
International Development by $10.1 billion, or nearly 29 percent. It would
cut an unspecified amount of funding from U.N. peacekeeping efforts. It
would also cut spending for Treasury International Programs, foreign
assistance programs that have been supported by Republican and Democratic
administrations, by $803 million, or 35 percent.
Trump directed funding to meet several of his campaign pledges as well.
He proposed new money to hire border security agents and immigration
judges.
And he requested $1.7 billion in new funding this year and an additional
$2.6 billion in new funding in 2018 to begin construction of a wall along
the border with Mexico. Trump proposed creating this wall during his
campaign and had said Mexico would pay for it. A number of congressional
Republicans appear to be cooling on the idea.
The federal government is expected to spend more than $4 trillion in the
fiscal year that begins in October, and Trump's budget proposal would deal
with slightly more than 25 percent of this funding. The government is
expected to spend $487 billion more than it brings in through revenue
during
the next fiscal year, and to avoid widening the deficit, Trump proposed
steep cuts across the budget to compensate for the new defense spending.
Trump will propose a more comprehensive budget plan in May, which could
include changes to programs such as Medicaid and also offer economic
forecasts. But that proposal will come after the deadline for reaching an
agreement to avoid a partial shutdown. So Thursday's budget proposal from
Trump will factor squarely into those negotiations.
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