Trump’s budget to have major cuts

“We are not throwing money after a problem and claiming we fixed it”, Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, told reporters in a budget briefing.

“This is the “America First” budget”, Mulvaney said.

What does that actually mean?

Mulvaney said Trump arrived at $54 billion for the Pentagon through conversations with Defense Secretary James Mattis to ensure that it could be spent effectively.

Much of the reduction in State Department funding reflects big cuts in foreign aid. “We believe we have protected the diplomatic function of State and this is not a reflection of his policies towards State”.

That’s the date when Congress expects President Donald Trump to present his budget outline for the upcoming fiscal year. Some of the state’s signature initiatives for the poor - such as the massive In-Home Supportive Services program, which provides care for the elderly and disabled, and the CalFresh food stamp program, which serves hundreds of thousands of needy residents - probably would have to be scaled back dramatically.

“Unfortunately, we have no alternative but to reinvest in our military and make ourselves a military power once again”, Gary Cohn, Director of the National Economic Council, said on “Fox News Sunday“.

Two-thirds of the federal budget is dedicated to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and low income programmes and is not expected to change in the 16 March proposal.

Trump’s frequent campaign references to bombing ISIL and taking oil from Iraq suggest that this section of the budget indeed follows his own ideas.

He boasted that the expected increase for the military will be “one of the single largest increases in defense spending history in this country”.

Though he would not answer specific questions about the cuts to the EPA, Mulvaney confirmed that going forward, “You will see a reduction in subsidies and participation in programs that don’t align with the president’s views on climate change”.

“We’re getting rid of programs that simply don’t work, and a lot of those programs are in HUD”, Mulvaney said Wednesday.

Like any White House budget, Trump’s blueprint is more of a political document than an accurate predictor of government spending.

Still, there are some glaring absences in this budget.

Cuts also are being made to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to eliminate what White House officials call wasteful, duplicative programs. Lawmakers such as U.S. House of Representative Speaker Paul Ryan would like to see cuts to the non-discretionary or entitlement programs, which make up a huge chunk of federal spending.

“Key investments in maintenance capacity, training systems and additional F-35 Joint Strike Fighters would enable the Air Force, which is now the smallest it has been in history, to counter the growing number of complex threats”, the White House said in its summary. That was done intentionally… Why? But, as the New York Times notes, “Social Security, healthcare and net interest now comprise almost 60 percent of all federal spending”, a figure that is likely to swell to 82 percent over the next 10 years.

Trump wants to boost infrastructure spending while cutting taxes.

Democrats will likely demand that any spending plan they sign onto keep in place funding for nondefense programs that Trump wants to shutter.

“This is a budget blueprint”, Mulvaney said, “not a complete budget”.

The Trump government’s initial budget proposal, according to media reports, aims to tip the scales between defense and State Department spending even further.

Mulvaney said they will “move money around” HUD and not create any new programs. “We are not just throwing money at a problem and saying that we have solved it”, the former SC congressman said.

But even leading conservatives like Texas senator John Cornyn aren’t eager to buy Trump’s wall without details.

This is important because Washington was not just the driver behind the founding of the United Nations, but again is also the organisation’s biggest individual contributor - which gives the USA big sway in what’s happening there.