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Understanding the Cuts and Spending Increases in Trump’s Budget

The president's budget seeks to gut funding for many every day American services while increasing the spending on the military and homeland security


President Trump will drastically reorder the United States’ priorities with his new budget, spending billions on defending the Mexican border and bolstering the Pentagon while simultaneously cutting funds for the environment, foreign aid and poverty programs to pay for it.

The budget is set to significantly reshape America, taking away focus from what affects Americans every day.

Government funding for this fiscal year will run out on April 28th, and the 2018 budget will need to be in place by October this year – Democrats are threatening a government shutdown if funding for the border wall is in the budget.

Unlikely to be approved

Congress must approve presidential budgets, and they are always changed, often significantly.

The budget seeks for Washington to slash the government workforce, but it is all but certain to be rejected by Republicans in Congress, many of whom see Trump’s cuts as too reckless and rushed.

“You can’t drain the swamp and leave all of the people in it,” Mick Mulvaney, the White House’s budget director, said during a briefing on Wednesday. “The president wants to spend more money on defense, more money securing the border, more money enforcing the laws, and more money on school choice, without adding to the deficit. If they have a different way to accomplish that, we are more than interested in talking to them”.

While many of the proposals would be non-starters for Democrats, many wiould also be problematic for Republicans. For example, the $54 billion increase in military spending (10 percent) would require a repeal of the spending caps that are enforced by the 2011 Budget Control Act.

“President Trump is not making anyone more secure with a budget that hollows out our economy and endangers working families,” said House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. “Throwing billions at defense while ransacking America’s investments in jobs, education, clean energy and lifesaving medical research will leave our nation weakened.”

Environmental Protection Agency 

The EPA is set to see the biggest cuts; seen as overreaching by the Trump administration, the president wants to trim $2.6 billion and cut 3,200 jobs – about one fifth of the department, the lowest level in 40 years.

This means that funding for climate change research would be axed, state environmental programs would be closed and regional bipartisan projects like the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative would also end. The Clean Power Plan will be defunded – regulations designed to reduce the environmental impact of power plants.

The United Nations would also see its funding cut in regards to environmental efforts, along with contributions to peacekeeping efforts too, for good measure. Contributions to the World Bank would be cut by $650 million.

Trump would increase spending on:

Trump would cut funding for:

Trump would eliminate these agencies completely: