The new budget proposal from popular vote loser Donald Trump will be unveiled Tuesday is heavy both on the making everybody but the wealthy suffer and the magical pixie dust of trickle down. It will cut $1.7 trillion over 10 years on the backs of everyone but the wealthy. It makes totally unrealistic growth assumptions and gives a cold shoulder to Senate Republicans who are opposing the steep Medicaid cuts in Trumpcare.
For Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides health care to low-income Americans, Trump’s budget plan would follow through on a bill passed by House Republicans to cut more than $800 billion over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this could cut off Medicaid benefits for about 10 million people over the next decade. […]
The proposed changes include the big cuts to Medicaid. The White House also is expected to propose changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, though precise details couldn’t be learned. SNAP is the modern version of food stamps, and it swelled following the financial crisis as the Obama administration eased policies to make it easier for people to qualify for benefits. As the economy has improved, enrollment in the program hasn’t changed as much as many had forecast. […]
Trump has instructed his budget director, former South Carolina congressman Mick Mulvaney, that he does not want cuts to Medicare and Social Security’s retirement program in this budget, Mulvaney recently said, but the plan may call for changes to Social Security Disability Insurance, seeking ideas for ways to move people who are able out of this program and back into the workforce.
A key element of the budget plan will be the assumption that huge tax cuts will result in an unprecedented level of economic growth. Trump recently unveiled the broad principles of what he has said will be the biggest in U.S. history, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told a Senate panel last week that these tax cuts would end up creating trillions of dollars in new revenue, something budget experts from both parties have disputed. […]
Beyond an increase in the military budget and new money for border security, the White House is expected to call for $200 billion for infrastructure projects and an additional $25 billion over 10 years for a new program designed by Ivanka Trump that would create six weeks of parental leave benefits.
The proposed budget will allow states more "flexibility" in setting rules for aid programs, meaning that it will allow much more leeway for Republican governors and legislatures to create work requirements, drug testing, and other onerous hoops for people to jump through in order to receive assistance. Never mind that SNAP already has built-in work requirements for people who aren't children, elderly, disabled, or providing stay-at-home care to their family members. The Obama administration allowed states to provide SNAP assistance for longer time periods for the workers, and that is likely to end.
The Medicaid cuts are particularly onerous, and suggest that if Trump can't get them through Trumpcare, he'll try to get them through his budget. Additionally, the budget is reported to cut "federal funding for Habitat for Humanity, subsidized school lunches and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates the federal response to homelessness across 19 federal agencies," as well as the Children's Health Insurance Program.
This, supposedly, in combination with Trumps' massive tax cuts and totally unrealistic economic growth levels of 3 percent—most reality-based economists see continued growth at 1.8 percent much more likely. But all these cuts are supposed to bring a balanced budget in 10 years. A balanced budget and an impoverished, sick, and starving populace.