Trump White House to release National Socialist People’s Welfare budget Tuesday

[CountDeMoney]

Politics
Trump's Budget Cuts Deeply Into Medicaid and Anti-Poverty Efforts
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
The Failing New York Times
MAY 22, 2017

WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to unveil on Tuesday a $4.1 trillion budget for 2018 that would cut deeply into programs for the poor, from health care and food stamps to student loans and disability payments, laying out an austere vision for reordering the nation's priorities.

The document, grandly titled "A New Foundation for American Greatness," encapsulates much of the "America first" message that powered Mr. Trump's campaign. It calls for an increase in military spending of 10 percent and spending more than $2.6 billion for border security — including $1.6 billion to begin work on a wall on the border with Mexico — as well as huge tax reductions and an improbable promise of 3 percent economic growth.

The wildly optimistic projections balance Mr. Trump's budget, at least on paper, even though the proposal makes no changes to Social Security's retirement program or Medicare, the two largest drivers of the nation's debt.

To compensate, the package contains deep cuts in entitlement programs that would hit hardest many of the economically strained voters who propelled the president into office. Over the next decade, it calls for slashing more than $800 billion from Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor, while slicing $192 billion from nutritional assistance and $272 billion over all from welfare programs. And domestic programs outside of military and homeland security whose budgets are determined annually by Congress would also take a hit, their funding falling by $57 billion, or 10.6 percent.

The plan would cut by more than $72 billion the disability benefits upon which millions of Americans rely. It would eliminate loan programs that subsidize college education for the poor and those who take jobs in government or nonprofit organizations.

Mr. Trump's advisers portrayed the steep reductions as necessary to balance the nation's budget while sparing taxpayers from shouldering the burden of programs that do not work well.

"This is, I think, the first time in a long time that an administration has written a budget through the eyes of the people who are actually paying the taxes," said Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump's budget director.

"We're not going to measure our success by how much money we spend, but by how many people we actually help," Mr. Mulvaney said as he outlined the proposal at the White House on Monday before its formal presentation on Tuesday to Congress.

Among its innovations: Mr. Trump proposes saving $40 billion over a decade by barring undocumented immigrants from collecting the child care tax credit or the earned-income tax credit, a subsidy for low- and middle-income families, particularly those with children. He has also requested $19 billion over 10 years for a new program, spearheaded by his daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump, to provide six weeks of paid leave to new parents. The budget also includes a broad prohibition against money for entities that provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood, blocking them from receiving any federal health funding.

The release of the document, an annual ritual in Washington that usually constitutes a marquee event for a new president working to promote his vision, unfolded under unusual circumstances. Mr. Trump is out of the country for his first foreign trip, and his administration is enduring a near-daily drumbeat of revelations about the investigation into his campaign's possible links with Russia.

The president's absence, which his aides dismissed as a mere coincidence of the calendar, seemed to highlight the haphazard way in which his White House has approached its dealings with Congress. It is just as much a sign of Mr. Trump's lack of enthusiasm for the policy detail and message discipline that is required to marshal support to enact politically challenging changes.

"If the president is distancing himself from the budget, why on earth would Republicans rally around tough choices that would have to be made?" said Robert L. Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that promotes deficit reduction. "If you want to make the political case for the budget — and the budget is ultimately a political document — you really need the president to do it. So, it does seem bizarre that the president is out of the country."

The president's annual budget — more a message document than a practical set of marching orders even in the best of times — routinely faces challenges on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers jealously guard their prerogative to control federal spending and shape government programs. But Mr. Trump's wish list, in particular, faces long odds, with Democrats uniformly opposed and Republicans already showing themselves to be squeamish about some of the president's plans.

"It probably is the most conservative budget that we've had under Republican or Democrat administrations in decades," said Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

But in a signal that some proposed cuts to domestic programs are likely to face resistance even from conservatives, Mr. Meadows said he could not stomach the idea of doing away with food assistance for older Americans.

"Meals on Wheels, even for some of us who are considered to be fiscal hawks, may be a bridge too far," Mr. Meadows said.

Republicans balked at Mr. Trump's demand for money for the border wall in negotiations over a spending package enacted last month. Many were deeply conflicted over voting for a health care overhaul measure that included the Medicaid cuts contained in the budget to be presented on Tuesday. Now the president is proposing still deeper reductions to the federal health program for the poor, as well as drastically scaling back a broad array of social safety net programs that are certain to be unpopular with lawmakers.

"The politics of this make no sense to me whatsoever, in the sense that the population that brought them to the dance are the populists out there in the Midwest and South who rely on these programs that he's talking about reducing," said G. William Hoagland, a former senior Republican congressional budget aide. Referring to Representative Paul D. Ryan, he said: "I don't see how Speaker Ryan gets anywhere close to 218 votes in the House of Representatives if this is the model. It's an exercise in futility."

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said Monday that the Medicaid cuts would "carry a staggering human cost" and violate Mr. Trump's campaign promise to address the opioid epidemic.

"Based on what we know about this budget, the good news — the only good news — is that it was likely to be roundly rejected by members of both parties here in the Senate, just as the last budget was," Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor.

The budget itself avoids some of the tough choices that would be required to enact Mr. Trump's fiscal vision. The huge tax cut was presented but without any detail about its elements or cost. Mr. Mulvaney said the tax plan would not add to the deficit, implying that its cost would be made up with other changes, such as eliminating deductions.

To balance the budget, Mr. Trump's budget relies on growth he argues will be generated from the as-yet-unformed tax cut.

The blueprint also steers clear of changing Social Security or Medicare, steps that Mr. Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman who has backed entitlement cuts, said he had tried to persuade Mr. Trump to consider.

"He said, 'I promised people on the campaign trail I would not touch their retirement and I would not touch Medicare,' and we don't do it," Mr. Mulvaney said. "I honestly was surprised that we could balance the budget without changing those programs, but we managed to do that."

But budget experts argued that was little more than fiction, and the plan could never deliver the results it claims to.

"The central inconsistency is promoting a massive tax cut and spending increases in some areas and leaving the major entitlement programs alone," Mr. Bixby said. "You don't have to be an economist to know that that doesn't add up, and that's why there's a great deal of concern about the negative fiscal impact that this budget will have."

While past presidents have often launched a road show with stops around the country to promote the components of their inaugural budgets, Mr. Trump is spending the rest of the week overseas, leaving his staff to explain his plan while Republicans prepare their own response.

"This budget is dead before arrival, so he might as well be out of town," said David A. Stockman, a former budget director under President Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Stockman said both political parties had grown comfortable with running large annual budget deficits. "There's not a snowball's chance that most of this deep deficit reduction will even be considered in a serious way."

[sbr]

On one hand there is a 0% chance any part of Congress will seriously consider this budget proposal, on the other hand I can't put into words how much of a hero you are for not putting this into the TRUMP MEGATHREAD.

[celedhring]

I'm reading that the budget expects a 4.4% growth this year to make ends meet?

Are they really serious? At least Bushie Jr. tried to sell its magic tax cut mojo with a straight face.

[The Larch]

Nice of him to leave the country when launching this.  Underlings must be ecstatic.

[celedhring]

Didn't he take pretty much all the senior staff with him too? 

[CountDeMoney]

To Your Health
Trump budget seeks huge cuts to disease prevention and medical research departments
By Joel Achenbach and Lena H. Sun
The Failing Washington Post
May 22 at 7:19 PM

President Trump's 2018 budget request to Congress seeks massive cuts in spending on health programs, including medical research, disease prevention programs and health insurance for children of the working poor.

The National Cancer Institute would be hit with a $1 billion cut compared to its 2017 budget. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute would see a $575 million cut, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would see a reduction of $838 million. The administration would cut the overall National Institutes of Health budget from $31.8 billion to $26 billion.

The full budget document is scheduled to be released Tuesday morning, but either by mistake or design, the administration posted the section dealing with the Department of Health and Human Services late Monday afternoon. The document was soon taken offline but can be read here.

"The only official version of the HHS budget will be released by the Office of Management and Budget at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. At that time, Budget Director [Mick] Mulvaney will hold a press briefing and address any questions," HHS national spokesperson Alleigh Marré wrote in an email to The Post.

The slashing of programs that normally have enjoyed bipartisan support is part of the Trump administration's effort to trim trillions of dollars in spending over the next decade while at the same time paying for tax cuts and increases in military spending.

Trump's Office of Management and Budget produced a "skinny budget" in March, in effect an outline with few details, and that document delivered a number of surprises, including a call to cut nearly one-fifth of National Institutes of Health budget and nearly one-third of the Environmental Protection Agency funding.

Lawmakers appeared to ignore that budget request entirely when putting together a spending plan for the rest of fiscal 2017, which runs through September. Much of that spending plan had been in the works before the November election. It is unclear how Congress, which has the power of the purse, will treat this new and more detailed budget request.

But the document posted late Monday shows that blow-back from that earlier budget request did not dissuade the administration from its strategy of cutting nonmilitary discretionary spending to pay for tax cuts and a boost in the Pentagon budget.

Among the highlights:

Funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) would be slashed by at least 20 percent for the next two fiscal years. According to the budget document, the administrator favors a renewal of CHIP, a program created 20 years ago for the children of lower-working class families and which currently insures 5.6 million children.

The spending plan would, however, eliminate an element of the Affordable Care Act that increased by 23 percent the portion of the program's costs that is paid for with federal money, leaving states to shoulder a larger share. It would also for the first time essentially limit states' eligibility levels to qualify, saying that the government would no longer help cover children from families with incomes of more than 250 percent of the federal poverty level. Currently, 18 states plus the District of Columbia allow families with incomes higher than 300 percent of the poverty line to sign up their children for CHIP, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The Trump budget asks for cuts to several key programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which responds to disease outbreaks in the United States and around the world, makes sure food and water are safe, and helps people avoid heart disease, cancer, stroke and other leading causes of death.

The president's budget seeks an $82 million cut at the center that works on vaccine-preventable and respiratory diseases, such as influenza and measles. It proposes a cut of $186 million from programs at CDC's center on HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis prevention. One of the biggest cuts, $222 million, is to the agency's chronic disease prevention programs, which are designed to help people prevent diabetes, heart disease and stroke, and obesity.

Some of those funds are being channeled into a new $500 million block grant program to states and territories to focus on "leading chronic disease challenges specific to each state." Critics have said block grants allow states to plug holes in their budgets, without accountability that federal programs require.

The agency's center on birth defects and developmental disabilities also gets a 26 percent cut to its budget at a time when researchers have yet to understand the full consequences of Zika infections in pregnant women and their babies.

The budget calls for a 17 percent cut to CDC's global health programs that monitor and respond to disease outbreaks around the world. It also cuts about 10 percent from CDC's office of  public health preparedness and response.

The budget document highlights $35 million that the CDC spends on childhood lead poisoning prevention. But the overall spending on environmental health would under Trump's plan be cut by $60 million, down to $157 million, according the document.

Trump administration officials have also proposed the establishment of an Emergency Response Fund to respond quickly to emerging public health threats. In the wake of the Ebola and Zika epidemics, U.S. officials have repeatedly called for the need for such a fund. The budget does not provide a specific amount. It says HHS would have "department-wide transfer authority to support the Fund in the case of a natural or man-made disaster or threat." The fund would be available to receive a transfer of up to one percent of any HHS account, without any limitation on the total, for use in emergency preparedness and response.

The Food and Drug Administration would see a cut from $2.74 billion to $1.89 billion. User fees paid by manufacturers of drugs, devices and other products would be increased by close to $1 billion to pay for product reviews.

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chairman of the health committee, has said he does not want to reopen negotiations with the industry over fees that it pays to support FDA activities, as the Trump administration has previously suggested. His committee recently approved legislation that ignores the administration request.

[CountDeMoney]

Nice of him to leave the country when launching this.  Underlings must be ecstatic.

Nothing like issuing a budget that punishes the poor out of sheer cruelty in time to meet the Pope.

[Tamas]

How can undocumented illegals earn tax credit? You know what, let's not go there again. It's just distasteful that you Americans so can't make it without slavery, that you would recreate it via pushing a lot of people into this legal limbo where they can be part of the system, but on extremely shaky and convoluted grounds, always one wrong move from losing it all.


Apart from that, a fascist has proposed a fascist budget. At the end of it all, the collapse of living standards for his fans will be the fault of Obama. News at 11.

[Monoriu]

Figures like US$35 million sounds quite small for the US Federal government.  I know every penny counts, but it is probably more efficient to deal with the big ticket items. 

[CountDeMoney]

How can undocumented illegals earn tax credit?

Citizenship is not a legal requirement to pay taxes.

[Tamas]

How can undocumented illegals earn tax credit?

Citizenship is not a legal requirement to pay taxes.

For sure, but if somebody is an undocumented illegal, it means he/she has no legal basis to even stay in the country, let alone have a tax record accepted by the tax authority. In a civilised country that is.

These people should be given a legal resident status, or if it's really impossible because America First, then sent home. But then who the fuck would paint the weekend homes for a few cents, hoping the Masters will not report them after the job is done, amiright?

[garbon]

How can undocumented illegals earn tax credit?

Citizenship is not a legal requirement to pay taxes.

For sure, but if somebody is an undocumented illegal, it means he/she has no legal basis to even stay in the country, let alone have a tax record accepted by the tax authority. In a civilised country that is.

These people should be given a legal resident status, or if it's really impossible because America First, then sent home. But then who the fuck would paint the weekend homes for a few cents, hoping the Masters will not report them after the job is done, amiright?

Well municipalities, states and the feds can all have different policies and stances.

[CountDeMoney]

For sure, but if somebody is an undocumented illegal, it means he/she has no legal basis to even stay in the country, let alone have a tax record accepted by the tax authority. In a civilised country that is.

And if their appeal on their immigration status is winding its way through the federal court system, they have legal standing in the courts but not with the IRS? 

These people should be given a legal resident status, or if it's really impossible because America First, then sent home. But then who the fuck would paint the weekend homes for a few cents, hoping the Masters will not report them after the job is done, amiright?

Beet Panther Party radicalism does not become you.

[Ed Anger]

How can undocumented illegals earn tax credit?

Citizenship is not a legal requirement to pay taxes.

For sure, but if somebody is an undocumented illegal, it means he/she has no legal basis to even stay in the country, let alone have a tax record accepted by the tax authority. In a civilised country that is.

These people should be given a legal resident status, or if it's really impossible because America First, then sent home. But then who the fuck would paint the weekend homes for a few cents, hoping the Masters will not report them after the job is done, amiright?

You sound uppity.

[Zanza]

Sounds more like a libertarian than a national-socialist budget.