Cabinet members head to Capitol Hill to defend Trump budget

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers trashed President Trump’s budget calling it the “least honest” and most “incompetent” proposal he’s seen in several decades.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had expected the government to hit the legally mandated debt ceiling – now about $20.1 trillion – in early September.

The director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, referred in those terms to the proposal send to Congress on Tuesday. She says cuts to education are “one of the dumbest budget moves they can make”.

Trump is also targeting the Medicaid health program that provides care to the poor and disabled, and nursing home care to millions of older people who could not otherwise afford it.

Schumer said the administration would cut funds from states and cities “to pay wealthy hedge funds and Wall Street to build more toll roads”.

The problem is Trump’s $2trn (£1.5trn) of tax cuts, which the administration lists as “revenue neutral” because they are cancelled out by additional tax raised due to the growth it is claimed they will generate. It prioritizes American taxpayers over bureaucrats in Washington, while making our military stronger so we can face the threats of a modern world. “It assumes that the stars perfectly align”.

Longtime GOP Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky calls Trump’s proposed cuts to domestic safety net programs “draconian”.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress said Trump’s budget will not pass as it is now written. Perdue said the nation has a dilemma in how to “right-size the budget” but acknowledged the concerns.

Casey carries a much different perspective than Mulvaney. While it includes cuts across a variety of discretionary programs, it also reforms one of the largest healthcare entitlements: Medicaid.

Hence, it is increasingly frequent that public opinion speaks about the draft budget as an inverse Robin Hood who robs the poor to give the richest. “We need people to go to work”, he said.

Perdue had no defense: “I think your comments are essentially irrefutable”, he said. Idaho would lose funding for special education and Title I programs for high-poverty schools. The budget would zero out federal teacher training grants and funding for before- and after-school programs.

DeVos answered that that was not the federal government’s business, but was for states and locales to decide.

“They need to have it”, he said.

Administration officials said they expect that by 2022 there will be a new mechanism to make up for lost revenue. In order to pay for a $54 billion increase in defense spending of dubious value and without accounting for the costs of a planned major tax cuts, the Trump administration proposes to slash spending on nearly every other discretionary program (i.e., aside from Medicare and Social Security, which Mr. Trump promised on the campaign trail not to touch).

The budget also slashes funding for other low-income assistance programs, the State Department, global aid and the Department of Education.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says the budget would harm many Trump supporters, but he’s optimistic it will be roundly rejected. “Their efforts against terrorism and other disasters won’t immediately collapse”.

Brown said the additional money toward school choice is welcome, but can be hard to implement properly while adequately funding programs already in place. And it omits any proposal for negotiating prescription drug prices, a frequent Trump talking point.

Cole oversees spending on health and social welfare programs as chairman of a House Appropriations panel and has a medical research facility important to his district that relies on federal funding. Trump previously assured his base that he would not cut Medicare, Social Security or Medicaid if elected.