Trump budget cuts would hit Texas education service programs hard

President Trump is calling for funds to be shuffled into defense and away from almost ever other domestic department. Those offices would be refocused on “early-stage applied energy research where the federal role is stronger”, according to the budget.

That means a proposed 10 percent, or $54 billion, boost to Defense-related programs in fiscal 2018, a 6 percent boost for Homeland Security, and cuts “where you’d expect” at many other agencies, he said.

Other train systems could be defunded if Trump’s budget plan goes through.

Trump’s proposals request $639bn for defense, comprised of $65bn in war funding atop $574bn in the so-called “base” Pentagon funding, up from $587bn in Barack Obama’s final defense budget request.

“Once again, the Trump administration is showing its true colors: talk like a populist but govern like a special-interests zealot”, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, said in a statement. The president’s plan essentially hails defense spending and homeland security as top priority while throwing a number of vital and necessary government programs to the wayside. Specifically, the budget suggests investing in new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to protect against extremist threats. In some cases, the president – through his agency heads – may be able to restrict some of that spending, but Congress can also be specific about where and how it wants taxpayer money spent, tying the administration’s hands. Charter schools would see an increase in funding. Hello, higher flood insurance premiums to pay for a border wall.

The budget would also reorient EPA enforcement activities by concentrating them on “programs that are not delegated to the States”.

USAID could see 28.7 percent pruned off its budget. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has previously said Republicans would not accept large State Department cuts, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from SC, called the proposal “dead on arrival” when the administration outlined its budget plans in February.

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney acknowledged to reporters that passing the cuts could be an uphill struggle and said the administration would negotiate over replacement cuts.

The blueprint eliminates funding for a number of agencies and entities, including those created to help the poor.

He adds that: “Congressional Republicans have been saying they want the IRS to be more focused on customer service, but slashing funding for the agency by hundreds of millions of dollars would result in the exact opposite outcome”. These range from relatively small programs, such as the ones supporting public broadcasters, the arts, Amtrak and legal aid for the poor, to major initiatives funding foreign aid, community development, education and scientific research.

The Republican president will ask his adopted political party, which runs Capitol Hill, to cut domestic agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development, along with grants to state and local governments and community development projects.

The estimate of the full cost of the wall will be in the full Budget. Wherever additions have been made, cuts have been made, dollar-for-dollar, elsewhere.

The program has been targeted by budget hawks for decades. The EPA also takes a big hit in the budget proposal. “Not 30% of a plan for just more than one year”.

“Don’t discount the infrastructure program” that Trump should deliver later this year, Mulvaney said, noting that Transportation may see some cuts that will be restored under the infrastructure plan.