Trump budget slashes State Department, USAID funding

The Trump administration proposed sweeping cuts to many parts of the federal government on Thursday morning, including foreign aid, environmental protection, trade development, the arts and programs geared at helping the poor.

The White House Office of Management and Budget unveiled a 62-page so-called “skinny budget” on Thursday offering a look at the Trump administration’s fiscal priorities for 2018.

Trade is an issue that the tech industry should work on with the Trump administration, according to Consumer Technology Association President and Chief Executive Gary Shapiro and Internet Association President and Chief Executive Michael Beckerman. The president is proposing to reduce the department’s funding by $9.2 billion, or 13.5 percent, to $59 billion, according to an Associated Press analysis of the budget plan. The Green Line reached that milestone when a key FTA official sent a commitment letter to the MBTA in late 2014 and Congress signed off on it early the next year. The full extent of the proposed cuts aren’t yet clear.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3 District, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said she would “fight like hell so that it won’t go through”. “We have over 700,000 children living in public housing”.

“I’m not sure what performance outcomes they’ve saying they’re not seeing”, said Melissa Pearce, the president and CEO of Community Action of Wayne and Medina Counties. Community Development Block Grants, HOME Investment Partnerships, the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program, and several other aid programs at HUD would be nixed.

“Meals on Wheels is not a federal program”. The program feeds more than 2.4 million Americans a year and delivers about 218 million meals a year. “What bills can I be late on and maybe try to catch up the next time?’ it’s like there’s never enough money”, said Pearce. “So we save the taxpayers money, no question about it”.

The proposed budget does not specifically say whether the White House plans to cut or eliminate funding of State Department or USAID initiatives or programs that promote LGBT and intersex rights overseas. We’ve spent $150 billion on [CDBGs] since the 1970s.

But he added, “we’re not going to spend on programs that can not show that they actually deliver the promises that we’ve made to people”. “We’re $20 trillion in debt”. We get what we pay for – rather, what we elect. “Again, you will see no reference to Social Security here, no reference to Medicare here, no reference to Medicaid here, or any of the other mandatory programs, what some people call entitlement programs, because that’s not what this budget is”. The Pentagon is notorious for losing track of large sums of money, fudging its numbers, lacking contract oversight, overpaying for supplies, wasting billions by building facilities and purchasing equipment that military leaders do not want or need and piddling away billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse through botched reconstruction efforts. “BUT HOW WILL I SURVIVE ON THIS BUDGET? you may be wondering”.