Page 10A
NATION
East Oregonian
Friday, March 17, 2017
TRUMP PROPOSED BUDGET
Cuts to GOP, Dem favorites alike
By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
—
President Donald Trump’s
new $1.15 trillion budget
would reshape America’s
government with the broad,
conservative strokes he
promised as a candidate,
ordering generous increases
for the military, slashing
domestic programs and riling
both fellow Republicans and
Democrats by going after
favored programs.
The president’s initial
budget proposal, submitted
to Congress on Thursday,
would
boost
defense
spending by $54 billion, the
largest increase since Ronald
Reagan’s military buildup
of the 1980s. That means
deep cuts elsewhere — the
environment,
agriculture,
the arts — but Trump said
that’s imperative to take on
the Islamic State group and
others in a dangerous world.
“To keep Americans safe,
we have made the tough
choices that have been put off
for too long,” he declared in
a statement titled “America
First” that accompanied the
budget.
Or, as Budget Director
Mick Mulvaney said, “This
is a hard power budget, not a
soft power budget.”
It’s not entirely in line with
Trump’s campaign pledges.
It would make a big down
payment on the U.S.-Mexico
border wall, which Trump
repeatedly promised the
Mexicans would pay for.
American taxpayers will,
at least for now. Thursday’s
proposal calls for an imme-
diate $1.4 billion infusion
with an additional $2.6 billion
planned for the 2018 budget
year starting Oct. 1.
Parts of Trump’s spending
plan for the next fiscal year
angered both congressional
Democrats and Republicans
who will have the final say
on it.
While it targets Demo-
cratic priorities like housing,
community
development
and the environment, it also
would slash GOP sacred
cows like aid to rural schools
and subsidized airline service
to Trump strongholds, and it
would raise fees on partic-
ipants in the federal flood
insurance program.
The budget pursues
frequent targets of the
GOP’s staunchest conser-
vatives, eliminating the
National Endowment for the
Arts, legal aid for the poor,
low-income heating assis-
tance and the AmeriCorps
national service program
established by President Bill
Clinton.
But Midwestern Repub-
licans including Sen. Rob
Portman of Ohio were
upset by cuts to the Great
Lakes Restoration Initiative.
Southern Republicans like
Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky
Trump budget makes deep cuts
President Donald Trump’s budget blueprint for the 2018 fiscal
year boosts spending for defense, veterans and homeland
security, with cuts to most other departments.
DEPARTMENT/
AGENCY
BUDGET
(in billions)
Agriculture
$17.9
Commerce
7.8
Defense
PERCENTAGE CHANGE
FROM CURRENT SPENDING
-20.7 %
-15.7
574.0
10.0
Education
59.0
-13.5
Energy
28.0
-5.6
5.7
-31.4
Health and Human Svcs.*
65.1
-16.2
Homeland Security
44.1
6.8
Housing and Urban Dev.
40.7
-13.2
Interior
11.6
-11.7
Justice
27.7
-3.8
Labor
9.6
-20.7
Small Business Admin.
0.8
-5.0
State/International programs 27.1
Transportation
16.2
-28.7
EPA
-12.7
Treasury**
11.2
-4.4
Veterans Affairs
78.9
5.9
Social Security*
9.3
0.2
19.1
-0.8
5.0
-16.3
NASA
Corps of Engineers
Other agencies
26.5
-9.8
Overseas war operations/
disaster relief
85.9
-11.2
*Does not include mandatory spending on entitlement benefits.
**Does not include spending on interest on the federal debt.
SOURCE: Office of Management and Budget
lashed out at cuts he called
“draconian, careless and
counterproductive.”
One target of the budget
is the Appalachian Regional
Commission, which helps
communities in the region.
Trump’s proposal covers
only roughly one-fourth of
the approximately $4 trillion
total federal budget. This is
the discretionary portion that
Congress passes each year,
“I just want to make
sure that rural
America, who was
very supportive
to Trump, doesn’t
have to take a
disproportionately
high cut.”
— Rep. Robert Aderhold,
R-Alabama
not addressing taxes, Social
Security, Medicare and
Medicaid.
Nor does it make
predictions about deficits
and the economy. Those
big-picture details are due in
May, and are sure to show
large — probably permanent
— budget deficits. Trump
has vowed not to cut Social
Security and Medicare and is
dead set against raising taxes.
As
for
Thursday’s
proposal,
Republicans
praised the president for
beefing up the Pentagon, but
they were far less enthusiastic
about accepting Trump’s
recipe for doing so without
AP
adding to the nation’s $20
trillion debt.
“While we support more
funding for our military and
defense, we must maintain
support for our farmers and
ranchers,” said North Dakota
Republican John Hoeven,
blasting a 21 percent cut to
the Agriculture Department’s
budget.
The proposed budget
would close numerous
county offices that help
farmers and rural residents
navigate farm subsidy and
rural development programs.
Rural development and water
projects would also bear cuts.
“I just want to make sure
that rural America, who was
very supportive to Trump,
doesn’t have to take a dispro-
portionately high cut,” said
Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala.
Budget
Director
Mulvaney
acknowledged
that passing the cuts could
be an uphill struggle and said
the administration would
negotiate.
“This is not a take-it-or-
leave-it budget,” he acknowl-
edged.
Many of Trump’s GOP
allies on Capitol Hill gave it
only grudging praise, if any.
“Congress has the power
of the purse,” reminded
House
Appropriations
Committee
Chairman
Rodney Frelinghuysen of
New Jersey. “I look forward
to reviewing this,” said
House Speaker Paul Ryan of
Wisconsin.
“Many of the reductions
and eliminations proposed
in the President’s ‘skinny
budget’ are draconian, care-
less and counterproductive,”
AP Photo/Seth Wenig
Air traffic controllers work in the tower at John F. Kennedy International Airport in
New York, Thursday. President Donald Trump is calling for privatizing the nation’s air
traffic control operations in his budget proposal, a top priority of the airline industry.
Trump calls for privatizing air traffic control
WASHINGTON (AP)
— President Donald Trump
is calling for privatizing the
nation’s air traffic control
operations in his budget
proposal, a top priority of
the airline industry.
The proposal says
spinning off air traffic
operations from the Federal
Aviation Administration
and placing them under an
“independent,
non-gov-
ernmental organization”
would make the system
“more efficient and inno-
vative while maintaining
safety.”
There are about 50,000
airline and other aircraft
flights a day in the United
States. Both sides of the
privatization debate say the
system is one of the most
complex and safest in the
world. The FAA would
continue to provide safety
oversight of the system
under a congressional
privatization plan.
Airlines have been
lobbying vigorously for
the change, saying the
FAA’s NextGen program
to modernize the air traffic
said Rep. Harold Rogers,
R-Ky.
Law enforcement agen-
cies like the FBI would be
spared. In addition to the
billions for the border wall,
there is a request for $1.2
billion for the current budget
year for additional border
patrol and immigration
control agents.
More than 3,000 EPA
workers would lose their jobs
and programs such as Barack
Obama’s Clean Power Plan,
which would tighten regu-
lations on emissions from
power plants seen as contrib-
uting to global warming,
would be eliminated. Popular
EPA grants for state and local
drinking and wastewater
projects would be preserved,
however, even as research
into climate change would be
system is taking too long
and has produced too few
benefits. Industry officials
say that privatization would
remove air traffic opera-
tions from the uncertainties
of the annual congressional
budget process, which have
hindered the FAA’s ability
to make long-term procure-
ment commitments.
“Our system is safe,
but it is outdated and not
as efficient as it should or
could be,” said Nick Calio,
president of Airlines for
America.
The National Air Traffic
Controllers Association,
the union that represents the
FAA’s 14,000 controllers,
backed an unsuccessful
congressional attempt at
privatization last year. The
union said it will evaluate
Trump’s plan. Union offi-
cials have complained that
the FAA has been unable to
resolve chronic controller
understaffing at some of
the nation’s busiest facil-
ities, and they say they’ve
become discouraged by the
modernization effort’s slow
progress.
But FAA Administrator
Michael Huerta told an
aviation industry confer-
ence earlier this month
that the agency has made
“tremendous
progress”
over the past decade in
updating its computers and
other equipment in order
to move from a radar-
based to a satellite-based
control system.
The
modernization program
has already delivered
$2.7 billion in benefits to
airlines and other users of
the system, and the FAA
expects to produce another
$13 billion in benefits by
2020, he said.
Opponents say the
process of transferring air
traffic control operations
from the FAA to a corpora-
tion could take years and be
disruptive.
“Air traffic control
privatization will not
benefit the flying public
and it definitely will not
benefit taxpayers who will
be on the hook for bailing
out the private ATC corpo-
ration if it fails,” said Rep.
Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.
eliminated.
Before the two sides go
to war over Trump’s 2018
plan, they need to deal with
more than $1.1 trillion in
unfinished agency budgets
for the current year. A
temporary catchall spending
bill expires April 28; nego-
tiations have barely started
and could get hung up over
Trump’s request for the
wall and additional border
patrol and immigration
enforcement agents, just for
starters.
Some of the most polit-
ically sensitive domestic
programs would be spared in
the new proposal, including
food aid for pregnant women
and their children, housing
vouchers for the poor, aid
for special education and
school districts for the poor,
and federal aid to historically
black colleges and universi-
ties.
Critics
seized
on
difficult-to-defend cuts to
programs such as Meals on
Wheels, which delivers food
to elderly shut-ins.
But the National Institutes
of Health would absorb a $5.8
billion cut despite Trump’s
talk in a recent address to
Congress of finding “cures to
the illnesses that have always
plagued us.” Subsidies for
airlines serving rural airports
in Trump strongholds would
be eliminated. The plan
would also shut down some
money-losing long-distance
Amtrak routes and kill off
a popular $500 million
per-year “TIGER Grant”
program for highway proj-
ects created by Obama.
Travel ban rulings highlight trouble posed by Trump record
By GENE JOHNSON
and SUDHIN THANAWALA
Associated Press
SEATTLE — Federal
law gives the president broad
authority over immigration.
Jimmy Carter used it to deny
some Iranians entry to the
U.S. during the hostage crisis,
Ronald Reagan to bar Cubans
who didn’t already have
relatives here and President
Obama to keep out North
Korean officials.
So why does President
Donald Trump keep running
into legal trouble with his
efforts to freeze immigration
by refugees and citizens of
some predominantly Muslim
nations?
When federal courts in
Hawaii and Maryland blocked
Trump’s revised travel ban
from taking effect, the judges
spelled out their major
concern: the unusual record
of statements by the president
and his advisers suggesting
the executive order’s real
purpose was to discriminate
against Muslims, in violation
of the Constitution’s ban on
officially favoring or disfa-
voring any religion.
As the legal fight moves
into the appeals courts, two
key issues will be the extent
of the president’s broad
immigration powers — and
whether Trump’s own record
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
President Donald Trump speaks at a rally Wednesday in
Nashville, Tenn.
stymies his plans.
THE RULINGS
Neither U.S. District
Judge Theodore Chuang in
Maryland nor Judge Derrick
Watson bought the admin-
istration’s reasoning that the
travel ban is about national
security.
“The history of public
statements continues to
provide a convincing case
that the purpose of the second
executive order remains the
realization of the long-envi-
sioned Muslim ban,” Chuang
wrote.
Watson criticized what
he called the “illogic” of the
government’s arguments and
cited “significant and unre-
butted evidence of religious
animus” behind the travel
ban. He also noted that while
courts should not examine the
“veiled psyche” and “secret
motives” of government deci-
sion-makers, “the remarkable
facts at issue here require no
such impermissible inquiry.”
“For instance, there is
nothing ‘veiled’ about this
press release: ‘Donald J.
Trump is calling for a total
and complete shutdown of
Muslims entering the United
States,’” he wrote, referring to
a statement Trump issued as a
candidate.
But the scope of the
rulings differed. In a challenge
brought by Hawaii, Watson
blocked the federal govern-
ment from enforcing its ban on
travel from six mostly Muslim
countries and its suspension of
the nation’s refugee program.
Chuang only blocked the
six-nation travel ban, saying
it wasn’t clear that the suspen-
sion of the refugee program
was similarly motivated by
religious bias.
A federal judge in Seattle
on Thursday ruled that his
order blocking Trump’s orig-
inal travel ban does not apply
to the revised executive order
because there are enough
differences between the two.
Judge James Robart noted
that Washington and several
other states have also asked
him to block the revised ban.
He said he would rule on that
request at a later date.
APPEALS COMING
Speaking
Wednesday
evening at a rally in Nashville,
Tennessee, Trump called the
ruling in Hawaii an example
of “unprecedented judicial
overreach” and said his
administration would appeal it
to the U.S. Supreme Court. He
also called his new travel ban
a watered-down version of
the first one, which he said he
wished he could implement.
“We’re going to win.
We’re going to keep our
citizens safe,” the president
said. “The danger is clear. The
law is clear. The need for my
executive order is clear.”
White House spokesman
Sean Spicer said Thursday
that the Justice Department
was exploring its options,
but that it expected to file an
appeal of the Maryland ruling
with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals and to seek clar-
ification of the Hawaii order
before appealing to the 9th
Circuit. That circuit is where
a three-judge panel unani-
mously declined to reinstate
Trump’s original travel ban
when it was put on hold by a
Seattle Judge last month.
Despite the legal victories
for critics of the ban, it’s
far from clear that they will
continue to win. A different
panel of judges in the 9th
Circuit will probably hear the
appeal of Hawaii’s case. And
on Wednesday, five judges
signed a dissent criticizing
the court’s decision not to
reconsider and throw out the
panel’s ruling on the original
travel ban.
“Whatever we, as indi-
viduals, may feel about the
president or the executive
order, the president’s decision
was well within the powers
of the presidency,” Judge Jay
Bybee wrote for the five.
TRUMP’S AUTHORITY
In 1952, with the nation
fearful of communist infiltra-
tion, Congress gave the pres-
ident the authority under the
Immigration and Nationality
Act to take action:
“Whenever the president
finds that the entry of any
aliens or of any class of aliens
into the United States would
be detrimental to the interests
of the United States, he may
... suspend the entry of all
aliens or any class of aliens as
immigrants or nonimmigrants,
or impose on the entry of aliens
any restrictions he may deem to
be appropriate,” the law says.
That power has been
invoked dozens of times. But
legal experts say those exam-
ples were more limited than
what Trump has sought.
Citing a report that reviewed
White House administrations
going back to Reagan, Chuang
noted in his ruling that no pres-
ident has issued a ban on the
entry “of all citizens from more
than one country at the same
time, much less six nations all
at once.”
Chuang found that the
travel ban likely violated
another aspect of federal
immigration law, barring
discrimination on the basis
of nationality in the issuance
of immigrant visas. That law
was passed in 1965 as part of
an effort to end longstanding
immigration quotas that had
been criticized as racist.