NATION/WORLD
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 9A
Trump budget keeps pledges: Cuts for poor, more for military
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pres-
ident Donald Trump fulfilled a
major campaign promise Tuesday,
proposing a $4.1 trillion budget plan
that would upend Washington in a
big way. But he drew rebukes, even
from some Republican allies, for the
plan’s jarring, politically unrealistic
cuts to the social safety net for the
poor and a broad swath of other
domestic programs.
The budget, Trump’s first as pres-
ident, combines his spending plan for
the upcoming 2018 fiscal year with
a promise to balance government
books after a decade, relying on
aggressive cuts, a surge in economic
growth — and a $2 trillion-plus
accounting gimmick.
“Through streamlined govern-
ment, we will drive an economic
boom that raises incomes and
expands job opportunities for all
Americans,” Trump declared in his
budget message.
“Basically dead on arrival,”
opined the Senate’s No. 2 Repub-
lican, John Cornyn of Texas.
The proposal reflects a conserva-
tive vision of smaller government, a
drastic rollback of programs for the
poor and disabled to prod them into
the workforce and a robust hike for
the military and border security. It
foresees scuttling Barack Obama’s
health care law and an overhaul of
the tax code, a boon to the wealthiest
Americans.
The plan is laced with $3.6
trillion in cuts to domestic agencies,
food stamps, Medicaid, highway
funding, crop insurance and medical
research, among others. Many of the
voters who propelled Trump into the
presidency last November would see
significantly less from the federal
government.
“We’re no longer going to
measure compassion by the number
of programs or the number of
people on those programs, but by
the number of people we help get
off those programs,” said Mick
Mulvaney, director of the Office
of Management and Budget and a
former tea party congressman.
At the same time, the blueprint
boosts spending for the military by
tens of billions and calls for $1.6
billion for a border wall with Mexico
that Trump repeatedly promised
voters the U.S. neighbor would
finance. Mexico emphatically rejects
that notion.
The proposal got a chilly recep-
tion from congressional Republicans
and Democrats, who insist they will
have the final say as they struggle
to complete a health care bill and
rewrite the tax code.
Food stamp cuts would drive
millions from the program, while a
wave of Medicaid cuts — on top of
more than $800 billion in the House-
Donald Trump’s budget at a glance
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Budget Director Mick Mulvaney holds up a copy of President
Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal 2018 federal budget as he speaks
to members of the media at the White House on Tuesday.
passed health care bill — could deny
nursing home care to millions of
elderly poor people. It would also
force some people on Social Securi-
ty’s disability program back into the
workforce.
“These cuts that are being
proposed are draconian,” said
veteran GOP Rep. Harold Rogers,
who represents a poor district in
eastern Kentucky. “They’re not mere
shavings, they’re deep, deep cuts.”
Said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.: “I
don’t think the president’s budget is
going anywhere.”
The budget would reduce pension
benefits for federal workers by
$63 billion by eliminating cost-of-
living adjustments for most and by
requiring employees to make larger
contributions. In agriculture, it would
limit subsidies to farmers, including
for purchasing crop insurance, an
idea already attacked by farm state
lawmakers.
“We’ve lost 40 percent of our
wheat crop and you’re telling me
there’s going to be large cuts to
crop insurance?” asked Senate
Agriculture Committee Chairman
Pat Roberts, R-Kan. “Come on. That
doesn’t add up.”
The Trump plan would roll back
Obama-era increases to a children’s
health program for lower-income
families who don’t qualify for
Medicaid, take an ax to the Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency and
climate change programs, cut
$95 billion from highway trust
fund transfers to state highway
departments, and curb payments to
disabled veterans of retirement age
who are eligible for Social Security.
Trump’s budget holds true
to his campaign pledge to leave
Medicare and Social Security
pension benefits alone and contains
spending increases for the military
and veterans, but it treats most of the
rest of the government as fair game.
Student loan subsidies, home heating
assistance and Great Lakes cleanup
would be on the chopping block as
the departments of education, envi-
ronment, energy and State take hits.
“In the America of President
Trump’s budget, children, working
families, seniors and people with
disabilities will be ‘fined,’ while
the wealthiest Americans will get a
‘bonus.’ What’s so ‘great’ about that
America?” asked Sen. Dick Durbin
of Illinois.
The budget does feature a handful
of domestic initiatives, including a
six-week paid parental leave program
championed by Trump’s daughter
Ivanka that would be designed and
financed by the states through cuts
to unemployment insurance. Some
$200 billion in federal infrastructure
investments are promised to leverage
another $800 billion in private
investment, though the idea has yet
to get much traction.
During the campaign, Trump
attacked the weak economic growth
of the Barack Obama years, and
pledged that his economic program
would boost growth from the
lackluster 2 percent rates seen since
recovery began in mid-2009. Trump’s
new budget assumes sustained growth
above 3 percent, sharply higher than
the expectations of most private econ-
omists. Without more than $2 trillion
in such “economic feedback” over the
coming decade, the nation’s budget
would never reach balance and would
run a deficit of almost $500 billion.
Trump’s balanced-budget goal
depends not only on the growth
projections but also a variety of
accounting gimmicks, including an
almost $600 billion peace dividend
from winding down overseas
military operations and “double
counting” $2.1 trillion in revenue
from economic growth — using it to
both pay for tax cuts and bring down
the deficit.
BRIEFLY
Russia-Trump
campaign contacts
a concern, ex-CIA
chief says
Warning of
‘imminent’ attack,
Britain raises
threat level
Fox removes
report about
murdered DNC
staffer
WASHINGTON (AP)
— Former CIA Director
John Brennan told Congress
Tuesday he personally
warned Russia last summer
against interfering in the
U.S. presidential election
and was so concerned about
Russian contacts with people
involved in the Trump
campaign that he convened
top counterintelligence
officials to focus on it.
Brennan’s testimony
to the House intelligence
committee was the clearest
public description yet of the
significance these contacts
play in counterintelligence
investigations that continue
to hang over the White
House.
Brennan, who was
President Barack Obama’s
CIA director, said he
couldn’t say whether there
was collusion between
Russia and the Trump
campaign, an issue being
investigated by the FBI and
congressional committees.
“I don’t have sufficient
information to make a
determination about whether
or not such cooperation or
complicity or collusion was
taking place,” Brennan said.
“But I know there was a
basis to have individuals pull
those threads.”
President Donald
Trump has predicted the
investigations won’t find
collusion, and his efforts
to cast doubt and curb
the probes have led to the
appointment of a special
counsel at the Justice
Department.
News reports that
Trump asked his national
intelligence director and
National Security Agency
chief to state publicly there
was no evidence of collusion
have heightened criticism.
MANCHESTER,
England (AP) — As officials
hunted for accomplices
of a suicide bomber and
Britain’s prime minister
warned another attack could
be “imminent,” thousands
of people poured into the
streets of Manchester in a
defiant vigil Tuesday for
victims of a blast at a pop
concert — the latest apparent
target of Islamic extremists
seeking to rattle life in the
West.
The attack left at least
22 dead, including an
8-year-old girl, shattering
the revelry at a show by
American singer Ariana
Grande, where strains of
electric pop and the sways of
innocent young fans quickly
gave way to an explosion,
a flood of screams and
a stampede of panicked
concert-goers, many
clutching pink balloons
and wearing the kitten-ear
headbands popularized by
Grande.
May said Britain’s terror
threat level had been raised
to critical — meaning
another attack may be
imminent. The Islamic State
group claimed responsibility
for the blood bath Monday,
though a top American
intelligence official said that
could not be verified.
NEW YORK (AP)
— Fox News says it has
removed from its website a
speculative story about the
2016 murder of Democratic
National Committee
employee Seth Rich because
it “was not initially subjected
to the high degree of
editorial scrutiny we require
for all our reporting.”
The report, published
a week earlier, quoted
a private investigator
suggesting that Rich
had some connection to
Wikileaks and its leaks
of Democratic National
Committee emails during the
last campaign.
Rich’s family has said
they don’t believe their son,
who was shot in July 2016
in Washington, gave any
information to WikiLeaks.
The investigator has since
recanted his claim, and the
independent researcher
Politifact.com has said
the notion that Rich was
involved in the leak was
flimsy and illogical.
No arrests have been
made in the shooting. but
conspiracy theories have
emerged about his death.
The network made
no mention of Fox News
Channel star Sean Hannity,
who has done stories about
the case on his show.
AGRICULTURE
Up or down? Down 5 percent
Highlight: The proposed
budget would limit subsidies to
farmers, including a cut in govern-
ment help for purchasing crop
insurance. Crop insurance is an
overwhelmingly popular program
with farm-state senators in both
parties, and previous farm bills
have only increased spending. The
budget would also limit spending
on environmentally friendly
conservation programs and some
rural development dollars that help
small towns build infrastructure.
Trump isn’t the first president
to try to limit farm subsidies.
Presidents Barack Obama and
George W. Bush also proposed
major reductions, but farm-state
lawmakers have always kept them
going. The Republican chairmen
of the Senate and House agricul-
ture committees both said Tuesday
they oppose Trump’s proposed
cuts.
Total spending: $132.3 billion.
Spending that needs Congress’
annual approval: $18 billion.
DEFENSE
Up or down? Up 3.3 percent
Highlight: The Pentagon’s
proposed 2018 budget would fund
increases of almost 43,000 in the
size of the active duty military and
13,000 in the Reserves. It provides
troops a 2.1 percent pay raise, adds
F/A-18 fighter jets and seeks a
new round of base closures, which
Congress routinely rejects. It also
increases the amount of money
used for training Afghan forces
and conducting counterterror
operations in Afghanistan. The
budget includes $64.6 billion for
military operations in Iraq, Syria,
Afghanistan and Africa.
Total spending: $647 billion.
Spending that needs Congress’
annual approval: $639.1 billion.
EDUCATION
Up or down? Down 46.9
percent
Highlight: Eliminates after-
school and teacher training
programs, ends subsidized federal
student loans and loan forgiveness
programs for public servants,
funds year-round Pell grants and
expands funding for school choice
for low-income students.
Total spending: $61 billion
Spending that needs Congress’
annual approval: $59 billion
EPA
Up or down? Down 31 percent.
Highlight: The budget cuts
EPA by nearly one-third, elimi-
nating more than 3,800 jobs while
imposing dramatic cuts to clean
air and water programs. Adjusted
for inflation, the proposed budget
would represent the nation’s
lowest funding for environmental
protection since the mid-1970s.
The Superfund pollution cleanup
program would be cut by $330
million, to $762 million.
Total spending: $5.7 billion.
Spending that needs Congress’
annual approval: $5.7 billion.
HOMELAND SECURITY
Up or down? Down 3.2 percent
Highlight: The budget asks
Congress for $2.6 billion for
border security that would
include a down payment for
Trump’s long-promised wall and
increased technology along the
U.S.-Mexican border. The budget
calls for $314 million to hire 500
new Border Patrol agents and
1,000 agents for Immigration and
Customs Enforcement. It also
requests a $1.5 billion increase
for ICE to arrest, detain and
deport immigrants in the country
illegally. The plan also proposes
cutting about $667 million in
grants administered by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
That includes proposed cuts to
the Urban Area Security Initiative
and eliminating the Transportation
Security Administration’s law
enforcement grants.
Total spending: $49.4 billion
Spending that needs Congress’
annual approval: $44.1 billion
INTERIOR
Up or Down? Down 9.2 percent
Highlight: The budget calls for
opening Alaska’s Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas
drilling, where it is now prohib-
ited, while eliminating offshore oil
revenues used by Gulf Coast states
to restore disappearing shorelines.
Arctic drilling, a contentious issue
that would require congressional
approval, would generate an
estimated $400 million a year in
tax revenues by 2022, according
to the White House.
The budget would cut $10
million from a program to manage
wild horses and burros in the West
and allow the Bureau of Land
Management to sell or euthanize
thousands of horses that now
roam in Nevada, Oregon and
other western states. More than
70,000 wild horses and burros
roam federal lands across the
West, a number that officials call
unsustainable.
Total spending: $12.5 billion
Spending that needs Congress’
annual approval: $11.7 billion