NATION
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
East Oregonian
Page 9A
TRUMPS $4.4 TRILLION PLAN
Budget balloons deficits, cuts social safety net
By ANDREW TAYLOR
and MARTIN CRUTSINGER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Pres-
ident Donald Trump unveiled
a $4.4 trillion budget plan
Monday that envisions steep
cuts to America’s social
safety net but mounting
spending on the military,
formally retreating from last
year’s promises to balance
the federal budget.
The president’s spending
outline for the first time
acknowledges that the Repub-
lican tax overhaul passed last
year would add billions to the
deficit and not “pay for itself”
as Trump and his Republican
allies asserted. If enacted as
proposed, though no presi-
dential budget ever is, the plan
would establish an era of $1
trillion-plus yearly deficits.
The open embrace of red
ink is a remarkable public
reversal for Trump and his
party, which spent years
objecting to President Barack
Obama’s increased spending
during the depths of the Great
Recession. Rhetoric aside,
however, Trump’s pattern is
in line with past Republican
presidents who have over-
seen spikes in deficits as they
simultaneously
increased
military spending and cut
taxes.
Here’s a look at what’s
funded in the budget and
what isn’t:
International space station
The Trump administration
wants NASA out of the
International Space Station
by 2025 and to have private
businesses running the place
instead.
Under Trump’s 2019
proposed
budget,
U.S.
government funding for the
space station would end
by 2025. The government
would set aside $150 million
to encourage commercial
development.
Many space experts are
expressing concern. Sen. Bill
Nelson, a Florida Democrat
who rocketed into orbit in
1986, said “turning off the
lights and walking away from
our sole outpost in space”
makes no sense.
Retired NASA historian
and Smithsonian curator
Roger Launius notes that
any such move will affect all
involved in the space station;
Russia is a major player, as are
Europe, Japan and Canada. “I
suspect this will be a major
aspect of any decisions about
ISS’s future,” Launius wrote
in an email.
NASA has spent close to
$100 billion on the orbiting
outpost since the 1990s. The
first piece was launched in
1998, and the complex was
essentially completed with
the retirement of NASA’s
space shuttles in 2011.
‘Obamacare’
The budget assumes that
Congress will repeal and
replace former President
Barack Obama’s health care
law, although there’s little
evidence that Republican
leaders have the appetite
for another battle over
“Obamacare.”
Repeal of the Affordable
Care Act should happen “as
soon as possible,” say the
budget documents.
The Obama health law
would be replaced with
legislation modeled after
an ill-fated GOP bill whose
lead authors were Sens. Bill
Cassidy of Louisiana and
Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina. The nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office
said it would leave millions
more uninsured.
The budget calls for a
program of block grants that
states could use to set up their
own programs for covering
the uninsured.
The arts
Trump’s budget calls
for the elimination of the
National Endowment for the
Arts and National Endow-
ment for the Humanities, two
prominent grant programs
founded in the 1960s that
Trump proposed ending in
last year’s budget. Under his
proposal, the NEA and NEH
would “begin” shutting down
in 2019 and neither organi-
zation should be considered
“core Federal responsibili-
ties.” Each program receives
just under $150 million.
Although some conserva-
tives have long complained
about the NEA and NEH,
the programs have bipartisan
support and funding for them
Associated Press photos
Clockwise from upper left: Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot discusses the fiscal year 2019 budget
proposal during a State of NASA address at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. President
Donald Trump speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. The President’s FY19 Budget
is on display after arriving on Capitol Hill in Washington. Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick
Mulvaney speaks during a television interview outside the White House in Washington.
was restored by Congress
in 2017. Trump is also
seeking to shut down other
arts and scholarly programs
that Congress has backed,
including the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting and
the Institute of Museum and
Library Services.
Environmental
Protection Agency
Climate change research
is on the Environmental
Protection Agency’s chop-
ping block.
Trump’s proposed 2019
budget calls for slashing
funding for the EPA by more
than one-third, including
ending the Climate Change
Research and Partnership
Programs.
The president’s budget
would also make deep cuts
to funding for cleaning up the
nation’s most polluted sites,
even as EPA Administrator
Scott Pruitt has said that
is one of his top priorities.
Trump’s budget would allo-
cate just $762 million for the
Hazardous Substance Super-
fund Account, a reduction of
more than 30 percent.
Current spending for
Superfund is already down
to about half of what it was
in the 1990s. Despite the cut,
the White House’s budget
statement says the adminis-
tration plans to “accelerate”
site cleanups by bringing
“more private funding to the
table for redevelopment.”
After the president’s
budget was developed,
Congress reached a bipar-
tisan agreement that would
boost nondefense domestic
spending for the next fiscal
year. In response, Trump
budget
director
Mick
Mulvaney filed an addendum
that seeks to restore about
$724 million to EPA,
including additional money
for Superfund cleanups and
drinking water infrastructure
grants.
Housing
The budget proposes
deep cuts to funding for
rental assistance programs,
eliminates community block
grants, and references future
legislation that will imple-
ment work requirements for
some tenants receiving public
assistance.
Trump’s proposal reduces
the budget for rental assistance
programs by more than 11
percent compared with 2017.
It also eliminates funding
for the Public Housing
Capital Fund, dedicated to
supporting public housing
complexes, and Community
Development Block Grants,
which are doled out to cities,
counties and communities for
development projects.
The budget also requests
legislation that would require
able-bodied tenants who are
receiving federal housing
assistance to work.
In a two-year agreement
passed last week and signed
by the president, Congress
included
an
additional
$2 billion earmarked for
HUD. That addendum adds
$1 billion to “avoid rent
increases on elderly and
disabled families receiving
rental increases.” It also adds
another $700 million toward
housing vouchers for low-in-
come individuals and fami-
lies, and $300 million to aide
public housing authorities.
Defense
Trump’s budget for 2019
shows the administration’s
concern about the threat from
North Korea and its missile
program.
The Pentagon is proposing
to spend hundreds of millions
more in 2019 on missile
defense.
The budget calls for
increasing the number of
strategic missile interceptors
from 44 to 64 and boosting
other elements of missile
defense.
The additional 20 inter-
ceptors would be based at
Fort Greely, Alaska. Critics
question the reliability of
the interceptors, arguing that
years of testing has yet to
prove them to be sufficiently
effective against a sophisti-
cated threat.
The Pentagon also would
invest more heavily in other
missile defense systems,
including the ship-based
Aegis system and the Army’s
Patriot air and missile defense
system, both of which are
designed to defend against
missiles of various ranges
short of the intercontinental
ballistic missile that is of
greatest U.S. concern in the
context of North Korea.
Food stamps
Trump’s budget proposes
massive cuts to the program
that provides more than 42
million Americans with food
stamps.
The budget also floats the
idea of new legislation that
would require able-bodied
adults to work or participate
in a work program in order
to receive benefits under
the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program, the offi-
cial name of the food stamp
program.
The president’s budget
would reduce SNAP by
roughly $213 billion over the
next 10 years.
The budget calls for a $17
billion reduction in 2019,
and proposes “a bold new
approach” to administering
SNAP that will include a
combination of traditional
food stamps and packages
of “100 percent American
grown
foods
provided
directly to households.”
Stacy Dean, vice president
for food assistance policy
at the Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities, said
the proposed cuts to SNAP
account for nearly 30 percent
of the program.
She said the proposal, if
enacted, “would be devas-
tating for the one-in-eight
Americans who use SNAP
to put food on the table every
day.”
Medicare
Trump’s budget proposes
major changes to Medicare’s
popular prescription benefit,
creating winners and losers
among the 42 million seniors
with drug coverage.
On the plus side for seniors,
the budget requires the insur-
ance plans that deliver the
prescription benefit to share
with beneficiaries a substantial
portion of rebates they receive
from drug makers.
The budget also eliminates
the 5 percent share of costs
that an estimated 1 million
beneficiaries with very high
drug bills now must keep
paying when they reach
Medicare’s
“catastrophic”
coverage. Instead seniors
would pay nothing once they
reach Medicare’s catastrophic
coverage level, currently
$8,418 in total costs.
But on the minus side, the
budget calls for changing the
way Medicare accounts for
certain discounts that drug
makers now provide to seniors
with significant drug bills.
That complex change
would mean fewer seniors
reach catastrophic coverage,
and some will end up paying
more than they do now.
Education
School choice advocates
will find something to cheer
in Trump’s budget.
Fulfilling a campaign
promise, he is proposing to
put “more decision-making
power in the hands of parents
and families” in choosing
schools for their children with
a $1.5 billion investment for
the coming year. The budget
would expand both private
and public school choice.
A new Opportunity Grants
program would provide
money for states to give
scholarships to low-income
students to attend private
schools, as well as expand
charter schools across the
nation. Charters are financed
by taxpayer dollars but
usually run independently of
school district requirements.
The budget also calls
for increased spending to
expand the number of magnet
schools that offer specialized
instruction usually focused
on specific curricula.
Last year, the Trump
administration also called for
boosting charter and private
school funding, but those
initiatives didn’t win the
approval of Congress.
Among other key compo-
nents is spending $200
million on STEM education
and $43 million to implement
school-based opioid abuse
prevention strategies.
Border wall
The second stage of
Trump’s proposed border wall
in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley
would be 65 miles long,
costing an average of $24.6
million a mile, according to
the president’s 2019 budget.
That matches the amount
requested in Trump’s 2018
budget to build or replace 74
miles in San Diego and Rio
Grande Valley, the busiest
corridor for illegal crossings.
Veterans
The Veterans Choice
health care program would
get a big boost under Trump’s
2019 budget.
The budget proposes
an overall increase of $8.7
billion for the Department of
Veterans Affairs, primarily to
strengthen medical care for
more than 9 million enrolled
veterans. A key component
is a proposed $11.9 billion to
revamp the Veterans Choice
program, a Trump campaign
priority. The planned expan-
sion would give veterans
wider freedom to receive
government-paid care from
private doctors and Minute-
Clinics outside the VA system.
It has yet to be approved by
Congress, however, in part
due to disagreement over
rising costs and concerns
over privatizing VA.
State
Trump’s budget includes
a modest increase of $191
million for what’s known
as “overseas contingency
operations,” or active war
zones like Iraq, Afghanistan
and Syria. Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson had argued in
the past that the impending
resolution of major global
conflicts would decrease the
need for U.S. spending and
allow the Trump administra-
tion to significantly reduce
what it spends overseas.
Congratulations on
400 wins!
Celebrating EOU Mountaineer Athletics!
52
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NAIA
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12
100
#
Nationally
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