Here's the Thing About Trump's Budget Cuts: They Depend on $2 Trillion in Nonexistent Funds ~ health and fitness,celebrity news,fashion blog,beauty women,whole foods,quotes about love

samedi 27 mai 2017

Here's the Thing About Trump's Budget Cuts: They Depend on $2 Trillion in Nonexistent Funds

The latest iteration of President Donald Trump's budget hasn't been well-received. Democratic and Republican leaders alike are stunned by Trump's massive spending reductions, which are unsurprisingly based on overly optimistic estimations. Trump's proposed dramatic cuts to almost every government program (sans defense) would cripple low-income-earning Americans and benefit those who earn the most. They'd also hurt his voters.

Despite running on a different campaign promise, Trump's budget would cut $1 trillion from social welfare programs like Medicaid, Social Security, and Disability Insurance. Specifically, the budget would cut $800 billion from Medicaid and $272 billion from welfare programs over the next 10 years. The plan would also slash government agricultural subsidies, cutting them by $50 billion over the next decade. In total, it amounts to roughly $2.1 trillion in cuts (presumably to be balanced by extreme economic growth that doesn't align with current indicators).

Further cuts to student loan relief, food stamps, and health care accentuate Trump's already-austere proposal. Meals on Wheels, as it was widely publicized in March, would take a hit as well. Trump's bill also directly targets Planned Parenthood: his proposal would prohibit Congress from funding any program associated with the organization. This means millions of women would also lose access to reproductive health care.

While nearly eradicating so-called "dependencies" from the budget, Trump would increase defense spending by 10 percent. And he will build that wall, regardless of Mexico's continuous refusal to refund its construction, as he allocated an additional $2.6 billion for border security.

Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders shared a clear infographic detailing what Trump's proposal would cut on Twitter.

Trump promised during the campaign that he would not cut Medicaid. Now he's trying to slash it in half. That is just cruel. http://pic.twitter.com/TVzpAmkCgw

- Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 23, 2017

Economists are unconvinced by Trump's proposal, too. According to The Wall Street Journal, the plan "relies on accounting that is hard to add up" because it attempts to double-count economic growth: "once to offset the effects of lower tax rates and a second time to help close the budget deficit." Not to mention the fact that Trump's tax cut, which supposedly balances the budget, has yet to be announced.

The president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Maya MacGuineas, told The WSJ that his budget was impossible. "The same money cannot be used twice," MacGuineas said.

Trump's budget only looks balanced because it either allocates money that doesn't exist or is contingent upon unrealistic economic growth. "The White House still needed to claim over $1 trillion in unidentified cuts to miscellaneous programs to balance the budget," The Washington Post reports.

But if it's any comfort, Senate Republicans have already decried Trump's budget proposal. The second-ranking Republican senator, John Cornyn, described the budget as "basically dead on arrival," while pointing out that most presidential budgets encounter the same fate.

Trump's budget, if it passed as is, would likely make him quite unpopular with his constituents and could possibly pummel his already-abysmal approval rating.

samedi 27 mai 2017