Tuesday, March 19, 2024

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What Programs Has Trump Cut

Trump Budget Proposes Cuts To Education

Trump administration to cut SNAP benefits for 688,000 people

President Trump’s new budget proposal calls for nearly an 8 percent cut to education.

Each year, President Trump has proposed a new budget with cuts to programs at the Department of Education. This year is no different as his new proposal shows. In addition to cuts to other areas like Medicaid and food stamps, Trump has proposed nearly an 8% cut to education, though it seems he avoided the blowback received last year from proposing cuts to Special Olympics.

Among the cuts are the cancellation of $3.9 billion from the Pell Grant Surplus, a fund meant to protect the grant from fluctuations in need, like when many more people enroll than expected. With some predicting a recession, this can be a dangerous move as more people enroll in college in times of recession and many students families are in worse financial standing.

Trump also calls for eliminating subsidized student loans, loans where the federal government covers the interest while a student is enrolled in college. Trumps budget also calls for elimination the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, as he has done in previous years. As stories have continued to pour in about people being denied forgiveness, it is likely this move will also cause criticism of the administration.

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Even when Republicans controlled the House, Trump’s State Department and USAID budget requests were roundly rejected. McCaul and Engel are likely to work together again to fully fund both agencies.

But the administration has taken some steps that critics say have left it less prepared to respond to an infectious disease outbreak. In the fall, USAID moved to end a global health surveillance project, called PREDICT, to study diseases in animals that may infect humans — which is how both outbreaks most likely started — and train countries to detect and respond to them early. It’s part of a larger Emerging Pandemic Threats program that was born out of the H5N1 bird flu outbreak in 2005.

President Trumps Extreme Budget Cuts Hurt Veterans

President Trumps latest budget fails our veterans and their families by drastically slashing crucial programs they rely on. This President prioritizes the rich and powerful over the wellbeing of American families, including our veterans. Just like his prior budgets, he extends the failed GOP tax law that showered benefits on the wealthy, adding $1.5 trillion more to debt over the next decade exacerbating the $1.9 trillion hole it blew in our deficit. The President extends these tax breaks largely for the rich all while maliciously cutting programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and other crucial programs. Destructive cuts to these programs hurt millions of veterans and their families who depend on them for their health, safety, and economic wellbeing.

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Cuts Concentrated In Programs Assisting Low

Low-income programs face $1.2 trillion, or 57 percent, of the budgets proposed $2.2 trillion in ten-year cuts to mandatory programs, despite making up only a quarter of all federal spending on mandatory programs. Medicaid and related programs and SNAP face particularly deep cuts.

Under the budget, by the tenth year, 1 out of every 6 dollars for low-income mandatoryprograms will have disappeared. Think of this as a one-sixth cut in caseload, a one-sixth cut in per-household benefits, or some combination of the two.

Of the $1.5 trillion in ten-year spending cuts for NDD programs, at least $360 billion, or one-quarter, would come from low-income programs, which constitute a fifth of all NDD program expenditures. The cuts are quite steep by the tenth year, overall funding for low-income NDD programs will have fallen by two-fifths and by more if veterans medical-care is shielded to some degree and doesnt suffer budget cuts to the same extent as other NDD programs.

Combining mandatory and NDD programs, the budget would cut $3.7 trillion over ten years, of which $1.6 trillion or 44 percent would come from low-income programs. This is well above the 24 percent of the budget that low-income spending constitutes under current law and policies.

TABLE 1

Yucca Mountain: Complicated Invitation To Reopen Debate

How Trump

Up to now, Trumps budgets have requested just enough funds to finish the licensing review of a repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Tonopah, Nevada.

But for 10 years, Congress has failed to either to pass legislation or appropriate funds so the administration could follow the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which designates Yucca Mountain as a national repository.

This negligence has cost constituents $8 billion in lawsuits alreadyexactly what the law was designed to preventand is on track to cost tens of billions more in the years to come.

So, the presidents frustration is deeply merited.

Unfortunately, the administrations budget request does not include funds to finish the license review of a potential repository at Yucca Mountain. Instead, it proposes $27.5 million to begin an Interim Storage and Nuclear Waste Fund Oversight program.

Importantly, the administration cannot strike out on its own to develop new policy the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is quite clear that the administration cannot pursue an interim storage program without progressing on a permanent waste repository. The courts swatted down the previous administrations attempt to disregard the law unless and until Congress changed it.

Ultimately, a real solution comes from giving the nuclear industry responsibility and introducing market forces into waste management solutions.Katie Tubb, senior policy analyst for energy and environmental issues, Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies

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Children Are The Face Of Public Benefit Programs

Young children make up a significant portion of benefit program participants. In the United States, 1 child in 5 lives in poverty.11 Many young families struggle because parents are typically beginning their careersand thus earning relatively low wageswhen children are young.12 Between diapers, food, child care, and other essentials, parents already limited resources are stretched thin. The critical programs discussed below provide children and families with the resources they need and help mitigate the effects of living in poverty.

Health care

By investing in Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program, the United States has achieved nearly universal health insurance coverage for children. In 2015, 96 percent of U.S. children had health insurance and 43 percent received publicly funded health insurance, primarily through Medicaid.13 Medicaid also covers half of births in the United States, insures more than half of children with disabilities, and provides essential long-term support services for children with disabilities.14 Health insurance coverage in early childhood has significant and lasting health, educational, and economic outcomes for both children and families.15

Nutrition assistance

Housing assistance

While housing assistance programs and LIHEAP have yet to be funded at levels that allow these programs to address the full need, fewer householdsespecially those with childrenwould have access to safe housing and utilities if programs were cut further.

Optimistic But Not Impossible Economic Projections

Fast economic growth and low interest rates are key assumptions that would help the presidents budget proposal balance in 15 years. These projections are certainly optimistic, but not inconceivable in an aggressively pro-growth policy environment.

The assumed average growth rate of 3% is not comparable to other projections, such as the recently released Congressional Budget Office economic forecast of a 1.7% annual growth rate.

CBO assumes that things stay on their current trajectory, taxes increase in 2025, deregulation efforts stop, and federal programs keep growing out of control. The presidents budget assumes many of the opposite policies, and thus can count on better economic conditions.

The assumed growth rates are certainly close to the upper bound of pro-growth optimism, but also represent a simple return to historical trends. Sustained high growth does not follow automatically from enacting the presidents agenda. Many other things outside the control of Washington also must go right.

Economic growth of 3% would be easier to achieve if the budget also included a concrete path to reduce tariffs, quiet trade uncertainty, and extend the business expensing tax reforms set to expire at the end of fiscal 2022.Adam N. Michel, senior policy analyst, Hermann Center for the Federal Budget

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Trump Administration Announces Devastating Cuts To Us Foreign Assistance

Despite continued bipartisan support, the Trump administration announced a 22% cut to critical foreign assistance programs as part of its early budget proposals for Fiscal Year 2021. The real-world impacts of these cuts would be devastating and in some cases deadly for millions of the worlds poorest and most vulnerable people. U.S. foreign assistance dollars provides critically needed funding in emergencies, like those unfolding right now in the Middle East, South Sudan, and Nigeria. Without these investments, diseases spread, girls lose out on education, and malnutrition rises.

CARE is calling on Congress to continue its commitment to foreign aid and reject these cuts. Now is not the time for the U.S. to pull back as a partner and a leader in the global community.

The Trump administration has once again proposed dangerous cuts to the foreign assistance budget, said David Ray, vice president of advocacy at CARE. This, despite consistent, bipartisan Congressional support for foreign assistance. The less than 1% of the federal budget that goes to foreign assistance lifts up millions of lives around the world and is creating a better, safer world for us all. The Presidents proposed cut of 22% is draconian and shortsighted. CARE calls on Congress to continue its longstanding commitment to humanitarian and development assistance and reject these proposed cuts once again.

Media contacts:

Vanessa Parra, , +1 917-525-0590

Nicole Ellis,, +1 202-595-2828

Benefits Programs Reduce Child Poverty

Pres. Trump Budget Would Cut Many Programs Outside Of Military

Benefits programs have had profound effects on reducing child poverty and deep child povertychildren whose families have incomes below 50 percent of the federal poverty level. Using a poverty measure that considers public benefits and is based on a broad definition of necessary expendituressuch as food, clothing, shelter, and utilitiesresearchers estimate that in 2016, benefit programs cut child poverty from 25 percent to 16 percent.7 In other words, nearly 1 in 4 children would live in poverty if programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Medicaid, and refundable tax credits did not exist.

Benefit programs are even more effective at reducing the share of children in deep poverty. In fact, benefit programs slashed the deep child poverty rate by two-thirds in 2012, from 17 percent to 5 percent.8

Additionally, children need nutritious food to fuel their growing brains, a safe bed to sleep in at night, and a competent health professional to monitor their development. It goes without saying that children rely on their families to provide these necessities and that parents, children, and other family members share resources, including meals and homes. As such, childrens healthy development is inextricably linked to their families economic well-being. Because families in poverty may struggle to secure these needs, programs that provide these basics are critically important for children.

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Would Make It Harder For Struggling Families To Put Food On The Table

The 2020 budget would cut SNAP by $220 billion, or about 30 percent, over the next ten years. It would impose large benefit cuts on most households even though current benefits average just $1.40 per person per meal, and would dramatically restructure how benefits are delivered. It includes other benefit and eligibility cuts, as well, that would cause at least 4 million people to lose SNAP benefits altogether. The cuts would affect every category of SNAP participants, including the unemployed, the elderly, individuals with disabilities, and low-income working families with children.

In this area, the budget would:

Extreme Cuts To Snap And Other Benefits For Struggling Families Threaten Veterans Economic Security

While veterans are a diverse group, many face challenges making ends meet and depend on various programs that help struggling families. The federal government provides guidance for veterans transitioning to civilian employment and encourages them to turn to programs like SNAP, the Women, Infants and Children program, free and reducedprice school meals, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families if they need assistance supporting their families. Approximately 1.2 million veterans, or nearly 7 percent of the veteran population, had incomes below the federal poverty level in 2018, and many of them relied on these critical programs.

Nearly 1.3 million veterans live in households that participate in SNAP The Presidents budget cuts $292 billion over 10 years from mandatory programs that support working and vulnerable families, including $182 billion from SNAP. The cuts to SNAP are in addition to the Administrations new and proposed rules that will make more than 3 million people food insecure and make it harder for vulnerable Americans to put food on the table. A study from Feeding America highlights that approximately 20 percent of households receiving help from the charitable food assistance network include a veteran. For low-income veterans, who may be unemployed, working in low-wage jobs, or face physical and mental health challenges, SNAP and other programs provide essential support to help them meet basic needs and support their families.

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Trump Budget Proposal Has Massive Cuts To Social Programs

President Trump’s 2018 budget, released Tuesday, proposes balancing the budget by cutting $1.74 trillion from social safety net programs and Medicaid and overhauling the tax code and regulatory framework, and it sets an economic growth target of three percent.

The plan, titled “The New Foundation for American Greatness,” includes a total of $3.6 trillion in spending cuts to reach a balanced budget within 10 years, reducing the debt from its current 77 percent of gross domestic product to 60 percent of GDP, and wiping out deficit spending entirely in a decade. The budget book devotes two pages to an outline of how the Obama administration caused massive inflation of the national debt and created economic stagnation.

The President’s first major budget proposal, which assumes the Medicaid savings in the Affordable Health Care Act will be passed, would make $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade.

Programs like food stamps , Children’s Health Insurance Program , Social Security Disability Insurance , and Temporary Assistance for Needy families will face sharp cuts.

The welfare portion of Mr. Trump’s proposal would give states increased authority to impose work requirements and eligibility restrictions for welfare programs, and his budget would slash an estimated $274 billion from anti-poverty programs over ten years.

No Cuts To Us Entitlement Programs In Trump Budget: Mnuchin

Trump calls for 5 percent spending cut in some programs

By David Lawder

4 Min Read

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trumps first budget proposal will spare big social welfare programs such as Social Security and Medicare from any cuts, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Mnuchin said Trump would also use a major policy speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night to preview some elements of his sweeping plans to cut taxes for the middle class, simplify the tax system and make American companies more globally competitive with lower rates and changes to encourage U.S. manufacturing.

Speaking on Fox News Channels Sunday Morning Futures program, Mnuchin, who has acknowledged that tax reform is his top policy priority, said the budget plan would not seek cuts to federal benefits programs known as entitlements.

We are not touching those now. So dont expect to see that as part of this budget, OK, Mnuchin said of the programs, according to a transcript provided by Fox. We are very focused on other aspects and thats whats very important to us. And thats the presidents priority.

Trump during his election campaign promised not to cut Social Security, Medicare healthcare for seniors nor Medicaid healthcare for the poor. Preservation of these programs, coupled with a middle-class tax cut, would aid the retirees and working class Americans who make up a significant portion of Trumps political base.

RECIPROCAL TAX

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Trump Broke This Promise From The Beginning

This is Trump on the campaign trail in 2015:

I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. Huckabee copied me.

Donald J. Trump May 7, 2015

Trumps budgets and the policies he has supported around health care and government spending in Congress reflect the opposite. Some of this can be attributed to Trumps appointed budget chief Mick Mulvaney the former Congress member who was part of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus has long rallied for cutting Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.

In fact, Mulvaney once bragged to a Politico reporter that he tricked Trump into accepting a proposal to cut Social Security by calling SSDI just disability insurance spinning it to the president as general welfare reform. The idea has been in every single one of Trumps budget proposals to Congress since the president came to office.

Then there was the Republican Obamacare repeal push every bill proposed massive cuts to Medicaid in order to pay for tax cuts elsewhere. Trump supported every iteration of Republicans Obamacare repeal-and-replace bills. He even held a party for House Republicans in the White House Rose Garden when the lower chamber of Congress narrowly passed a proposal that slashed more than $800 billion from Medicaid over 10 years.

Now his policy positions around those programs break from that promise.

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Budget Overall Would Increase Income Disparities And Racial And Ethnic Inequality

In addition to these proposed cuts to food assistance, the budget calls for numerous other cuts that would take away health coverage and other assistance that helps low-income families meet basic needs, including:

  • $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act that would cause millions of people to lose health coverage
  • a $20 billion cut over ten years in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which supports families with children experiencing poverty
  • elimination of the Social Services Block Grant, which provides flexible funding to states for a variety of services for low-income individuals and families
  • cuts to basic assistance for some people with disabilities thats provided through Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income and
  • large cuts to non-defense discretionary programs a wide range of programs, many of which provide basic assistance to low- and moderate- income individuals and families, such as housing assistance, education and child care for low-income children, and other health and human services programs.

At the same time, the budget would permanently extend the 2017 tax laws tax cuts for individuals, which confer large benefits on high-income taxpayers and heirs to multi-million-dollar estates. Extending the tax cuts set to expire at the end of 2025 would cost $1.4 trillion over the rest of the decade.

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