Trumps absurd budget priorities: Single mothers apparently need bombs more than Big Bird

[applegrove]

http://www.salon.com/2017/03/16/trumps-absurd-budget-priorities-single-mothers-apparently-need-bombs-more-than-big-bird/

by Simon Maloy at Salon

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Holding up the Corporation for Public Broadcasting budget next to an already bloated defense budget (that Trump plans to bloat still further) and say one is a necessary cost while the other is unjustifiable is ridiculous. Costs for public broadcasting are tiny and the share of it paid for by the people Mulvaney referenced is absurdly small. The Washington Post did the math and found that less than one cent of a West Virginia coal miner’s taxes goes to public broadcasting. And I guarantee you that a Detroit single mom draws more of a direct benefit from her minuscule investment in “Sesame Street” than she does from, say, a few more F-35 joint strike fighters. But the Trump administration’s priorities are such that the tax dollars of single mothers and coal miners are better spent on munitions for Saudi Arabia to drop on Yemeni civilians.

Let’s move beyond public broadcasting to some other budget items that, per Mulvaney, single moms and coal miners must have their tax dollars rescued from. The Trump budget would trim $200 million from the Women, Infants, and Children supplemental nutrition assistance — precisely the sort of government program a low-income single mother in Detroit would rely on to feed her kids. WIC is a hugely successful program that helps increase birth weights and provides better childhood nutrition. It has historically been run quite efficiently, with less than 10 percent of spending going toward administrative costs.

Mulvaney’s coal miner in West Virginia is already looking at a hard future, given that economic forces are steadily eroding the viability of the Appalachian coal industry. Trump has promised to revive the Appalachian coal industry by all but eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency, but gutting the EPA won’t put more coal in the ground, nor will it convince mine operators to abandon automation. As coal jobs disappear, miners in West Virginia and other states in the region are going to need to find new work. The Appalachian Regional Commission, a state-federal partnership that helps promote economic opportunity in the region, works in West Virginia and elsewhere to train low-income workers and invest in the local economies. Trump’s budget would eliminate funding for the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Again, it’s unlikely that Trump’s budget blueprint, as it currently exists, will pass Congress. But if it did, a single mom scrimping to buy baby formula and an out-of-work miner pounding the pavement for a job that doesn’t exist will nonetheless be comforted knowing that their tax dollars went to Lockheed Martin instead of Elmo.


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