"Dead on arrival": Republicans rail against President Trump's budget, call for even larger increases
THURSDAY, MAR 16, 2017 12:20 PM EDT
“Dead on arrival”: Republicans rail against President Trump’s budget, call for even larger increases in military spending
Trump's "hard-power budget" slashes State Department funding and has already been called a "disaster" by the GOP
SOPHIA TESFAYE
President Donald Trump is determined to fulfill his campaign promise of shaking up Washington with his massively disruptive 2018 budget proposal. To hard-line conservatives in Congress, however, Trump’s “Hannibal Lecter” budget still doesn’t cut domestic spending or increase military spending enough.
“We wrote it using the president’s own words,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told MSNBC on Thursday morning as the budget was released. “We turned those policies into numbers.” A look at the budget, however, finds funding proposals more directly in line with White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon’s vow — to achieve the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”
Trump’s first budget proposal, which he named “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” would cut the funding of the Environmental Protection Agency 31 percent, the State Department 28 percent and the Department of Health and Human Services 17.9 percent. In total, Trump’s budget strips funding from more than 18 federal agencies.
The administration also proposed completely axing federal support for the Legal Services Corp., the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which funds anti-poverty programs nationwide, would also be eliminated.
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http://www.salon.com/2017/03/16/dead-on-arrival-republicans-rail-against-president-trumps-budget-call-for-even-larger-increases-in-military-spending/