Tag: Trump budget
Poverty isn’t a lack of character; it’s a lack of cash
The following TED talk by Rutger Bregman was filed April, 2017:
President Trump’s ‘balanced’ budget relies on $2,062,000,000,000 in mystery money
The following article by Max Ehrenfreud was posted on the Washington Post website May 23, 207:
White House officials are boasting that President Trump’s budget would balance federal finances in 10 years. Yet despite extreme reductions in spending on health care for the poor, food stamps, education, science and other basic government programs, Trump’s staff could only balance the budget by claiming vague savings and unspecified sources of new revenue — in other words, with trillions of dollars in mystery money.
It is not just that Trump is counting on a rapid acceleration in economic growth that economists believe is unlikely, which the budget projects will yield $2.1 trillion in new revenue ($2,062,000,000,000, to be more exact). Besides that bonus from growth, the budget also assumes that Trump’s tax cuts — which he has said will be the largest in history — would not affect the government’s bottom line at all. Continue reading “President Trump’s ‘balanced’ budget relies on $2,062,000,000,000 in mystery money”
How Trump’s budget helps the rich at the expense of the poor
The following article by Max Ehrenfreund was posted on the Washington Post website May 23, 2017:
For President Obama, the gap separating rich and poor Americans was, as he put it in a speech in 2013, “the defining challenge of our time.” He and his administration labored against Republican opposition and stubborn economic realities to shrink that disparity for eight years, making reducing inequality a central goal of national policymaking.
Despite those efforts, the United States remains among the most unequal developed countries, and on Tuesday, President Trump decisively abandoned his predecessor’s attempts to narrow inequality.
[Graphic: What Trump’s budget cuts from the social safety net] Continue reading “How Trump’s budget helps the rich at the expense of the poor”
Trump’s budget proposal slashes spending by $3.6 trillion over 10 years
The following article by Damian Paletta and Robert Costa was posted on the Washington Post website May 22, 2017:
President Trump on Tuesday will propose cutting federal spending by $3.6 trillion over 10 years, a historic budget contraction that would severely ratchet back spending across dozens of programs and could completely reshape government assistance to the poor.
The White House’s $4.094 trillion budget request for fiscal 2018 calls for cuts that hit Medicaid, food assistance and other anti-poverty programs. It would cut funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which provides benefits to the poor, by roughly 20 percent next year.
All told, the budget would reduce spending on safety-net programs by more than $1 trillion over 10 years. Continue reading “Trump’s budget proposal slashes spending by $3.6 trillion over 10 years”
Trump’s plans to cut food stamps could hit his supporters hardest
The following article by Caitlin Dewey and Tracy Jan was posted on the Washington Post website May 22, 2017:
President Trump’s anticipated cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, will likely be felt most in regions of the country with chronic high rates of unemployment — from the rural Southeast to aging manufacturing towns to Indian reservations.
People in those regions are temporarily exempt from national work requirements for the SNAP program, because there are not enough jobs there for everyone who wants one.
But there is growing anticipation that the budget to be unveiled on Tuesday could incorporate proposals drafted by the conservative Heritage Foundation that would eliminate or curtail the unemployment-rate waivers. That means the federal government could cut off assistance to unemployed adults who live in areas where few jobs are available. Continue reading “Trump’s plans to cut food stamps could hit his supporters hardest”
Fiscal discipline? Not now, as GOP pushes tax cuts
The following article by Stephen Ohlemacher of the Associated Press was posted on the Boston Globe website May 9, 2017:
WASHINGTON — Republicans relentlessly complained about big budget deficits during Democratic President Obama’s two terms, but now a growing number in the GOP are pushing for deep tax cuts even if they add to the government’s $20 trillion debt.
President Trump said he is pushing for ‘‘the biggest tax cut in the history of our country,’’ as Congress tries to overhaul the tax code for the first time in more than 30 years.
It won’t be easy. Congressional Republicans are divided over concerns about the government’s debt, and Senate rules make it difficult to pass deep tax cuts without support from Democrats, something majority Republicans are not actively seeking. Continue reading “Fiscal discipline? Not now, as GOP pushes tax cuts”
David Nicklaus Why Trump’s Tax Cut Looks Like Kansas Writ Large
The following article by David Nicklaus of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was posted on the National Memo website May 2, 2017:
President Donald Trump seems to want to turn the country into Kansas.
The tax plan Trump outlined last week has echoes of the Sunflower State’s big 2012 tax cut, which precipitated a budget crisis that persists to this day. In large part, that’s because more people than expected took advantage of the state’s generous exemption for pass-through income.
Pass-through income, for those of you who aren’t tax nerds, is business income that’s reported on a personal return. It comes from partnerships, limited-liability corporations and other closely held businesses, including Trump’s own family real estate operation. Continue reading “David Nicklaus Why Trump’s Tax Cut Looks Like Kansas Writ Large”
Possible cuts to Meals on Wheels could impact 50,000 Minnesotans
The following article by John Reinan was posted on the Star Tribune website April 6, 2017:
Citing a responsibility to taxpayers, the Trump administration recently proposed a federal budget that calls for drastically reducing — or eliminating — programs that pay for Meals on Wheels and other nutrition services.
Mary Hennessy, 97, ate her Meals on Wheels lunch Wednesday.
LEWISTON, MINN. – At 97, you make some concessions. Mary Hennessy gave up line dancing a few years ago.
But she’s not ready to give up the home she shares with her husband, Bernie, in this Winona County city of 1,600 people where she’s lived her whole life.
That’s why the couple is grateful for Meals on Wheels, whose volunteers deliver two meals to their door five days a week. Mary Hennessy doesn’t go into the kitchen any more, and as for Bernie: “I’m a lousy cook,” he said. Continue reading “Possible cuts to Meals on Wheels could impact 50,000 Minnesotans”
Trump’s Budget Endangers Those It Claims To Help The Most
The following article by Leo Gerard was posted on the National Memo website March 26, 2017:
After the president issued a budget last week slashing and burning environmental, labor and educational 
programs, the guy responsible for the thing, Mick Mulvaney, contended those financial massacres are the heart’s desire of the “steelworker in Ohio, the coal-mining family in West Virginia, the mother of two in Detroit.”
Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, asserted that members of my union, the United Steelworkers (USW), coal miners and urban parents are eager to kill off Public Broadcasting’s Big Bird, to drink lead-laden water, to breathe cough-inducing air and to work among life-threatening dangers. Continue reading “Trump’s Budget Endangers Those It Claims To Help The Most”