President Donald Trump recently released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2018, which is set to begin Oct. 1, 2017. Just a small part of the budget proposal deals with Social Security, but it appears that Trump is keeping his promise not to cut Social Security budgets. Obviously this is not the complete or agreed upon budget because it is almost certain to change in the Congress, but it should be seen as a good sign.
The limited proposal, which can be seen here, calls for a 0.2 percent increase in Social Security’s operating budget for fiscal year 2018. Due to inflation, this would result in a small decrease in the agency’s budget, but would pretty much maintain the status quo at Social Security. No one was expecting Trump to propose massive increases in Social Security’s budget, but there was concern that he would propose slashing the agency’s budget. As we have mentioned before, Social Security is working with extreme funding limitations right now, but don’t expect any infusion of cash coming anytime within the next four years at least. Social Security’s operating budget is about 10 percent less than it was seven years ago in 2010.
Trump said that he plans to increase defense spending, which is obvious after an examination of the budget, but at least Social Security is not facing major cuts as some government agencies would under Trump’s budget proposal. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services would not be spared by Trump as he is proposing a more than 16 percent reduction in spending at that agency.
Every time a president releases a proposed budget there are going to be critics, both Democrats and Republicans, so it will be interesting to see how Trump’s budget compares to the one that comes out of Congress.
