Less than a week after delivering the State of the Union address to Congress, where President Donald Trump said that he would “always protect” Medicare and Social Security, Trump’s recently released budget proposal shows those were empty words.
Reuters published a story about Trump’s $4.8 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2020, which increases military spending, but calls for cuts to foreign aid and programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. All the areas Trump is targeting to cut involve less for the most vulnerable people whether it be Americans or people in other countries.
“The budget calls for a 21 percent cut in foreign aid to $44.1 billion, down from $55.7 billion enacted in fiscal year 2020. It would make savings in outlays to safety net programs including $130 billion in Medicare through drug pricing reforms, $292 billion to food stamp and Medicaid programs by enacting new work requirements for beneficiaries, and $70 billion through a clamp-down on eligibility for federal disability benefits,” the story reported.
If you add up all the cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid based on Trump’s budget proposal it totals $492 billion. Although Trump seeks to save money on the backs of vulnerable Americans, he is proposing to increase military spending by more than $740 billion and wants another $2 billion for his border wall with Mexico.
Safety net programs and foreign aid are not the only budgets that are on the chopping block as Trump’s proposal seeks significant cuts to other federal agency budgets including a 37 percent cut to the Commerce Department, an 8 percent cut to the Education Department, an 8 percent cut to the Energy Department and a 15 percent cut to Department of Housing and Urban Development.
As the Reuters story points out, “Trump’s budget is largely a political document,” and really has no change of passing a Democratically controlled U.S. House of Representatives, but Trump makes it clear where his priorities are.
