ABCNews.com(WASHINGTON) — President Trump’s first budget proposal to Congress includes $1.7 trillion in mandatory spending cuts over 10 years, including $800 billion from Medicaid and $193 billion from food stamps, in an effort to balance the federal budget.
The proposal for Fiscal Year 2018, called “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” also includes sunny projections for economic growth and tax revenue, and factors in the passage of the GOP health care bill recently approved by the House.
“What Trumponomics is and what this budget is a part of, is trying to get to sustained three percent economic growth in this country again,” White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said in a briefing with reporters on Monday. “We do not believe that is something fanciful.”
In addition to the cuts, the proposal, set to be delivered to Capitol Hill Tuesday morning, also includes a boost to military spending, $25 billion over 10 years for Ivanka Trump’s paid family leave proposal — six weeks for new/adoptive parents — and $1 billion for construction of a border all on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We’re not going to measure success by how much money we spend, but by how many people we help,” Mulvaney said of the reduced spending, adding that the White House believes in the “social safety net.”
Like every presidential budget proposal, Trump’s first budget blueprint is expected to be dead on arrival in the House and Senate, with many members reluctant to approve deep cuts to Medicaid and foreign aid, among other programs.
Democrats are criticizing the White House proposal, and accusing Trump of going back on his promise to his campaign supporters not to touch Medicaid and Social Security.
“Candidate Trump campaigned as a populist,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said on the Senate floor Monday. “Since he has taken office he has governed like a hard-right conservative — pushing policies that help the uber wealthy at the expense of the middle class.”
“Based on what we know about this budget, the good news — the only good news — is that it’s likely to be roundly rejected by members of both parties here in the Senate — just as the last budget was,” Schumer said.
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