President Donald Trump is sending Congress a $4.1 trillion spending plan that relies on faster economic growth and steep cuts in a range of support programs for low-income individuals to balance the government’s books over the next decade, the Associated Press reported today. The proposed budget, for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, was being delivered to Congress, setting off an extended debate in which Democrats are already attacking the administration for trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. The proposal projects that this year’s deficit will rise to $603 billion, up from the actual deficit of $585 billion last year, But the document says that if Trump’s initiatives are adopted the deficit will start declining and actually reach a small surplus of $16 billion in 2027. However, that goal depends on growth projections that many private economists view as overly optimistic. The government hasn’t run a surplus since the late 1990s when a budget deal between Democrat Bill Clinton and congressional Republicans combined with the longest U.S. economic recovery in history produced four years of black ink from 1998 to 2001. According to budget tables released by the administration, Trump’s plan cuts almost $3.6 trillion from an array of benefit programs, domestic agencies and war spending over the coming decade — an almost 8 percent cut — including repealing and replacing Obama’s health law, cutting Medicaid, eliminating student loan subsidies, sharply slashing food stamps, and cutting $95 billion in highway formula funding for the states. Trump’s plan projects that the boost in economic growth it will engender will result in more than $2 trillion in unspecified deficit savings over the coming decade from “economic feedback,” a major component in achieving the program’s pledge of achieving balance by 2027. The budget does feature one major new domestic initiative — offering paid parental leave at a projected cost of $25 billion over the next decade. Trump would keep campaign pledges to leave core Medicare and Social Security benefits for the elderly alone but that translated into even deeper cuts in programs for the poor such as Medicaid and food stamps.
