May 24, 2017
While the President is on his first international trip, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released its budget proposal on May 23, 2017.
Entitled “The New Foundation for American Greatness”, the budget proposed $670 billion in defense discretionary spending and $560 billion in non-defense discretionary spending in 2018. Over the next 10 years, it hopes to balance the budget with a $3.6 trillion in spending reductions. As proposed, there is $54 billion in reductions to non-defense discretionary spending for FY18.
The $54 billion in reductions comes from cuts and changes to Medicaid, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), student loans, Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit Programs. The budget also assumes savings from the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Other cuts come from changes in the federal retirement system, which accounts or the largest area of savings. The proposal eliminates the cost-of-living-adjustments (COLA) for employees in the Federal employee retirement system (FERS and the Civil Service Retirement System (SCRS) COLA by .5 percent among other things. These cuts alone would save $4.1 billion in 2018.
The proposal also includes $2.6 billion in infrastructure, technology, and personnel to begin the President’s plans for the U.S.-Mexico border. Also included is six weeks of paid parental leave for mothers and fathers in the federal workforce.
The text of the proposal says that it will eliminate ineffective programs.
The proposal cuts the Department of labor by 2.4 billion dollars.
OMB Director Mick Mulvaney speaking on the budget Tuesday recognized that Congress may create a final budget that does not contain everything this proposal has included. He said. “If congress has a different way to get to that endpoint, God bless them, that’s great… do I expect them to work with the administration on trying to figure out places where we’re on the same page? Absolutely.”
Julian Martinez
Washington, DC
Lindsey Lucente contributed to this article.
More to read:
https://federalnewsradio.com/budget/2017/05/trump-releases-final-2018-budget-proposal-touts-3-6t-in-spending-cuts-over-10-years/
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3728848/White-House-Budget-For-FY2018.pdf
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/334768-here-are-the-66-programs-eliminated-in-trumps-budget/