Proposed budget is a ‘bomb cyclone’

Bill Knight column for 3-25, 26 or 27, 2019

When I read the “Budget for a Better America” President Trump released March 11, I felt my face flush and seemed to hear my late mom say, “Billy, calm down. You’ll have a conniption fit.”

One of her favorite warnings from her childhood in Kentucky, where folks used “conniption” to mean panic, the term can be as old-fashioned as other phrases are new-fangled, like “bomb cyclone,” that weather condition where air pressure drops so dramatically the storm becomes as strong as a hurricane.

Trump’s budget is a storm of sorts, and it’s taken weeks to calm down.

Federal budget proposals are political and moral documents, said the Rev. Adam Taylor of Sojourners.

“They signal what and who we prioritize and seek to protect or uplift,” he said. “As Christians we can disagree on many issues, but it should be hard to argue that there is an overriding call in the Bible to prioritize the welfare of the vulnerable. This is the moral test. Based on this test, the Trump administration’s proposed budget priorities for Fiscal Year 2020 fail miserably.”

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said, “His plan is simple: Force us to get by with less, so corporations can hoard even more. [Trump’s] budget does more harm than I can list.”

But others can.

“The budget seeks to cut non-defense discretionary spending by 9%, or $54 billion,” said Catholic Charities.

Trump wants to cut Agriculture 14.9%, Education 12%, Energy 10.8%, Health and Human Services 11.9%, Interior 10.9%, Justice 2.3%, Labor 9.7%, State 23.3%, and Transportation 21.5%.

“For the third straight year, a majority of American farmers and ranchers are expected to lose money farming,” said National Farmer Union president Roger Johnson.

The proposal also would cut SNAP food stamps $220 billion over 10 years (hitting rural America the hardest) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) $1 billion, and the Environmental Protection Agency $2.5 billion, Catholic Charities said, plus the Army Corps of Engineers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and assistance to worldwide AIDS programs.

Maybe most troubling are proposed cuts for 10 years to Medicaid ($1.5 trillion) and Medicare ($845 billion). That contradicts Trump’s repeated promises to safeguard Medicare and runs counter to the administration’s power over Medicaid since states can’t be forced to accept it as a state-administered program financed by block grants, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar concedes.

“Hospitals are less and less able to cover the cost of care for Medicare patients,” said Chip Kahn of the Federation of American Hospitals. “It is no time to gut Medicare.”

There are increases, notably the Pentagon, rising 4.7% from $716 billion this year to $750 billion (meaning Defense would get $6 out of every $10 in discretionary spending). Other hikes would fund a “U.S. Space Force” and benefit both Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The justification for the cuts is to reduce government’s annual budget deficit, but another option would be to increase taxes, which are as low as they’ve been in decades for the richest 1%.

“The only place to find deficit reduction then, if cutting defense spending or raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations is off the table, is to decimate the social safety net – already [at] a historically low level,” Taylor added.

U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), chair of the House Budget Committee, said, “President Trump added nearly $2 trillion to our deficits with tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations, and now it appears his budget asks the American people to pay the price. With severe cuts to essential programs and services that would leave our nation less safe and secure, the Trump budget is as dangerous as it is predictable.”

It also pushes privatization, from federally built dams (that sell low-cost power to mostly rural consumers) to education (making taxpayers underwrite private, religious and home schools), and panders to his radical Right base and corporate cronies. (It would extend permanently the 2017 tax cuts to the top 1%).

Trump’s budget is probably doomed on Capitol Hill. Democrats are the House majority, and though pro-Trump Republicans dominate the GOP, which controls the Senate, Trump will need 60 senators to get items through, not 51. The GOP has 53 Senate seats.

Nevertheless, the storm is upon us.

“Trump’s intentions are clear,” said Lindsay Koshgarian and Ashik Siddique of the National Priorities Project, “and if his recent willingness to shut down the federal government is any indication, there are plenty of fights ahead.”

So: Seek shelter, but don’t panic. Persevere.