The White House on Tuesday proposed massive cuts in the country’s welfare programmes, while seeking an increase in national security and defence spending, including a wall along the U.S border with Mexico.
Congress is unlikely to approve the proposals made by the White House in a document titled “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” but they indicate the political priorities of the Donald Trump administration.
Cuts in healthcare for the poor, food stamp, financial aid to the jobless and the disabled are among the features of the budget that the White House presented as the “first in a long time” that saw government spending from the perspective of the tax payer. The money saved will go into reducing taxes and enhanced military spending.
Previewing the proposals on Monday, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney appeared to suggest a conflict of interest between tax payers and beneficiaries of welfare programmes and claimed the slow rate of growth in America is partly because of people’s refusal to work.
“...we need folks to work. We do. We need people to go to work. If you're on food stamps, and you're able-bodied, we need you to go to work. If you're on disability insurance and you're not supposed to be — if you're not truly disabled, we need you to go back to work. We need everybody pulling in the same direction,” he said adding, “we're going to measure compassion and success by the number of people we help get off of those programs and get back in charge of their own lives.”
The number of Americans on food stamp has swelled to 44 million in 2016, up from 28 million in 2008 when the economic recession hit the country. The situation has not returned to normality in many parts where job losses are concentrated. The Trump budget proposes to cut food stamp funding by over 25% over the next 10 years, directly hitting at a political constituency that supported him in the November 2016 election.
While the benefits and medical care for the retirees would be untouched as promised by Mr. Trump during the campaign, the healthcare support for the poor will see cuts. Shrinking the Medicaid has been part of the healthcare Bill passed by Congress recently and the budget proposals incorporate that.
The U.S. Centres for Disease Control (CDC) will face cuts in all its research and preventive interventions. The CDC’s global health programmes that monitor and respond to disease outbreaks around the world will take a 17% cut.
Six weeks of paid parental leave nationwide is one proposal that moves in the opposite direction, an idea that has been pushed by Ivanka Trump, the President’s daughter
