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7 years ago · by · 0 comments

Trump’s Budget Proposal

President Trump’s proposed budget has received criticism from Democratic and Republican lawmakers. The 2018 budget calls for an unprecedented $54 billion increase in military spending while slashing environmental, housing, diplomatic and educational programs. It also calls for a 31% cut to the Environmental Protection Agency and the elimination of 3,200 jobs. If approved, the EPA’s budget would become the smallest it’s been in 40 years.

The Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department and the Agriculture Department took the hardest hits. The State Department would see a 29% decrease in funding, eliminating climate-change prevention programs, reducing funding for U.N. peacekeeping, reducing funding for development banks and reducing most cultural-exchange programs.

The Agriculture Department would lose 4.7 billion (21%) of its funding, eliminating the $200 million McGovern-Dole International Food for Education program, eliminating the $500 million Water and Wastewater loan and grant program, reducing the budget for the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition assistance from $6.4 billion to $6.2 billion and cuts $95 million from the Rural Business and Cooperative Services program.

The budget proposes cutting 6.2 billion in funding (13%) for the Department of Housing and Urban Development-eliminating the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program and eliminates the $35 million of funding for Section 4 Community Development and Affordable Housing.  The cuts would also eliminate the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, the Choice Neighborhoods program and the Self-help Homeownership Opportunity Program.

The Department of Health and Human Services would lose 18% of its funding.  The Education Department would see $9 billion (14%) cut from its funding, with a decrease of $3.7 billion in grants for teacher training, after-school and summer programs, and aid programs to first-generation and low-income students.  While “school choice” programs would receive $1.4 billion more in funding, increasing the budget for charter schools and spending $1 billion to encourage districts to allow federal dollars meant for low-income students to follow those students to the public school of their choice.

The Department of Labor stands to lose 2.6 billion (21%) in funding which would eliminate the Senior Community Service Employment Program, which helps low-income seniors find work.  The budget cuts would close poor-performing centers for Job Corps, a job-training program for disadvantaged youth and eliminate grants that help nonprofit groups and public agencies pay for safety and health training.

The proposal also eliminates funding for 19 agencies including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports public radio and TV stations nationwide; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the Legal Services Corporation, which funds free legal aid nationwide.

These cuts are not set in stone just yet but they do show where President Trump’s priorities are.  Congress will still have to draft a formal budget and Trump’s proposed budget is expected to face fierce opposition in Congress.  Congress completely by-passed President Obama’s budget proposal last year while drafting the formal budget.

 

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7 years ago · by · 0 comments

EPA Faces Drastic Cuts In Trump’s Budget Plans

The White House is seeking to dramatically reduce the power of the Environmental Protection Agency, slashing dozens of programs and laying off 20% of the agency’s staff.  The proposed budget cut plans to cut the EPA’s budget by 25% to $6.1 billion, and cut its workforce by 20% to 12,400 employees, in the 2018 fiscal year that begins 1 October.  The plans require the complete elimination of EPA programs on climate change, toxic waste cleanup, environmental justice and funding for Native Alaskan villages. It would slash funding to states for clean air and water programs by 30% percent as well.

According to sources that have seen preliminary directives from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Trump administration wants to cut spending by EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) by more than 40% from roughly $510 million to $290 million.

The cuts target scientific work in fields including climate change, air and water quality, and chemical safety. EPA’s $50 million external grant program for environmental scientists at universities would be eliminated altogether. Cuts in the new budget memo include climate, air, and energy research would fall from $91.7 million to $45.7 million.  Research in chemical safety and sustainability would drop from $89.2 million to $61.8 million.   Water-related science falls from $107.2 million to $70.1 million.  The budget for sustainable healthy communities plunges from $139.7 million to $75.8 million.  The OMB memo also states that the EPA would no longer contribute to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, a multiagency task force that coordinates federal research on global change.

The OMB office says the cuts are needed to help reduce the burden that EPA regulations place on industry and state and local governments. Environmental scientists, regulators, and current and former EPA officials warn the reductions would devastate the agency’s efforts to carry out its mission of protecting human health and the environment.

The Trump administration’s final 2018 budget request is scheduled to be released on March 16th.  It is not clear whether the administration will keep the steep EPA cuts in its final request to Congress, or whether Congress will approve the cuts. Many federal lawmakers, as well as state and local officials, have already expressed strong opposition to some of the cuts.

The new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a long EPA foe, has suggested that he will push back against parts of the preliminary White House plan.  Some senior Republicans in Congress have also expressed doubts about the larger Trump administration budget plan driving the EPA cuts.

It calls for boosting discretionary defense spending in 2018 by $54 billion, and paying for that increase by cutting discretionary spending at civilian agencies such as EPA. The shift would likely require Congress to change a 2011 law, called the Budget Control Act, that imposes caps on domestic spending—but Democrats in the Senate have already said they would block any change unless it also includes spending increases for civilian programs.

 

 

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