The US military is the reason the United States is reviled around the world.
The US military is the reason ISIS exists.
The US military is the reason religious extremists seized control in Afghanistan.
The US military is the reason the US was attacked on 9/11
The US military is the reason terrorism has exponentially increased.
The US military budget should be reduced to ZERO.
8
The Washington Post calls them the "safety net" or "social programs" -- why don't you? Entitlements is a word with a connotation of waste or frivolity. Since I've been paying into it for 35 years, why are you giving the GOP subtle ammunition to ax it. Unless the wealthy owners want to.
23
The United States spends only 3.29 percent of its GDP on the military. (https://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=132) Given that most of our allies in in NATO and the Far East are financial deadbeats and contribute little to their own defense, these expenditures on our part do not seem unreasonably large. But perhaps the Times and its readers really do believe (as did the previous administration) that the world would be a better place if the US stopped throwing its weight around and countries like Russia and China were to supplant us as the predominant world power.
5
Trump bankrupted his companies and now is bankrupting the country.
22
Horrible, vision-less. sad. disgusting and yet predictable...of a "president" who, in a matter of months, has led us into a cold war mentality similar to what we evolved from a half century ago. This crummy leader--who skews all his thinking and programs to the top 1% in dire favoritism MUST go. He has proven to be even more damaging as a "leader" than was even imagined. A quite unfortunate state of affairs for the nation and the world. But--what did voters expect when they elected an ersatz, untalented, cheesy reality show host and failed casino operator to the job of POTUS???? Seems you get what you vote for & in this case, a remarkably bad result.
19
America first? Stop inflating the military budget and apply it to our roads and bridges!
Love the poorly educated? Put money where your mouth is and stop cutting rural education and development!
Keep America smart and competitive? Invest in renewable energy not a stupid wall.
Want to get reelected? Keep your hands off and respect women! Stop trying to cut Medicare and Social Security. They are earned through our pay checks and not "entitlements" that can be used to pay for your tax cuts to the filthy rich!
13
Come on - you have to applaud the President for getting the projected deficit down from $12 trillion over 10 years from his first budget “ideas” during the campaign to the now $7 trillion....that’s a significant improvement, right? What we see now is exactly what happens whenever you fall for the sales pitch for a low quality product: you get what you paid for - trash.
9
You know, I hate to sound "entitled", but I PAID for Social Security and Medicare out of my salary, and I don't recall having a choice. Would the NYTimes mind not repeating the dishonest nomenclature - or rebranding - that is no more or no less than Republican propaganda?
23
One wonders if Trump supporters are prepared to live their old age without Social Security and Medicare benefits. I think we should ask the Ayn Rand crowd to put up or shut up: renounce all of your so-called “entitlements” now. These folks claim to be highly principled. Let’s put it to the test!
(P.S. Ever notice how the winging from this crowd is inevitably about how they perceive *other peoples’* behavior?)
10
Please stop calling Social Security an "entitlement"! The right-wing Luntz social engineering description designed to weaken support for this highly successful and important program, has co opted your reporting vocabulary. The very definition of "entitlement"-or better yet, "sacred cow" spending is the spending on pet projects like the astronomically expensive and ill-conceived border wall and vast amounts of unaccountable money on the military budget.
17
One of the questions Americans should ask themselves is, how and why did you becomes so reviled around the globe that we require spending more than the next 10 countries combined on our military? What makes you so frightened?
13
Using the word "entitlement" to describe programs such as Medicare and Social Security is misleading, and adds an ideological twist to programs that actually are paid for by their recipients for many, many years. For a medium that employs staff who daily parse the words of politicians and others, it seems careless that a newspaper such as the Times would be so thoughtless as to repeatedly use this descriptor--no matter what the dictionary reads. It implies its recipients have a guaranteed right to benefits, which are earned by most at a cost that covers almost a lifetime. The latest Trump budget proposal demonstrates that "entitlement" actually does not rule, and also gives lie to candidate Trump's promise (and reinvigorates Paul Ryan's agenda)he would not cut Medicare.
12
by the comments, I'd guess the proposed budget Trump has unveiled is not too popular.
one reason, out of many, is that it increases the deficit - by a lot. and deficits are supposed to be krytonite to Republicans.
then again, deficits don't matter, according to no less an authority than Dick Cheney.
I would not believe these clowns if they told me the sky was falling and I had to act immediately to save my famiy and myself.
wait - they already tried that.
ok, back to plan: their every word is a lie, their every act deceit. they are worse for the country than the flu, have the impact of a major draught, and need to be gotten rid of ASAP before the make the place unliveable.
meanwhile, try not to drive over any bridges.
8
Agree totally w media reference to "entitlements". Poor choice of words. Reinforces conservative narrative.
11
Will the Times and other media please STOP referring to the programs as "entitlements"!!
Every paycheck I see the deductions to help pay for these programs. Of course due to the cap the wealthy do not have to contribute after r $127,200 in annual income. So I guess you could accurately say they get an entitlement.
14
I'm willing to bet my next year's diminished SS and Medicare benefits for the next year that the $7 TRILLION of added debt over the next decade is off just a smidgen, like by a factor of 2 if not 3.
Bankruptcy is Trump's default business M.O. He makes the oligarchs of the Gilded Age look like austerity activists. But then, it's not his money, is it?
"What? Me worry?" is now more appropriately associated with Trump than with Alfred E. Neuman of MAD magazine fame.
6
"Tump Budget Ignores Deficit With Increases for Military".
And that makes tremendous sense because the most important Constitutional role of the Federal government is defense. During the depression the SCOTUS reinterpreted taxing and spending for the general welfare and common defense to being a stand alone power rather than being limited to the list of powers that immediately follow, all of which are common defense and general welfare. James Madison gives us the lens to look through when determining which powers, and by extension spending are Constitutionally federal. In Published Federalist 45 Madson explains:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.
The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."
1
In his business, Trump frequently over-leveraged both himself and his projects and them simply walked away from the underlying obligations. I'm 100% convinced the same mindset is at work here and that our President has no real awareness of the consequences of additional national debt and, more important, of the dire consequences of eschewing this debt.
7
Before President Trump’s Defense Budget:
Share of GDP: Defense spending was expected to decline from 4.5 percent of GDP in 2015 to 3.8 percent of GDP by 2020.
Share of Federal Spending: Defense share of federal spending was expected to decline from 21.6 percent share in 2015 to 17.4 percent share by 2020.
https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/defense_spending
All the generals say the military needs more money, but if they lie as much as General Kelly, we really need to see an outside audit before any more money goes to the military.
8
No one is surprised Trump lied about Medicare. But will they care?
6
Fiscal conservatism is dead. I don't even know what "conservative" means anymore in the U.S. Once the GOP leaders gave themselves over to Trump, they gleefully abandoned all of their so-called principles.
9
Without doubt the most opaque Presidency with the most exhibitionist President in history. He knows nothing relevant to governing a great state, has no interest in learning, has no problem representing himself as a populist but governing like a plutocrat. He has no identifiable principles nor philosophy beyond serving his own whims. Nobody has any idea of what he might do except whatever it takes to get through the next moment. There is no plan for anyone to follow, so no idea what comes next, with this man.
6
Why are we surprised? We allowed the liar "DT Goldfinger" to enter the White House even as we knew he loved gilded things and would borrow anyone's money to fund his love of golden toilets, etc, then not pay back the loans but instead file bankruptcy. The majority in Congress only cared that they were enabled to pass a tax cut that effectively transfers money to corporate Citizens United presumably insuring lasting power over the people. The lifelong ambition of the Speaker of the House has been to destroy Medicare and Social Security.
Why are we now surprised?
6
Trump must table the whole "let's have a parade" thing. How can you put out this budget and spend money on a military parade.
9
There is the MILITARY and there is the military. The first is the military-industrial complex of contractors who make big bucks off of taxpayer money. The second is the troops, some of whom have come home from war with profound physical and mental wounds and do not receive the care they deserve. That is where we need to spend the money, not on billionaire contractors.
13
President Trump's proposed budget “increases military spending by $195 billion over the next two years [and] the plan contains at least $1.8 trillion in cuts to federal entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps.” In addition to my strong opposition to the proposed $1,8 cuts in federal entitlement programs - Social Security is not an entitlement; it is an insurance benefit we pay for with taxes – I am incredulous that neither the national media nor Congress are asking why the military needs more funding when it cannot account for trillions of dollars it has been allocated.
According to the Fiscal Times, 31 July 2016, “Army and Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) personnel did not adequately support $2.8 trillion in third quarter adjustments and $6.5 trillion in year-end adjustments made to Army General Fund data during FY 2015 financial statement compilation. A further mystery is what happened to thousands of documents that should be on file but aren’t. The IG study found that DFAS “did not document or support why the Defense Departmental Reporting System . . . removed at least 16,513 of 1.3 million records during Q3 FY 2015." This is a continuing problem.
Why is fiscal accountable not a requirement before providing additional, massive amounts of funding for the military? How is this even possible?
4
It more frustrating to notice that many in American policy making and in military still do not understand that mere military strength can never win a war even against the poorest of poor and least technologically equipped enemies abroad. Our long wars in the past (in Vietnam) and present (in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria) failed to make these people understand this simple truth.
Probably they do not care- either about the lives of common American people in the country or in the foreign land fighting wars for America. These policy makers seem to be either ignorant (who can does not have the ability to process information and understand even the simplest form of truth) or motivated by greed by supporting lobbyists of military industrial complex- probably both.
growing influence of our military industrial complex is now negatively affecting our own police force and turning it into an army- only to fight its own people, justifying more gun sales for common citizens. IN the process we are destroying not only our money but also the democracy that we fought so hard to build and develop over centuries.
10
It will be a tremendous day when schools can afford whatever they need and the military needs to hold a bake sale to raise money for a tank.
9
It would be great if social agencies and individuals could find ways to inform all those Trump voters how his cuts would affect them personally. I know this plan would affect me personally to some extent but I also know many folks who are barely making it on Social Security and Medicare. If these people, ages 70-91, receive even less they get now, the won’t survive.
We need to vote in November but we also need to do our best to get eligible voters registered, especially those in the red states and districts.
6
I read today that a group of lions in Africa killed a poacher and devoured all but his head. He had been among them before and they knew who he was. Figuratively, mind you, this seems to depict the state of affairs in our country as one opportunist casts aside the balance of what was our nature. November is coming and the growing grasses will provide cover until then as voters grow weary of the sacrifices made by their pride.
3
This is not America.
13
Disgusting beyond words. How can these priorities by justified? It's painful to read this.
12
Oh, look...Trump wants to cut Medicare and Medicaid, infrastructure and science, and any department that might rein in the greedheads.
My goodness. Why, it's as though he lied to his voters, doesn't know or doesn't care how much this contradicts his big, big infrastructure "plan," and only really cares about his bankroll and pleasing the wealthiest among us.
Dog my cats. I am amazed. Well, what can one offer but a hearty, Trumpian "See ya at Mar-a-Lago, suckers!"
10
Wakey wakey all you Trump supporters who are not billionaires. Turn off Fox news for a few minutes and take a look at your president's proposed budget then ask yourself why you still support him.
16
Trump does a miserable Ronald Reagan impression.
6
Donald Trump will do to the U.S. what Ronald Reagan did to the USSR- drive it into bankruptcy. DJT is a crook. Whether he is evil or inept the result will be the same.
9
Many think the US is headed for tragedy and bankruptcy to a time when its citizens are nothing but galley slaves spending their lives to support an insane military, a vulture elite, and bond holders.
I disagree.
I think that ugly ending is well justifiedby indifference, willing ignorance, and laziness... as long as I and my family don't have to share it.
3
the bankruptcy king is doing it again
9
How much is Elon Musk asking for a ticket for that first flight to Mars.
7
I know this will come as a shock, but those who crashed into the twin towers and pentagon, and those suicide truck bombers and children rapists, they won. They won when this country decided that an endless military mission in the Middle East and an endless pentagon budget with no ceiling along with the glorification of the great American warriors on commercialized television. Yes they have been winning not us. Tar baby. Oh and by the way, you in the media. You did your part too! Under trump and his generals, we will have the most expensive military in history. How? By chopping away at Medicare and eventually social security. The endless war from the mindless powerful. Steal from the poor and give to the corporate military congressional interests. Bully!
10
Bush's over-reaction to what 19 people did on 9/11 was one of the greatest blunders of history.
9
Once again we see how mean-spirited, hostile, morally bankrupt, and ignorant Donald Trump really is.
As far as paying for the permanent tax transfers to the super-rich and the mega-corporations with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, it looks like our only response will be "Over Our Dead Bodies!"
11
they have not strayed from any principal, they are sticking to a principal. they are in the process of bankrupting the country and ruining the economy just as they did with bush II.
9
We need a VERY strong military. We're gonna need it when our creditors come banging on our door looking to get paid, and we have to tell them that we can't pay right now and they have to wait..
3
Despicable. Plenty of us have dotted our i (s) and crossed our t (s) our entire life with the expectation that our promised benefits, social security and medicare, were sacrosanct. Obviously they are not. So much for the sanctity our social contract.
7
Regrettably, your president thinks that dotting those i’s and crossing those t’s makes you a sucker. He — and your house leader — also think those payments to you are “entitlements,” rather than benefits you have earned. In their eyes, you are a “taker,” not a “maker.”
8
Did anyone expect anything different from the self-proclaimed King of Debt?
9
Every day we descend further back into the Dark Ages.
7
"Efficient, Effective, Accountable"
trope at its highest high.
3
Trump and his 'administration' are living proof that nightmares can come true. I used to feel I lived in a good country, with basically good people.
Not any more. Trump and his supporters have brought nothing but shame and destruction, and then turn around and try to call it 'winning'...
Wonder if he will have those tanks in his parade turn on the millions that will come out and protest his regime? Will our soldiers shoot us like they did at Kent State?
7
Not only an irresponsible budget but a cruel one. Of course there will be calls to reduce "entitlements" - I hate that loaded term but that's fodder for another day. Well, of course there will be pressure to control the budget hole because Trump is unnecessarily blowing up a Grand Canyon-sized crater with his tax giveaway to the rich and the corporations.
Duh.
And of course, we'll now take it out on working class and middle class and, yes, the poor.
Making America Great, each & every day.
5
Bring home and dissolve our armies of occupation that have been in place in Germany, Japan and South Korea for more than sixty years. Thi9s more than anything else will help balance the budget.
2
Profligate Trump budget request, profligate Trump fiscal incompetence, profligate Trump addition to the federal deficit (just shy of a Trillion Dollars next year).
The Donald’s critical focus is two fold:
First and foremost America’s military which he says is now in the worst shape ever, but under his stewardship will be the best military ever (certainly the most lavishly funded on the planet by far). After all he should know, four years of high school boarding at the New York Military Academy, and not long after five deferments from the draft during the Vietnam era. Toy soldiers like Trump know all about these things.
Second the gutting of critical entitlement programs. Again the Donald, privileged by great wealth from birth and then by an inheritance of hundreds of millions knows best about the plight of the 45 Million American poor, the infirmed and the elderly. This backed up by a dismal personal history of public service and at best his sketchy and greatly exaggerated personal philanthrope.
Trump and the GOP are enthusiastically engaged in boldly duping and fleecing the American people and getting away with it to the tune of trillion of dollars of crushing national indebtedness and the enrichment of a privileged few.
4
If I was the Democrats this is the political ad I would run over and ove again next October : it’s 10 years in the future , a senior citizen goes to his mailbox to collect his social security check. The mailbox is empty, he doesn’t understand, a neighbor comes up to him and says “ no more Social security checks , the government ran out of money “
“ but how”
“ it was the national debt, it got so large we couldn’t even pay the interest anymore “
“ what happens now”
“ I don’t know, and neither does the government , it’s a complete economic disaster.”
Voice over: “this is the future, if we let the republicans continue along this path, cutting taxes for the rich , borrowing trillions to finance the government, this is your future, but you can change it, vote Democrat in 2018, send a message to Trump and the republicans , end the republicans control of the congress.... before it’s too late”
Camera zooms in on a empty mailbox symbolic of a empty future .
5
storm the voting booths in 2018 and 2020. this country was built by people who forged their own future. get active and forge yours.
6
This budget is straight up North Korean calculus: military first; let the people suffer.
10
The US is going the way of many poorly developed countries. Voters who do not know very much about how the world is put together vote for a prophet they think will bring about progress, greatness and make them proud of their country.
And before you can say 'Vladimir Putin', you are a citizen in a dictatorship, and your democratic rights are being eroded - bit by bit.
Think Turkey, Russia, Egypt, Venezuela, the Philippines, Hungary, Poland, Zimbabwe - and the US.
6
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..
13
$7 trillion in debt if everything goes as planned. What if it "hits the fan" instead?
3
Wow, it's almost like the whole entitlement-preservation, deficit-elimination campaign promises were some kind of a con job
5
Fiscal hawks? Liars! Family values? Liars! Defending the American worker? Liars! What have the Republicans not lied about?
12
This a poorly written and incoherent article that tries to compare apples to oranges. You need to separate the administrations budget proposal and the congressional proposal. You also can’t compare a two year budget to a ten year budget in one sentence.
1
I bet the next words out of the GOP mouths will be privatize social security and medicare. You heard it hear first. I hope Americans will rise up and finally IMPEACH all the GOP. This past year they have put us through hell with their bullying management style and it seems like more of them are women abusers also. I support women to be equal like our constitution founders originally planned. Lets save the safety net programs for futures generations.
7
It is almost amusing (if you lived on another planet) to watch the NYT and other so-called "liberal" outlets repeat the Republican smears for them. Programs that we paid into, like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, are "entitlements". Inheritance taxes are "death" taxes. Fiscal restrain is attributed to the Republicans and "trickle down" is still used when it should be called "suck up".
3
Eh, the average person will have forgotten about this nine days from now -- let alone nine months. Trump will say something racist, or a cabinet member will resign, or an empty memo will appear out of nowhere, or Trump will threaten North Korea, ad infinitum. He is a master at the shiny things distraction.
As a whole, we don't have the attention span long enough to stay focused on anything, let alone the important things like the president's proposed budget.
Remember "shithole countries"? Me neither. And that was only three weeks ago.
3
What is this Republican obsession about killing medical care for as many citizens as it possibly can?
Where is the charity in this bunch of cold-hearted people for whom Karl Rove coined the misnomer "compassionate conservatives"?
Where are the statesmen, if any, among them who are willing to put integrity above partisanship?
Where are the fiscally responsible among the Republicans that talk about balanced budgets yet spend all on weapons in favor of diminishing physcial pain?
They are not in Washington, and those in Washington need to be removed for the charletons that they are.
8
Isn't it very simple? Money spent for defense is not available for growth. Like the body: Fight or flight require no intelligence, just muscle and brute force. For growth, you have to be smart and creative - you need to show power, not force. We will implode because we all go in the wrong direction; remember, the majority wants this, the voted for this. Just be clear what you are asking for; you will get it!
1
Once again for many people the armed forces are like the physician. We remember them when we need them.
As in diseases prevention is the best treatment. In armed forces a very strong one is the best chance of peace.
We have auto insurance, house insurance, health insurance, hoping we do not have to use it. The same way should be with armed forces in a world with terrorism and ambitious dictators.
Be smart, listen to those who have experienced history. If all a nation has to insure it’s survival and freedom is a strong military, then it will only deal with adversaries by going to war with them, and tossing the dice while the wanton destruction proceeds until someone capitulates or a truce follows a stalemate.
5
This budget shows Trump's fondness for the good 'ole days. More military, less public aid, more oil, less protection from unscrupulous business for us common folk. Whatever will make the rich richer and corporations free to act as they choose - damn the consequences! This is not a president looking to bring the country forward, only to drag it back to the past.
5
The billion going to the military in this budget are actually billions going to military contractors, many of which are heavy GOP contributors.
The the GOP's new tax law, this is just another way to shovel money to the wealthy.
6
The conservative writer for The Federalist (in the adjoining article to this one) is right when he argues that we will have to have higher taxes to pay to preserve Medicare and SS. And we SHOULD be willing to pay them.
We can argue about how much retirees should benefit versus how much they have paid in, but in the end, the purpose of these programs is to prevent the elderly from becoming destitute. They weren't intended to provide complete retirement security, but were intended to stave off destitution, and this they have largely done. Plus its been demonstrated repeatedly that Medicare is more cost effective than private insurance for elderly people in any case.
Other developed countries pay higher taxes than Americans do to support their retirees, and its time we faced the fact that we must do it also. No one who has worked their entire life should be allowed to fall into destitution because they've grown too old and unhealthy to work. Period. But there is a cost for this, and we should all bear it together.
6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP. PBS recently ran a program about arming the police with military vehicles, like MRAP for crowd control. Since there are thousands sitting in storage and remain unused, Trump want's to show his expert knowledge by increasing the military budget to arm local police departments. So that is another definition of "Making America Great."
Wake up America.
4
In the "contract with America" Newt Gingrich forced Republican Legislators to sign an oath of " no new taxes.". In the subsequent decades tax revenues have not kept pace with the government spending that Republicans have done little to curb.
While Republicans have made a spectacle of cutting spending on social safety net programs, they have more than offset these cuts with increased spending on military and corporate subsidies.
While Gingrich attacked "tax and spend liberals" Republicans have become "borrow and spend conservatives.". At least the " tax and spend" philosophy was debt neutral by virtue of increased revenue to pay for increased spending. Tax and spend also made and made legislators immediately accountable to taxpayers instead of " kicking the can down the road" in the form of increased national debt.
1
Entitlement? I thought people paid for Medicare with their taxes during their working lives. If that’s not supposed to be taken as something guaranteed anymore then maybe we should all stop paying taxes now.
11
What are the specifics on Medicare cuts?
2
What are the specifics on educate cuts. That should get a lot of people’s attention.
1
Trump wants a huge military. That frightens me. Is its purpose to be used overseas or at home? For us or against us? With Trump, I don’t trust that I even know that answer anymore.
7
Trump's budget is a roadmap to bankruptcy.
5
I;'m not surprised by this budget. Republicans have no ideas or plans to create non-military jobs. They support only war-based activities - like ancient Rome used to do. Real, non-military jobs are created by middle class citizens and new immigrants who are desperate to improve their living situations. Don't count on the Republicans to be compassionate towards our citizenry - they are not, and haven't been for decades.
4
The Republican Congress and the President should be denied any budget increases in any sector other than an immediate bundle of money for the American citizens of Puerto Rico.
Well so much for his promise of not touching Medicare. But I guess we need to take programs from the elderly to pay for the Wall. Speaking of the Wall, so much for his promise of Mexico paying for it. But he keeps saying that he is keeping his promises.
1
Trump avoided military service but now he wants to use other people's hard-earned tax dollars to buy himself the esprit de corps he did not earn (or want?) because of his famous bone spurs. Please, rain on his parade!!
6
I am left wondering if the group that still support trump understand what is about to happen to them. I have paid into the system and plan on retiring in five years at seventy years old. These same group of republicans held the Obama administration in a checks and balance mode. Now the sky is the limit and than plan to borrow to pay for it. People that need help should be first. It is time for the trump madness to end!
2
Increases to the military budget equate to huge profits for Caci and KBR and other private defense contractors. GI Joe still gets about $4k/month and has to use food stamps to help pay for his pain medications after his amputee surgeries. The idea that Mr. Trump -- or any greedy republican -- gives an actual hoot about the military as a defense of our country is laughable. And the rubes keep buying it with our tax dollars, indeed...
1
In the first paragraph of the article is this curious statement, "a ballooning federal deficit that illustrates how far Republicans have strayed from their longtime embrace of balanced budgets".
Please quit repeating the Republican falsehood that they have long embraced balanced budgets. Ever since Ronald Reagan Republican Presidents have consistently embraced policies that have caused deficits and the national debt to balloon.
20
Unfortunately my message is too late to be seen by most readers. But nevertheless it is time for Americans who really care about themselves and their fellow citizens to rise up and tell your Congressional Reps and Senators what their priorities really should be. Military engagements around the world? More and bigger bombs? More money for real estate developers who build bigger mansions for the already wealthy? OR better health care? better housing? adequate nutrition? cleaner air and water? better education for all children? more investment in innovative ideas to reverse climate change instead of 19th century polluting industries like coal and petroleum? Time to throw off the failed ideas of Republicanism and Trumpism (whatever that may be) and move forward with a Progressive agenda led by clear thinkers with progressive ideas. The 19th Century philosophy of most of today's Republicans are making America a Third-World country with misery for all.
15
"King of Debt," to be sure. Just remember, folks, it's ultimately OUR debt, not his. He walks away responsibility-free, and goes off to play golf. Shades of his Atlantic City casino venture?
16
Of course, as a businessman, Mr Trump loved debt. We the taxpayer, bailed him out of nearly a billion in business debt in the 1990s. Did he pay his fair share of taxes to support our country? He bragged about just renegotiating debt, as if it can be just negotiated away. Who is going to bail out the US government? Who do we renegotiated the debt with? I think, with this budget , the nature and extent of the spending, along with the tax overhaul, that Mr Trump has proven that uber rich, powerful businessmen do not make good Presidents.
12
“Washington will no longer be a roadblock to progress; Washington will now be your partner.”
If adding "$7 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years" and proposing "steep cuts to domestic programs" is Trump's notion of being a partner from Washington, I say thanks but no thanks partner. He is clearly demonstrating that his only partners in the country are members of the business community and the very affluent citizens.
The extra $59 I got in my paycheck last week means NOTHING in comparison to what my husband and I may lose if the notion of deep cuts in Medicare and Social Security become a reality. I would gladly return that lousy and meager chump change of $59 in exchange for Trump to keep his campaign promise of not touching "entitlement" programs.
14
Your co-pay on local infrastucture will more than eat up $59 per week.
1
And many Americans believed him. Right into debtors prison
4
Medicare is your money and not an entitlement. It’s time to throw those bums out of government!
3
Poor old Ike is having the shakes in his grave with control of the US by his infamous military-industrial-CONGRESSIONAL-complex. Our military activities, along with profiteering arms sales, in every corner of the globe have done nothing but keeping the world in a state of turmoil by thinking we have the answer to every wrinkle in every culture. Then there is corporate colonialism backed by same military creating/maintaining banana republics in SA,etc sending escapees over our borders to be used as political fodder in our congress.
Our successes are highlighted by the state of Afghanistan in 2018---and this is called "winning????"
3
It sure looks like Vlad Putin is getting revenge for what the US did to the USSR in Afghanistan.
1
Infrastructure spending that will make private firms rub their hands with glee. Will decimate the State Dept. that exists to avoid armed conflict. Provide Food Boxes for the poor - telling them what to eat while enriching someone else with a government contract that would have no oversight - because regulations are bad as per this administration. A military that already spends more than any other in the world, an unneeded FBI building for 2.2. billion - for an FBI that this government wishes would disappear in its current form - perhaps to become part of the military. A crazy man run rampant and no one there to stop him.
7
It's very ironic when one considers the NY Times paid little attention to the deficit under President Obama who ran up overspending to unprecedented levels but now all of a sudden gets "religion" when the overspending is done by President Trump.
As for military spending, I am sure there is a lot of waste but there are bad actors out there and I include China who id upgrading its military to take over the South China Sea, North Korea who want to build missiles to reach our shores and Iran who wants hegemony over the middle east. None of these acts are benign and only the US military has the ability to counter these threats.
1
Actually, the paper paid a great deal of attention to those deficits, while its opinion writers such as Paul Krugman argued for deficit spending given the massive recession.
You may not like it, but that's the Keynesian argument: when everybody else is broke, government becomes the "lender of last resort." And when everybody else is doing well, government should draw back from deficit spending, not throw a couple trillion at the wealthy and spend dementedly on the military.
As for your claims about China: they'd be far more convincing if Trump hadn't strutted around telling Asia, "You're on your own, boys," dumping TPP, and sucking up to Xi.
2
Same old diatribe. "Why didn't you do this when Obama was in office?" This would have been a strong criticism when Obama was still in office--we are in the here and now. Pointing out the supposed faults of the past isn't a defense for present transgressions. You don't get a pass because someone else did it. This isn't 3rd grade.
Also, yes we have military objectives including securing ourselves from possible future threats but there is a middle space. An area where many sides can be satiated. Long has the right horded it's overstuffed budget under an opportunistic war-mongering rug.
You can responsibily protect the nation without over funding the military and properly funding the proper social programs. Enough of these fallacies.
1
As for President Obama’s budget deficit, did you forget the the Bush administration tanked the economy? Do you remember how Paulson begged someone to save the automobile companies? Obama did us all a favor after the Bush administration failed us all.
5
For those of us who still had blinders on here is the final proof that Trump is no populist. Nothing in this budget for the poor. Nothing in this budget for the middle class. Everything for the billionaires the corporations and the military. Finally the broken promise that even I thought he might keep; deep cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. Any questions? Have we had enough winning yet? Are we making America great again? Tough to imagine how FOX will spin this to their supporters. Doubtless with more lies and gas lighting. What more can we say as Trump and the GOP torch the "Land Of The Free and The Home of the Brave?" What can we say as we watch our democracy along with every iota of progress we have made since FDR, crash like the Hindenburg and erupt into flames? Pass the marshmallows? Everything has been said already. Nobody in our erstwhile government is listening because nobody cares. The GOP got their tax cut for billionaires through effectively bankrupting the country and in the end that was all that mattered to them. Though I am sure Ryan is still excited to enact his life long dream of destroying our social safety net.
11
This is absurd. I think we need to change our military recruiting from enlist to draft. When our sons and daughters were sent to the front line and shed blood in foreign soil, then will we understand the significance of aggression & expansion by our industrial military complex. I personally will switch my vote from president Trump (if he is going for reelection) to other candidate in the 2020 election for sure.
4
Sons and daughters of the 1%rs. The prized offspring of the wealthy people with no chance of deferment. Not even for bone spurs.
The White House proposed budget calls for draconian cuts to domestic programs serving the poor such as Medicare and Medicaid as well as Food Stamps. At the same time, military spending is being raised by 13% to over $700 billion dollars. This budget, combined with the $1.5 trillion dollar tax cut overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthy, brings into focus the true Trump agenda: Make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else. Along with selling off major airports (and privatizing other assets such as the International Space Station) and decimating the EPA and the Consumer Protection Bureau the United States investment in itself will soon wither away to nothing. Building any house's foundation on sand rarely leads to a day at the beach.
6
Trumps America lines the pockets of the wealthy while cutting programs that help the poor, disabled and elderly. This is not making America Great.
Trumps America expands military might while slashing budgets that support democracy and diplomacy. This is not making America Great.
Trumps America deports hard working people that our economy needs to fill jobs and to grow. This is not making America Great.
Trumps America redistributes wealth from labor to investors through tax cuts and taxpayer debt service obligations. This is not making America Great.
Trumps America slashes consumer, financial and environmental protections the keep Americans safe from predatory corporate practices. This is not making America Great.
Trumps America lies, distorts, isolates and insults Americans and our Allies. This is not making America Great.
Trumps America denies science, suppresses the press, obstructs justice and undermines religious freedom. This is not making America Great.
Trumps America has undermined the moral standing that has provided a source of stability to financial and geo-political forces. This is not making America Great.
The contrasts between what has made America Great and what Trumps America offers are stark and alarming.
The great America that I have always been proud of is under attack by the hate, fear, ignorance and greed of the Trump agenda. Please, let’s change this and reinstate America’s greatness.
7
Stop using the word "entitlements!" Its original meaning was that instead of a fixed appropriation as in, say, the National Institutes of Health, these benefits were available to those who were eligible for them, i.e., entitled. But the word now has a negative, even nasty, connotation that makes it inappropriate to use to describe these programs. Call them earned benefits, which they are, or call them care for the elderly and the poor, but don't call them "entitlements." You are showing either bias or ignorance.
8
For Trump, this is all about his parade. He just wants more toy soldiers than any of the other kids. But they're not toy soldiers. And this budget makes war on the American people, by cutting services that keep us as a nation alive.
I am eager for the GOP, which has sold itself down the river, to decide that Trump is less of an asset than a liability. Then he will discover the going price for loyalty, which he values so highly.
5
Coming up with budgets is a complex process. So perhaps Republicans could make use of complex numbers in their budget.
That is in the sense of using "i", the square root of -1, in their numbers. Give the military something like $100 billion + i200 billion. Then Republicans could claim that they are giving them $300 billion, and most people would not know the difference.
1
Guns or butter. Tell me exactly - what are we defending?
8
Bu cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, the Republicans are using the money we paid for these "entitlements" to subsidize the tax cuts they just handed to the plutocrats who really run this country. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people indeed! Wake up my fellow Americans, what little democracy that might ever have existed in our plutocratic republic is rapidly disappearing.
9
So instead of environmental cuts add government pay cuts starting at the top and working down. 30% cut at the lawmaker level, term limits and no lifelong benefits vesting until they complete two full terms. And they get Medicare benefits while in office!!! If you want to affect change start with you're own house.
3
I wonder how many of those military billions genuinely protect us. I suspect it's more likely that they line the pockets of private contractors.
5
PLEASE stop referring to Medicare and Social Security as entitlements. We pay for them.
12
We pay something for them, yes. We do not pay what we take out again.
Bring our overseas military forces home from Afghanistan and Syria. Let the two Koreas pursue diplomatic talks about their country's re-unification. Shut down unnecessary military bases at home and around the world.
Use our military engineers to help rebuild Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and our Caribbean neighbors of Haiti, Barbuda, and other small islands destroyed by last year's hurricanes.
Help the people of Venezuela to restore their civil society and economy.
When all of this is a "Mission Accomplished" use the savings to pay for a military parade in Washington D.C.
7
Has anyone checked to see if our President has been given security clearance by the FBI? No enemy could muster the firepower to do as much damage to our country as the currently submitted budget, if enacted. This is a prescription for national suicide.
10
While the Congress may approve higher spending limits for many of these essential domestic programs, the White House will undoubtably direct agencies to slow walk programs and spending. November can't come soon enough, and the nation needs a change in the majority of both the House and Senate to stem some part of the damage being done by Mr. Trump and the 1 percenters who populate his government.
6
Here we go again. New cycle. Republicans drive the economy into the ground for 4 to 8 years. Middle America realizes they’re not going anywhere. They do a 180 and elect Democrats who spend 4 to 8 years turning the economy back around.
“The best democracy money can buy “
7
All I know is I'm glad at least one of my kids went on to medical school. When it's impossible for me to find a provider who will accept the paltry amount Medicare will pay in the future, I know he will find someone in his network who will take care of me. If you have bright kids in high school and college, steer them toward medical school. You may need their expertise.
Such a shame because Medicare has worked well taking care of seniors since its inception; it could be used as a blueprint for universal health coverage. Republicans can't see the forest through the trees; blinded by greed.
6
All of this fantasy rests on confidence that the Federal Reserve Bank can convert bad debts to assets when it buys defaulted securities.
1
Trump's life story is about spending other people's money, borrowing without paying back -- we have definitely let the fox into the chicken coop this time.
OTOH, he also knows the value of opening with an outrageous offer, simply as a bargaining stance. (We'll be so glad to grind him down to where he only adds 6 billion to the national debt!) We have to be very insistent that we won't allow our future to be mortgaged for the greater glory of Trump.
4
My husband and I have been paying into Social Security and Medicare for a combined total of 62 years.
We ARE entitled to those benefits... but I would be happy to receive a reimbursement check if that meant we no longer had to pay into these programs.
Oh... this is the Trump administration we're talking about... the check would more than likely bounce.
20
I'm waiting for the day we'll wake up and find the avenues of Washington and other cities filled with military personnel and equipment, ready to stop any protest or protesters in their way. We are at a scary crossroad.
20
It already happened after the Great Depression caused impoverished veterans of WW I to gather in Washington, marching for early payment of their service bonus to help restart the frozen economy.
1
Let’s be clear. The Democrats and Bill Clinton left us with a surplus. The Republicans and two Republican Presidents is all that it took to get the USA debt to over $20 Trillion and 100% of GDP.
Think about it. It is as if your personal debt were equivalent to 100% of your yearly salary and you can’t even make the payment of the interest on the debt.
We are all in for a world of hurt when the bills come due. And, I am sure, the Republicans will continue to argue that the only solution will be to dismantle the Great Society as they give another $Trillion plus to the top 1%.
Whatever.
30
Clinton achieved a current account surplus, but not a reduction of debt already incurred.
That surplus under Clinton was forced on him by a Republican Congress. Clinton essentially functioned as Newt Gingrich's hostage for 6 years. "The era of big government is over," Bill Clinton was forced to declare.
Joseph. Whatever President Clinton declared at the time is besides the point. The point is that Republicans since Saint President Reagan have given up any pretense of caring about balanced budgets, and constantly lie about it. Period. If you care about balanced budgets, then you need to be mad that the folks you support are making such a huge mess. We, Progressives, warned you that a President Trump would do just this, just as he did to New Jersey when he stiffed the State with his Casino debts he did not pay.
If this is what you want for the country, that is fine. But, stop pretending otherwise. It is not a game we are playing. People, perhaps including your family, will get hurt.
2
Trump should double down and propose drastically cutting Medicare and Medicaid. The mid-terms are not too far away. Better yet, pass the budget with even more drastic cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. When people see grandma literally dying in the street it will force a passionate and real discussion in this country about how to fix a broken system.
For anyone who has taken take of one or more elderly sick parent, you've experienced first hand the amount waste, nonsensical rules, and those profiting handsomely from the current system.
7
It is amazing, how much Progressives (“Let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!”) have found budget-religion. As a believer in arithmetic; any policies that guide the Country away from Keynesian economics, are worthwhile.
Wouldn't it be somethin if The Donald just being Donald, creates in Progressives such wrath, that they scorn to abandon their fallacies?
Speaking of fallacies, comparing "stimulus" spending in a growing economy to stimulus spending in an economy testing on a depression is a false comparison.
Democrats have always been more fiscally responsible because they have open to the idea that "tax and spend" is better than the " borrow and spend" philosophy of Republicans.
9
The crackpot "dual mandate" to the Federal Reserve Bank to substitute monetary policy for fiscal policy is an open concession of incorrigible incompetence by Congress.
Trump appears to have empathy for no one not even himself. Judging by his pictures he looks like he’s going down hill daily.
His budget is absurd. Every penny that doesn’t go into his pocket or towards the already bloated military budget could be better spent.
I along with most people would be very supportive of helping veterans and current military people. If the money was used for that purpose it might make sense.
8
"I love debt, I'm an expert with it"
......Mmmmm, weren't the first 4 tries a lesson on bankruptcy laws?
The same expert is driving this national bus and the US is the passenger.
8
His budget cuts $554 billion in Medicare spending over 10 years, Wake up people. This means you.
22
The hypocrisy of Republicans in Congress in staggering. Aren't they suppose to be the self-defined party of conservatives, both socially and fiscally? With their undying loyalty to Trump, the GOP is telling US that is no longer the case. Forget their claims to be the party of Reagan. Today's GOP bears almost no resemblance to that party which preached supply-side/trickle-down economic theory. Present-day Republicans increasingly adhere to the dictates of their Fearless Leader, a shyster who has no political philosophy. Trump's position is that of a figurehead, signing whatever comes across his desk, irregardless of what Trump promised during his campaign. When are those who voted for Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress going to wake up and realize they're being taken for a long ride off a short cliff? Apparently, not any time soon.
DD
Manhattan
12
Tanks and walls instead of cyber security when the entire electrical system could be turned off (Dark Sky) reducing the country to indefensible. Not intelligent spending but then Trump is a dysfunctional adult who wants toy soldiers and parades while the nation burns. Wake up voters. He is putting the homefront at incredible risk.
21
Now we know how Trump plans to pay for his budget-busting tax cuts:
Cut $554 billion from Medicare over 10 years
Cut $250 billion from Medicaid over 10 years
Cut $214 billion from food stamps over 10 years
What happened to the promise that the tax cuts would pay for themselves through economic growth?
Another one of Trump’s demented delusions or just a flat out lie?
23
Julie,the best part of Trump's budget proposal was the one he declared in the White House saying,"Washington will longer be a roadblock to progress; Washington will be your partner."
Irony is, this voice came from the same man who still cannot admit that he colluded with the Russians to win his one n' only election of his lifetime after promising to all his campaign goers that"Once I go to Washington,I'll clean up the entire swamp."
Now, when he's in Washington,he pulled a fast one on his same supporters who flocked to his campaign sites by saying "Washington is okay under my regime. Rather I made it better."
But what he's not telling to his voters who stood up in the lines for long hours to cast their votes that Washington under his regime is becoming more than a swamp. Rather a dirty pond.
Or let's call his part of Washington D.C. a dirty lake which will turn into a dirty river or a filthy ocean if we allow him to stay in the White House any longer than what he deserved.
His latest budget proposal has so many 'pork n' barrel' that nobody in this country had ever seen before.
Trump, being a businessman has put so many of his pet projects in his budget proposal,that if he can survive from this Russia investigation which surely is going to doom his presidency in near future, will make him the richest man on earth.
I bet his cut from the Wall project,infrastructure and defense will give him more than 100 billion dollars from $4.4 trillion he asked from congress.
7
Trump seems to only understand the world he's always lived in - one of privilege, gilt(not guilt)-laden, never hungry, buy-your-way-out-of-trouble, privilege. He's run his companies with a devil may care attitude, if one goes bust there's always another mark down the road who will bite.
Well, I'm sorry that so many good Americans believed his schtick and bit. We are paying the price. Like a little boy who loves toy soldiers and war because he's never experienced it first hand, he is still "playing" but with our money, our futures, and our lives.
Please, won't/can't someone stop this craziness? Hopefully Congress will have the nerve to stand up and call his bluff. After years of listening to how terrible debt and the deficit are, we're given this? A rogue's list of ways to pay for tax cuts on the backs of citizens who truly need help.
8
Military Budget? With the electoral college's Trump occupying the Oval Office, and the gerrymandered republicans doing his bidding, all Putin and Xi have to do is sit back and wait for them and their "king Of Bankruptcy" to ruin our country.
8
This is irresponsible of the President and of anyone supporting him. The United States government is reckless and dangerous.
10
Someone has to pay for the military parade!
6
How is a billion dollar aircraft carrier “defense.” The logic of fighting “them” there so we don’t fight them here, died with Vietnam and has become a zombie with Afghanistan and Iraq. Everyone should now say NO to military adventures!
8
Nov. 8, 2016; Sept. 11, 2001; Dec. 7, 1941 --Three worst dates in U.S. history, each caused by a foreign attack. One way or another, this kakistocracy will be killed.
11
Increase the military budget while destroying the State Department and diplomacy, we can see where this is going and it's terrifying.
14
At some point we'll wonder what we're protecting, if there's anything left to protect.
10
One of the scaariestl things Trump has done, to me, is to give so much to the military. Is he trying to curry favor for when he wants their support in an unconstitutional way? Trump has shown himself unwilling to follow precedent (he gloats in that) and hungry for more and more power. I think we need to be afraid, very afraid, of his plans for the military.
6
Time is running out for Dems to report out to Americans a daily list of the promises Trumps has made, then broken. Draining the swamp, attacking the deficit, hiring “the best people,” providing fair health care and job opportunities - the list is endless. Better come up with somebody soon who talks TO the public, not AT the public. Are we really so unable to make Americans wise to the snake oil Trump, Inc. is selling?
6
Every morning, the people in this Administration and their enablers get up and ask themselves, "So, how can we hurt more people today?"
8
Dystopia has arrived! Trump’s “vision” of American progress is a perverse nightmare of privatization and austerity. While campaigning on a platform of “America First” he didn’t bother to say which “America” he was advocating for. Obviously, his interests are the major financial interests; the People, not so much. His carnival barker approach to governing is fully on display here. He offers shiny sounding promises of prosperity while simultaneously picking your pocket. His infrastructure plan is to offload the burden from the public sector and to allow the private sector to finance and overcharge for the most vital of community services and resources. His plundering of the social safety net is only to benefit the military/industrial complex making war abroad and sowing death at home. Allocating funding for opioid addiction is meaningless without determined policy and criminal justice actions against the suppliers, Big Pharma. Trump is not so much a mastermind as a mascot for the 1%. It is also highly likely that he has aligned his private investment interests to receive the benefits of his administration’s proposed Federal manipulations. He’s right, the game is rigged! However, an insidious subplot also occurs to me: This man never really wanted this job. It was only a business marketing plan. Trump doesn’t care about re-election. After running down the economy and social structures via psychotic deficit spending his electoral base won’t vote for him. But then he won’t care!
5
$777 billion more in defense spending over 10 years? That's one heck of an unneeded make-work, "leaf raking" jobs program; not to mention the inevitable cost overrun profits for the (barely) private members of the Military-Industrial cabal.
$200 billion for infrastructure needs that, given the shape it's in, can easily run past a trillion? Didn't Trump laugh at Hillary Clinton's chump change proposal of about the same amount?
The proposed cuts of $200 billion to SNAP, aka Food Stamps, and the $266 billion axe to Medicare (among others) over ten years should pay for all the goodies the well fed, well heeled, well medically taken-care-of organizations and individuals have received from their well paid servants of the (right) people. And if not, so what? Those People don't make campaign contributions and it's their fault for making $9 an hour in their 1.5 jobs or for getting old.
Messrs. Trump and Ryan, "It's people like you what cause unrest."
5
What happened to the two-year budget that safeguarded domestic programs? America should be kept safe, but not at the expense of the disadvantaged and senior citizens. Trump''s budget is mean and counter to everything he ran on. I can't wait for the mid term elections. Enough is enough.
1
Ponder the irony of this........Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas is complaining that the Trump budget would cut welfare to farmers in the form of crop insurance. When Kansas Republicans complain about budget cuts, you know that we have reached an inflection point of some kind.
2
With so many former military folks surrounding Trump, this is not surprising. They have veterans benefits - so who cares about Medicare. Look at the age of his closest advisors. They have a job despite the fact that anyone else their age would have been let go long ago during the 2008 downturn. Entitlements? Trump feels he is entitled to weekly trips to his own place in Florida at government expense. As for caps on Medicaid? Really? Then what happens?
Let's remove the cap on contributions to Social Security to help fund it for the future. Most working people never make the cap in their yearly contributions to Social Security. This is another example of the wealth gap.
Young people need to take to the streets because Trump and Congress are stealing from their future. It's bad enough we pensioners are holding our breaths about our own investments and medical care.
4
Trump, with the help of his unfit appointees, is now proving not only that he is a failed businessman but is one with no common sense or compassion. He was thrilled to sign a huge tax cut for the wealthy and corporations who don’t need more money but has no problem cutting $1.8 trillion to Medicaid and Medicare. He wants those who are hungry to have a 30% cut in food stamps over a decade.
People in public housing are supposed to work. How much is it going to cost to monitor all the poor?
HIs proposal for infrastructure improvements will provide 20% of the cost and states, cities and private investors are supposed to provide the rest of the money. Sorry, but I don’t see paying tolls as a way to help workers who need to get to work. If this is Trump’s ‘centerpiece of the budget”, it stinks. The middle class doesn’t need more taxes to pay for the country’s failing infrastructure.
His bigotry and hatred for brown people is showing. He wants a worthless wall and taxpayers are supposed to provide $1.6 billion to build 65 miles of the wall? 2,000 more ICE agents will create more hurt and broken families.
How long are we supposed to suffer under a president who doesn’t read, has an attention span of 8 minutes and gets most of his ‘news’ from watching Fox 4-8 hours a day? Mr. Trump, you do NOT have superior intelligence, good genes and outstanding intuitive abilities.
4
Deficit is not a problem! Bankruptcy-master Trump will do what he always does, just don’t pay it back, default on the debt clean slate no biggie!
3
Republicans are constructing themselves a paid vacation starting next election.
Republicans are stockpiling their personal advantages on the backs of taxpayers. Republicans are sandbagging legislation to their own advantage as they walk out the door.
Republicans who are "retiring" are building a golden parachute. Trump is building a golden escape hatch from bankruptcy and scandal.
Even if the democratic party landslides these crooks, they sail off into the sunset knowing that they've lined their pockets with money siphoned off for their special interests and friends. You see it on a local level, you see it on a federal level. Republicans will get voted out and happily spend their days blaming democrats for voting for this budget.
4
"The King of Debt." And... 62 Million voters believed this was a great business strategy (actually they didn't know and didn't care to know) of a man who merely appeared to be successful: appearance is everything; knowledge- not so much. Businesses who go into debt, sell of things then make a beeline into bankruptcy court. Seems like this is the business-strategy for Trump's America.
He doesn't care; he and his are milking the U.S. Treasury; profiteering. His enablers (a GOP Congress and other lackeys) care less- but, sooner than later- those who worshiped at the alter-of-Trump will discover; they "ain't" on the Preferred list. The rest of us? We'll suffer; we'll fret about the unfairness of it all. We'll wish, hope and pray- somehow, the damage isn't too severe- knowing it will be worse than imagined.
This isn't the Movie where the music swells and the hero or heroine walks into the sunset and we're left with the impression the day will be saved: It won't.
3
In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson declared a War on Poverty.
In 2018, Donald J. Trump declared a war on poor people.
4
Trump has been ignoring and otherwise slithering out of his own debt obligations for decades.
What did Americans expect from a man who keeps a bankruptcy lawyer on retainer — “fiscal responsibility”? Truly??
3
This is the foundation of an authoritarian regime. Support and build up the military by investing in armaments. Attempt to shut down free press. Stack the courts. Make democratic (small d) voting harder. Appoint those without experience, but close ties to the President and family into the executive branch. (oligarchy). Speak loud, disparage those who disagree. Then take away everything that made us a beacon of freedom for the world. Congress is a lap dog. It is beyond scary.
10
It's all part of Make America Great Again, like back when only rich white men had the right to vote, and there was no Social Security or Medicare. The slaves were happy back then. (I've head a lot of people saying that.) And although we are light years better off than chattel slaves, when the rich own everything, and we have no choice but to pay the rents they determine, it's still a form of slavery. This particular version of the Republican Party is the worst thing to happen to this country since slavery 1.0
1
Right. Cut housing, health care, Medicaid, food, give people boxes of processed "food" instead of allowing them to buy fresh; and vastly increase spending to the military and DHS; what could go wrong.
Also, sell our airports and our highways.
Swell.
This is Putin 101.
2
The GOP's Grand Old Plan to put the war lords, aristocrats and the peasants back in their rightful place has just about come to fruition.
5
When Trump speaks of cutting Social Security and Medicare for those of us who have paid into the program with the promise of "pay now, benefit later" it is nothing short of fraud and and even theft. Of course fraud and bankruptcy is something that the President is well familiar with and people always return to what they know. Not to mention that he had the temerity to lie to our faces about his intentions regarding the programs.
Now, those wanting to take your benefits after almost a lifetime of payments will defend the fraud and taking saying that neither program is a savings account and therefore you don't have any actual money in the program and thus don't deserve any expectation of benefit from it despite the promises made while they were collecting the money. In other words they are calling you suckers - except that you didn't have any choice but to pay into the programs.
Ironic, isn't it? A Republican president who has spoken out against the government wants to take your benefits because he believes the government needs the money more than you and knows better than you how to spend it? Oh well. Have a nice death.
2
This is the Kansas Brownback Doctrine on steroids. We saw how that worked out.
2
Time to start marching and protesting. We must vote out the robber baron repubs in the mid-terms. Everyone must get out and vote to get the corrupt Congress out of Washington.
2
The one thing he has experience in--bankruptcy.
1
I just had a look at the Fox News homepage for the first time ever, and it's like a whole other world over there. There is not a single story about the budget on it. Instead it's Hillary, Olympics, thwarted child abductions, more Hillary, and Trump's DIL's trip to the hospital. Everyone who is waiting for Trump-voter outrage regarding his broken promise to not touch Medicare and Social Security is going to have a long wait. Their propaganda organ is clearly conveniently neglecting to publish that story. Sad.
3
...so the White House wants to repeat the success of the "Taj Mahal" in Atlantic City on the entire nation...
so much for the TWITUS and his business sensibility
1
Trump promised that he wouldn’t cut Social Security or Medicare in the first Republican debate, I think was a key factor in him starting to get a serious listen to early on (he had already locked up the white supremacist vote). Democrats need to start making loud noises about this and stop seeming like they care more about immigrants than citizens. Tom Perez comes across on TV as the whiniest milquetoast I’ve seen in a major political figure and was put in the job when it looked like Hillary had the presidency sewn up, replace him. DEMS, wake up and get your act together NOW!
2
There must be no further military spending at all until the Pentagon can account for all of the monies it has been given to spend. There must first be a comprehensive and complete audit. How does the Pentagon get away with never having an audit? More importantly, why does Congress and the Executive allow for the waste in the first place? The monies to fund the $600 million cut to the EPA is in there somewhere. Our best defense is a healthy environment, sound infrastructure and education improvements where the most people actually live, job training for the new economy, and adequate healthcare for every American.
96
They don't get audited because the money isn't going directly to them. The money goes to Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and other defense contractors. THESE people then pay off congress and they write legislation for congress. And it's all legal. Citizen United made it so.
3
It's not waste! It's all payoffs to good Republican families who own defense plants!
2
Searching for logic won't work with Trump. Remember when he was going to cut out all this waste on the New Air Force One? He'd save us a fortune he said, so much in fact that he thinks we should blow it all on a parade for the banana republican. Our long national nightmare is only in the first act.
2
Yet ANOTHER example of the fact that Republicans are *not* fiscal conservatives.....except when the Democratic Party is in the White House.
When the GOP runs things, why deficits don't matter.
Tax Cuts for the Wealthy? SURE!
Give the Military what ever they want? ABSOLUTELY!
The Republican Party is full of moral cowards who can't even stick to their own agenda without exposing rank hypocrisy.
4
He will bankrupt the country as he bankrupted his many businesses. He has no varw, no shame. Anyways, he already brought on unforseen moral decay.
4
We're beginning to look a lot like North Korea. This president is "full of fear."
1
No one knows bankruptcy better than Trump.
3
Is even the most hardened gambler surprised? Here is a man who bankrupted himself four times. Since this is other peoples' money, this con is right up his alley.
One wonders what the guy who makes $35,000 a year and can barely keep up with his bills thought when he voted for trump. When will that voter realize he was conned? Never? Because he is old, white, rich and male and therefore gets a pass for everything even when the entire Nation can see itself going to the poor house?
Ryan, the ardent Ayn Rand acolyte, is beside himself with joy. The destruction of the federal government is within his grasp!
2
You got your tax break, now keep your abnormally small hands off my SS and Medicare!
2
Arm the swamp. Sad.
So Traitor Dim wants us to be Russia's spare military branch. Got it. Also: no thanks, Traitor Dim.
Funny numbers equal money for GOP welfare ( ptsd reservist and $ to wealthy for making top secret bombs).
Sad.
How could America claim to be “great”, if it leaves the poor and sick behind?
Yes, we must all do all we can to support ourselves and stay healthy, but what kind of society abandons its citizens because they are stuck in the mire of poverty or have a long-term medical condition, through an accident of fate?
The cruelty and self-interest of this rich, smug administration is truly disgusting.
3
My son is in the Navy, I want him to have the best equipment, great training and a good salary. He deserves it like all US Servicemen and women. Obama had a very negative effect on the military, Trump is reversing Obama's rotten policies.
1
I want the service people to have good things, too. But there is a trillion dollars unaccounted for that could fund all the VA hospitals in the country and build a really good mental health program for returning vets.
I am a Navy/Marine vet. Your son won't see a dime of this money. You've been conned...again.
1
All that money for the military? I never realized how big that parade in DC is going to be! I presume POTUS will be wearing a uniform, and one covered in 24ct gold at that.
1
New York Times: Is anyone on your editorial board not insane? Why do people keep asking over and over and over and over again: "What does Trump think or say about..." Who cares. He lies about EVERYTHING. ALL OF THE TIME. So, why is everyone going through the stages of madness. He lies, he cheats, he steals. November can't come soon enough--vote out all of these vipers.
2
Hello, people DO realize the man has declared bankruptcy six times? He can't even balance a checkbook let alone a budget. I mean, this clown LOST money owning a casino. The guy is a menace to society, leaving a trail of financial ruin wherever he has been, but coming out of it personally smelling like a rose- and then bragging about how smart he has been because of that. Good grief, we Americans are in for a world of hurt.
2
I wish Mulvaney could be put to work on those 'funny numbers.' Especially if it means less time servicing Wall Street and assaulting the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. And waging war on the poor and elderly (do they not know, beyond the pedophiles, nazis and wife beaters, who voted for Trump??). They're squeezing rocks to increase funding for the military, which already accounts for 55% of discretionary spending. Spending money on the EPA is a waste of time as long as Pruitt is working to undermine it. The only clear 'entitlements' here are the paychecks these kleptocrats cash for destroying government institutions and abandoning the majority of Americans who disapprove.
lets first blame obama and pelosi for putting the military in the condition that requires cuts outlined in the NYT editorial today
@jimsr
Your narrative is at odds with the facts. Mandatory Sequestration and removing troops from the NEVER ENDING War in Afghanistan are why the military spending dropped.
2
The Trump budget in a single sentence: Less money for things that preserve life, more money for things that kill.
3
From your lips to the Democratic Party's ears--and messaging. That the Dems cannot come up with a direct, rousing, clarifying response to all of this Republican thuggery, theft, corruption, and chicanery is depressing and demoralizing. We the people need to school them! Now.
2
Whose bright idea was it to hand over America's money to Donald Trump?
3
Trump went bankrupt several times. Now it's our turn, except his rich daddy won't be bailing us out.
2
An "Entitlement," is hereditary. Social funding" for social security and medicare, is a legal right, produced by our government by and for the people. The NYT should learn to use the dictionary and identify these laws properly as due process legislated rights. "Rights," is the correct usage. NYT should stop being Republican partisan.
1
Another campaign lie tat he would not cut and protect Medicare and Social Security!!!! The man was an is an outright liar! All that matters to him is that he got his votes he needed from the elderly, now they can live and die in the streets so his fat cat CEO buddies can get fatter!
1
It is necessary to increase military spending as we face threats from China and Russia. Smell the coffee snowflakes.
djt's budget is his test to see just how much of silliness he can get the republican party to put up with. Essentially djt's budget is an intelligence test for the GOP (Goofy Old Party).
1
I'm guessing that this budget will work out to spending close to $1 billion per murderer and rapist that we keep out.
Call and write your congressman and senators and let them know that this is not the American way.
Voicing our displeasure here accomplishes nothing.
In the 60's we took to the streets.
1
“I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.”
Lyin Donald rides again.
Mr. Trump is using the same processes and techniques as Preisdent as he did as a "businessman".
Sell someone on a suppesedly great idea, go into debt, fail, declare bankruptcy and screw over those he was in business with.
The difference now is he will put the entire country into bankruptcy and shaft the American public.
1
"Keep your government hands off my Medicare!" -- Tea Party
To quote someone I despised "here you go again".
1
Not the least of which are the draconian cuts to clean water and clean air programs as well as science. Republicans are proving over and over at the federal and state level that they do not believe in protecting of natural resources like clean water and clean air for their children and grandchildren. Anything for a dollar.
1
Where are the Tea Partiers with their budget blackmail now?
Surely, it can't be lost on the American people that deficits went down under the last two Democratic presidents and up under the last two Republican ones.
The Republicans, once the party of fiscal restraint, have become a party that buys votes with tax cuts that disproportionately favor the rich and then, when Democrats take office, forces them to make cutbacks with threats of government shutdowns.
5
Keep in mind that this in NOT trump's budget in as much as it is the Koch network's budget. To be trump's budget, it would appear in crayon. This person does not have the capacity to sit down and design anything. He is being fed his policies by the usual suspects.
18
It's the same old Trump way of doing business. Spend, spend, spend, then go bankrupt and stick it to the investors. This time it is the United States.
20
Spending more than the next 8 nations, a group that includes Russia and China, isn't enough for the war proifteers? While ow ranking enlisted families need food stamps, weapons manufacturers get rich delivering stuff that doesn't work. Just yesterday this paper reported on the failure of Reagan's pipe dream - SDI - and on continuing problems with the F35. How much is enough? How much is too much? Does the spiral continue until the war machine consumes 100% of the budget? It certainly seems like it.
13
It won't even be a country worth saving by the military if these domestic cuts are enacted. This budget is all from the same Heritage Foundation playbook, and Trump is their paid for spokesperson!
14
THE ARITHMETIC DOESN'T WORK! How could a budget in the amount of $4.4 trillion add $7 trillion to budget deficits? And what about the great disappearing deficit of between $1.6 and $2.2 Trillion tax "reform" (make that "deform") code that gifts the 1% with obscenely high tax cuts paid for by the 99%. The infrastructure reform has the potential of generating revenues. But not in its current state, where the 50 States are ripped off by the feds as their tax monies to Washington are recycled back to them, rather than real economic support from the federal government. That reeks of Trump's rotten business practices, such as in his so-called university where he paid $25 million to silence lawsuits against him for fraud. So Trump's university "deal" is what's on offer to the US public, whereby we learn an invaluable lesson about how Trump's philosophy is OPM, or Other People's Money. Never his own. Looks and smells like a rotten deal to me! Still, the only thing needed for Evil to prevail is that people of integrity say and do nothing. Fortunately, there is a swelling chorus of protest. We the People are speaking!
12
We need to more than rant in blogs and comments sections. We need to take to the streets in non-violent protest to stop this government. (If Trump gets his way with the military budget, they will be his lackeys.) When we went to DC in the Nixon era, we were in less jeopardy as a nation than we are now. Why aren't groups organizing protests in DC?
1
Entitlement reform?!?! I’ve had money deducted from my paycheck since 1989 for both Medicare and Social Security. Keep,away from the money that is rightfully mine!
20
Questions for the editors and/or Ms Davis:
What is the 'deficit' mentioned in the article, and why is it a problem (which is the impression given by the context in which it is used)?
To whom is the United States indebted, for spending money that it has created itself?
2
Good questions. Here is some background material to consider, although I suspect you know this:
Deficit:
http://www.investinganswers.com/financial-dictionary/economics/deficit-1077
Debt:
http://www.investinganswers.com/financial-dictionary/bonds/government-bo...
Deficits and debt may not be inherently problematic. The point is that the GOP consistently uses deficits as an excuse to oppose spending on programs they oppose, but they are now pursuing policies that will increase the deficit. So this has a whiff of intellectual dishonesty, if not hypocrisy. Moreover, we can now expect them to use the high deficits they are trying to create as an excuse to de-fund so-called "entitlement" programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. That is the problem.
1
What's such a big military with bright new shiny toys going to do but start a war, or engage in "little ones" they somehow can't control the outcome of? Iraq, anyone? Instead of worrying so much about the skin color of immigrants, maybe we should worry about the basic intelligence and math skills of Republican voters. Do Republican voters really imagine that they won't need health care when they retire? Why would anyone exchange Medicare and Social Security for more missiles and walls of hatred? Why would anyone fund transportation infrastructure by cutting transportation programs? Or do they expect the U.S. to simply print money like any banana republic in the inflation death spiral? Trump is playing the ask for everything, at least get more than the other guy. Just say no to the death budget. And let him have his parade in a Walmart parking lot.
7
For people living in the safety through entitlements they earned and paid for this budget amounts to contract killings . The budget should be called MURDER INCORPORATED with Trump as the new Capone and the Lieutenants in the cabinet. Machine guns are out criminal and calculated neglect is in. Very clever since I am not entitled to pay for my own death.
10
Authoritarian regimes survive only when they control the military and media. Putin and Murdoch appear to have a willing and obedient student with Trump. I don't think Trump learned this at Wharton.
9
This is not an increase to the military, it's an increase to military contractors. Private companies owned by millionaires will be getting more; our troops on the ground will see nothing. It's just more give-to-the-rich, only this time draped in a flag.
20
Great observation. Needs to be heard by all members of the military, some of whom need food stamps to survive.
1
DOA. but Ryan and McConnell will try to get some of this.
We know that the Republican Party stands for eliminating the safety net, and is using the increasing deficit from tax cuts for the rich to justify that.
Important year for Democrats. We'll find out in 2018 whether they stand and fight or knuckle under. They need to make it very clear to the electorate just what it is they stand for.
7
First Medicare is not an entitlement. We have paid into it for years. Secondly the Tea Party is dead and buried six feet under; along with Deficit Hawks, integrity and Trump will help working class Americans. Some are starting to realize Mr. Trump is not a "Working Class Billionaire".
We truly do not need to sacrifice the old and the middle class to give more money to the military. Bin Laden’s desire to bankrupt America is alive and well in this budget. Plus spending on infrastructure without any consideration of climate change damage would be an unwise wasteful mistake. Between his tax cuts and budget maybe he is fine with creating another great depression; after all he is great with dept.
Finally Mr. Trump’s negotiations with Mexico to build his wall evidently did not go well.
6
It is not Bin Laden’s desire. It is Putin’s.. The man believes in payback. What goes around comes around. He has not forgotten the 80’s.
Trump's FY 2018 budget proposal is the moment of truth. It translates into programs the America First slogan of last presidential campaign.
The Wall and military spendings are the priority, financed by debt and cuts in social programs and safety nets. According to the Republican credo, America will be freed from freeloaders.
It remains to be seen whether voters will rectify Trump/GOP's priority in the 2020 election.
2
So called defense spending in this country has gotten to the point that it's like the country is here to serve the military, and everything else is discretionary.
Even without the Trump increases the US spends on its military more than three times what China spends, and more than ten times what Russia spends. Most countries don't have even an aircraft carrier. The US has eleven of them, plus a few in mothballs, plus ten new ones on the way. And that's just one crazy item out of many. The word "profligacy" seems apt. It's out of control.
7
With almost 7000 atomic weapons, we already have the greatest armed forces in the history of the world. Why would anyone in his right mind want to waste money on more than that. I'd rather that we have the greatest health care system, the fairest pay scale for workers, especially for poor and middle income workers, the most awesome transportation system, AND the greatest Peace Corps in the world, rather than one whose budget has recently been chopped 40% by our president.
Just as easy access to guns hasn't made us safer, tens of thousands of atomic bombs will not prevent war because some day soon they will be used, and there goes our world and all of us with it.
10
What this budget is saying is that when Democrats take office again, instead of the normal two terms it takes to correct the economic mistakes of Republican administrations, it will take three or four concurrent terms of Democrats. Bill Clinton ushered in a surplus. George Bush wiped it out. Barack Obama fixed Bush’s mess (it took two terms) and now Trump will not only wipe out any gains, he will destroy us for generations to come.
15
Before the Pentagon gets another dollar from taxpayers, they should first explain where the $880 million went that they can't explain where and what it was used for. When they can account for what they have been allotted and how it was spent, then they can ask for more money. Until then, not one more dime.
6
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Eisenhower's Military Industrial Complex is worth reading, both for what it says and for the chance to be reminded that Presidents' thoughts once took the form of actual paragraphs.
6
Of course Trump and the Republicans ignore the deficit. They'll blame the Democrats when the bill falls due, and preach undoing the social safety net. It's what they do.
5
This is close to a repeat of Reagan's 1981-ish economic policy. Except that with the benefit of hindsight, we know that a supply-side stimulus doesn't work – don't expect a tax cut for billionaires to find its way to the average wage packet.
As for increased military spending, if that money were spent on wages and training (to increase average productivity), you could see this spending boost as a Keynsian stimulus. As others on here have said already though, it's just going to line the pockets of a few big contractors. SAD!
4
Seems to me that the headline should be about the tax cut - ill-timed due to the current healthy economic state - has taken money away from military and infrastructure priorities. Not to mention that the tax cut as implemented is so inequitably aimed toward giving corporations and wealthy a lot of money while giving much less to the middle class. All for Trump's populist self-serving purposes. I consider myself a centrist - and as long as we have our global military commitments we must fund the military. The "sequester" - which was considered "unthinkable" as a poison-pill to force bipartisan agreement on budget priorities - was, in the end, overpowered by partisan politics. This is a real box we've put ourselves in.
This is how the Soviet Union went broke, they spent all their money on the military and the rest was siphoned off to their rich oligarchs and then it collapsed. Trump is following the Russian playbook and the republicans are enabling him. We know doggone well, if you take off the cap for Social Security that it’s completely funded. Right now it’s all tax free after $128,000. Let’s not forget our politicians have been stealing money out of Social Security for decades for their pet projects. Why are the American people allowing our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to be attacked inorder to give our rich oligarchs tax cuts ? Destroying our infrastructure for greed and inturn undermining our democracy.
11
Maybe this is just inverse puffery - propose something so bad that what you agree to in the end looks good (by comparison.) Republicans will claim to have compromised, what we'll get will still be terrible, and Obama will get the blame. Keeping our social security will be touted as a generous concession.
2
Reminder: The King of Debt is also the King of Bankruptcy
4
Not only is President Trump the "king of debt," he is the Oracle of Bankruptcy. Time and time again he used bankruptcy as a tool to protect himself from his failed business enterprises (and there have been many.) But now Mr. Trump is toying with the entire country's fiscal health, which no bankruptcy can hope to salvage.
3
Trumpet runs the country like it was his business. Borrow all you can, spend all of it, then declare bankruptcy.
3
Without a tax hike and controlled spending if fails already.
1
It seems to me there are two forms of modern warfare: cyber and economic. Trump and his cultists are preparing for 20th century wars with 20th century weapons, and in the process they're losing the wars we are fighting. These nostalgia-drunk stooges are also redirecting resources from international diplomacy and trade (leadership) to emphasize feudal walls and medieval cartels - buttressed by their own aristocracy of wealth and power.
1
TRUMP’S PROPOSED 2018 – 2019 BUDGET
It’s patriotic, good and fair,
The least that we could do.
So take away our Medicare
To buy a jet or two.
Some stealthy ones, guns everywhere
All red and white and blue
To shower death down from the air
Where poor folks have no clue.
And food stamps? Sure. We’ll give our share
To make a ship or two
To devastate all those who dare
Withhold applause from you.
And take the Medicaid that’s there.
(Old grandma never knew.)
And if she dies for want of care
Dementia is gone too.
So take it all, we won’t impair
The wars you need to do.
We’re positive the cupboards – bare
Will make good coffins too.
3
How about cutting Trump’s weekly golf trips to Mar a Lago, his family’s taxpayer funded excursions to build more hotels around the world, as well as Pruitt’s first class travel and accommodations? And what about getting them to pay back all the money he and his cabinet have spent on similar extravagances so far? While they’re at it they can pick up the tab for their own healthcare. That should save a bundle.
4
I wouldn't mind all those dollars going to the the Department of "Defense" if they actually "Defended" the nation instead of ruling the world making new enemies and starting wars.
1
I fear he's trying to bankrupt every program we have, so it has to be "rescued" by privatizing them. Hello, oligarchy.
4
If Obama didn't denude the military, this high military budget wouldn't have been necessary.
1
Fascinating how Trump and many Republicans keep referring to Medicare and Social Security as entitlement programs. The programs are paid for by us, through payroll taxes, from the time we begin working. It’s not entitlement, it’s our investment.
211
Are you on Medicaid? Will you be? If not, your tax is going to someone else. That's is an entitlement.
1
Youre right that it's an investment bought and paid for over the years. We have to insist on a name change. Perhaps the DEMS can start with that in this campaign year.
2
The implications of your statement are just right. REPUBLICAN BUDGETS AND SO-CALLED TAX REFORMS ARE THE ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS THAT THREATEN THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE. America was founded to escape emperors and kings who subjugated their people, a concept that is now returning under THE REPUBLICAN WAY OF LIFE.
2
As other commenters have said, please stop playing into the right wing’s hands by calling Medicare and Social Security “entitlements.” We have paid into them for all our working lives.
Re: the substance of Trump’s budget, it does anything but make America great. We already dwarf every other nation in military spending many times over. Where we are falling into third world status is education, health and infrastructure, each of which is at heart a national security issue. We can have all the tanks in the world rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue in a parade to keep Trump happy, but will still be weak if we lack the will to address our lagging status in crucial areas. His so-called infrastructure plan is a sad joke with a haphazard approach that will enrich a few developers, letting them determine needs according to wishes and profit motive.
We need the equivalent of the Marshall Plan to replace our crumbling and outdated bridges, roads, water systems and power grids. Local and state governments simply do not have the massive amounts of money necessary to bear the burden. Obama saw the need and knew that a comprehensive approach would help fix critical infrastructure and create millions of good paying jobs that would spread money throughout the economy. In its effort to undermine President Obama at every turn, the GOP squandered the opportunity to bring America up to the standards of advanced nations. And now we have a bankrupt casino developer at the helm. Great.
5
Ignore for the time being, what Trump and his crew say. Instead,,take a look at his budget. This document gives a true and accurate depiction of what,Trump values, and what he doesn’t.
Clearly, he values all things military, especially the already wealthy arms manufacturers. He values little, or, not at all, those who have little, and those who,need help. This budget has the stench of inhumanity.
Trump and his base talk about fake news. This isn’t fake news...it’s from the man’s own hand, and gives a look into,his dark soul.
25
It is "deficits don't matter" time again. When that happened last time, at least everyone got a cut from the gigantic IOU and Ponzi scheme. This time it is outright reverse robin hood by robbing the poor to pay the rich.
All those Mick Mulvaney & his tea party rhetoric flushed down the toilet.
Well, those who voted for Trump and those who thought their vote don't matter are now getting what they had wished for. Are they happy now?
21
Whether the Congress approves it or not, the $4.4 billion budget proposal by Trump, since heavily skewed in favour of the military spending while starving the essential social and development programmes, could be anything but a vision statement. Also, carrying about $ 7.1 trillon deficit baggage with it for the coming decade, in addition to the existing more than $20 trillions national debt, the Trump budget is certainly a sure recipe for the fiscal breakdown and path to economic decline.
24
Who didn’t see this coming? Someone has to pay for DJT’s HUGE tax cut to corps/wealthy - why not take $$$ away from safety net programs.
1
Draft Dodger Trump sure is interested in the military lately. Too bad he wasn't interested in the 1960s and 70s, getting his daddy to buy him deferments from the draft.
57
What's a few trillion more from Mulvaney for Trump, as long as he doesn't have to personally pay for it, and continues to derive his personal, financial benefits from it.
Nothing further should be approved, unless and until it is mandated that it be subsidized by the wealthiest who have already received the biggest financial boon of all.
The rest of us had no part in it, and will receive a temporary pittance. Down with one party rule, and one beneficiary rule!
20
And 45 still wants his Wall.
16
Reply to freeasabird.
"The Art of the Deal" strikes again.
I'll give you your Social Security and your Medicare.
You give me my Wall.
Also:
The GOP Borrow and Spend Party strikes again.
The only question is:
Will the lender be China or Russia.
Sorry but the military spending here is way too low.
This guy is weak on defense and is spitting on our troops.
EVERY SINGLE ONE of our servicemen should make more than the highest paid Congressperson.
And EVERY dollar donated to the "President's" campaign should go to the defense of our once great nation, and MATCHED by the "I'm so rich I don't need donations" "President".
What a disgrace. Defend us, don't scam us.
6
With the increases in next year's project deficit alone, every penny of student loan debt could be forgiven! Instead we're wasting it on contracts for defense with Republican cronies (might the NRA also benefit?) We'll gut the environment and education, social security and medicare, and leave it to the masses to suffer in squalor.
22
Could we expect anything else from someone who "managed" his businesses by filing for bankruptcy over and over and over?
36
But don’t forget folks, while Trump hopes to pare back entitlements across the board, Republicans will package it as giving Americans more “choice.’
27
Remember the 2012 campaign. Every day Romney and particularly Ryan would repeat the figure “Obama wants $787 in Medicare cuts” like a mantra.
Granted it was probably said to gin up their older base.
Now this budget proposes roughly the same.
1
The US currently spends as much on its military as the rest of NATO's combined expenditures. It is insane to spend as much as we do, never mind cutting aid to those in need in order to spend more - which is obscene. Trump will bankrupt the country just as he has bankrupted numerous companies. Who was it said to put a businessman in charge of the country?
28
Corporations have ruled this country thru proxies for decades. Friendly fascism it has been called.
1
U.S. president Trump may have sent Congress such proposals but it is the lawyer run and lawyer dominated U.S. Congress that must be held accountable if they go along with sending the American government into further bankruptcy. Since all branches of U.S. government are run and dominated by lawyers, which is known as the U.S. legal caste, who else should be held accountable for the financial mess? Late American newspaper publisher Edward W. Scripps wrote "If there is such a thing as true freedom and democracy then the road to that goal lies over and through the ruin and annihilation of the legal caste."
6
The GOP destroys, the Democrats rescue.
It has been thus for 100 years.
As Kurt Vonnegut would say, “so it goes.
30
Trump has run his entire life with debt and denying financial support to people to whom he owes things. This budget is a perfect reflection of who he is.
28
I wonder if begging will be considered employment to qualify for SNAP and Medicaid.
And good luck finding doctors who will accept Medicaid and Medicare if payments for those systems are cut. Medicare beneficiaries will end up paying more for increasingly worthless insurance.
19
I thought to have a Napoleon complex you had to be short. His biggest players in his administration as well as "He who must be obeyed" all defy that truism.
5
This is outrageous, he is denying the core of Americans the support and monetary funds we need to move into the future. And why? To promote his singular and frankly selfish goal of re-election and fulfilling his campaign promises. Hasn't he made his point? Will there be a time where this attention obsessed TV star switches into presidential mode? This plan is grotesquely unreasonable and not at all thought out, and I place on faith on a house and congress who also see the undeniable truth of how idiotic some of his concerns are. PLEASE bring reason back to Washington.
14
This is really a bad dream.
14
Note to Democrats: Delay. Delay. Delay.
13
Don't cry for America, you voted Trump into the office
12
No, we didn't. The thing was installed.
I for one am not at all surprised that Trump is mathematically challenged.
Take note:
www.costofwar.com
and
www.costsofwar.org
He and the GOP must lose everything in the elections in November.
Or we are doomed as a viable, reliable, and valid society.
22
It doesn't even take a genius Trump to figure that kind of deficit is not good. Just why did we elect him? I know, Hillary is/was even worse then Trump. Is our country really out of worthy leaders?
5
I would really like to know the Trump administration's policy on funding Social Security disability. The Washington Post has been reporting on how many people in Trump strongholds in rural areas rely on SSI or SSD for their income. Despite attacks on Medicaid, or food stamps, or the ACA in these areas, there is an hidden reliance on government assistance through disability that is socially acceptable. I wouldn't put it past this administration to leave those programs untouched, to make sure that "base" support is there for re-election.
10
For some time SS actuaries have said the part of Social Security most under stress is the disability part, as the number of recipients has increased spectacularly, but contributions required to fund it have not. Originally, this part of SS was sort of an afterthought and the % of our contributions that go to it is very small. I believe I have heard at least one actuary say just increasing the disability contributions would solve SS's problems.
Another area that should be addressed is SS contributions made by married people, which are the same as those made by unmarried people with identical incomes, even though the married people potentially get much greater benefits, with added benes for spouses and ex spouses (in some cases multiple ex spouses). The private sector did away with this type of inequality decades ago. In the private sector, if you want to share your pension with another person or persons, you pay for it (usually through either increased contributions while working or a reduction in the benefits ultimately paid to you and joint pensioners).
6
This is not a defense budget but an offense budget. Let us invest in peace and education.
21
Increasing Military expenditure to it's highest levels in many years suggests failure.
Cutting back on Medicare, Medicaid and other aspects of the social safety net suggests callous disregard.
As a budget for the richest country on Earth, it reflects a poverty of outcome, accomplishment and regard across the whole nation, society and for the vast majority of it's people.
18
This budget is also paid for by cuts to federal employee pay and benefits. Pay more, get less for retirement and health care. Cut agency employees, hire (more expensive) contractors instead. Weaken the unions.
Federal employment can't be a model, have to emulate the private sector and join the race to the bottom.
5
The amount of money that climate change will cost society is the peak of Everest to the sea-level that is the money saved by cutting EPA funding. How is this man allowed to be in charge?
13
"Deep cuts in Medicare and entitlements." Sounds like political suicide. The Republicans should be horrified but they'll probably go down the tubes with Trump. Good riddance to both.
24
Can't add anything more to what most have already said about the damage this proposal does. I know my dad- 30-year Marine Corps veteran- WWII, Viet Nam- is spinning in his grave over the increase in military spending. He'd say the military has more than enough, and that too much money is the cause of the accidents, etc we are seeing. Too much equipment (planes, ships), people are moved into command positions before they are ready b/c someone needs to captain the ship. Then it crashes into a commercial freighter.
He'd spin around some more and roll his eyes over the military parade. Those who didn't fight have the biggest stories.
24
You can clearly see from the deficit history graph that from ‘08-10 the deficit increased in order to save the faltering economy that Bush’s policies (or lack thereof) created, then it was responsibly gradually decreased to a historically normal level by the end of Obama’s presidency. The voluntary increase in deficit right now makes absolutely no sense in a healthy economy. It appears as if Trump wants to put the pedal to the metal with no brakes as we approach a bend in the track.
13
Mr. Wonderful also tried to kill CHIP (children's health insurance plan), as well as Medicare, and of course, Medicaid....
9
Trump is doing exactly what we expected in 2016 during the presidential campaign. He is shredding the safety net, destroying environmental safety standards and his promised 1 trillion infrastructure plan is a pack of lies.
19
Remember, amnesiac Trump voters, how your hero promised to "drain the swamp," give "insurance for everybody," create a "$1 trillion infrastructure plan," and, of course "build the wall and make Mexico pay for it"? All lies, bluster, and campaign cons. What should you expect from the man who conned millions out of unsuspecting dupes who were promised a bigly degree from Trump University?
You've been had, America.
26
Like his casinos, trump is bankrupting america
15
And yet you have two other editorials in this issue demanding a complete infrastructure overhaul of Puerto Rico and a call to save Chicago schools, whatever that means--besides expensive.
Hey. Make up your minds.
1
So once again it is military spending over the people.
How long will the downtrodden lower class of our country permit politicians to pick their pockets before something snaps.
Its wasn't pretty when the lower class swept away the monarchy in France. Do the American corporate god kings not see the guillotine's blade? Or do they just not care?
10
More than 47% don't pay any federal income tax. It's not their money being spent. Their only likely complaint is that not enough is being redistributed to them.
2
Everyone pays payroll taxes which are equal in size to federal and are regressive. It is highly selective and wrong to use it in your argument.
And since the crumbling infrastructure is now to be financed by states and cities, sales taxes should be considered as well, which are also not very progressive.
The level of increase in military spending is very alarming.
As America's dominance in terms of economic and political power is diminishing there is now a sense of lashing out at the world in response. The action of trying to use military might to remain relevant is a frightening aspect and is doomed to fail for the US, and the world.
Surely it is better to recognize this situation and find ways to use soft power to influence, rather than dominate. Failure to do this is madness.
15
Fits right in with Infrastructure paid for by state and local taxpayers! What tax cut?
10
When will the Dems stand up for us and educate the public as to the monthly premiums we pay in for our Medicare insurance once we are age 65 not to mention the Medicare tax paid for 45, 50 years prior to turning 65? The same goes for Social Security? And that many pay federal tax on the SS benefits received.
No wonder Congress calls them entitlements, they don't pay social security tax or medicare tax from their paychecks because they are exempt.
7
Lifetime payroll deductions and the monthly premiums only cover about one third of Medicare costs. The remainder comes from general funds. And while SS is paid for by those payroll texts, the trust fund special Treasuries are paid back from those same general funds.
1
The Trump plan is to sell off as much of the government as it can to private enterprise. Then all that we the people will be able to do is boycott the four or five companies that control American life. That's how the power of voting (anemic though it may seem) is going to be thrown under the bus.
13
Somewhere I recall reading an interview with Trump, who bragged about his negotiating skills. If I recall correctly, his "Art of the Deal" strategy went something like this: Go into negotiations asking for the moon. Demand far more than you really need. That way, you have room to negotiate and any concessions you make will not matter to you, because you didn't really want them in the first place, and ultimately, you'll get what you secretly wanted in the first place.
If, as the Times claims, this budget will be DOA in Congress, will it still form the basis for further negotiations?
If so, isn't the strategy here to demand 150 per cent of the store, and settle for getting only 100 per cent of it? Everyone will be so relieved that Congress didn't give in to all of his outrageous demands that we won't notice he wound up with everything on his shopping list: a bigger, more bloated military; moderate cuts to Medicare (to test the waters and see if they can cut even more next year without too many seniors screaming bloody murder); and plenty of pork for his buddies in the form of 100 billion dollars for private-public infrastructure projects.
Southern and Midwestern states with lots of military bases and a huge need for updated infrastructure will be mollified, turning out firm Republican voters for the Congressional races in 2018, and everyone else will be told to go soak their heads.
4
Not a budget. A wish list.
2
It isn't the deficits that bother me so much as the fact that the improvements to infrastructure are being done on the back of Medicare -- which the Republicans refer to as "Entitlements". We keep cutting taxes and raising the debt and now we are cutting programs that older people rely on. And lets face it -- if they are lucky, everyone becomes an older person.
In Europe, there are high speed trains and medical care for all -- including the elderly. But, of course, billionaires pay higher taxes there, in fact so does everybody.
Americans can have both, but they have to pay for it. Unfortunately, the billionaires, who gain the most from low taxes, have convinced ordinary people that they benefit from lowering taxes.
26
How many times did Trump declare bankruptcy? The guy is utterly, boringly, frighteningly predictable.
29
The first time was 25-30 years ago and there have been many subsequent bankruptcies. That's how he "managed" his businesses. Can't help but wonder if that's how he thinks he'll manage the US -- just do whatever and file for bankruptcy if it doesn't work?
Cutting the Office of Science and Technology by $273 million is going to please Russia, China and India.
24
Remarkable. Why go into the complete spin around of spend and spend, instead of tax and spend. There is such a sense of over Exuberance. Yet none of this trillion in extras does anything for anybody that actually needs a leg up. Food, housing.... Education. Just a bunch of arms in a race to and for what ?
11
Dear NYT,
Please clarify because SNAP already has a work requirement in place for able body adults.
9
Unnecessary, unearned, and undeserved taxpayer-funded one trillion to billionaires.
But children living in poverty who rely on SNAP benefits to survive?
Are there no workhouses?
This budget is as cruel and mean-spirited as it gets, and any Republican who supports it should, at a minimum, drop the pro-life moral piety. Most of the rest of us are sick of it, anyway.
37
Another gold-plated Trump failure in the making. About as sound as an Atlantic City casino.
I just wonder if the mob will turn on him when the nation defaults on its debt and we have hyperinflation.
17
The right time to stage a military parade is when we do not have the money for healthcare and education.
The real purpose, however, of the military parade dictators so love escapes even astute observers. The worshipful celebration of guns, tanks, bombs and missiles has little to do with impressing or intimidating the world outside. On the contrary, these mindlessly staged spectacles are aimed squarely at the domestic population -- to remind them forcefully who the boss is and what awaits those thinking of dissenting.
18
Now we see why he had so many bankruptcies. But this time there are no Russian banks to bail him out.
16
The GOP’s eternal dilemma is, "How can We get society to take a hard look at Them while We do the trespassing?" The modern manifestation of that dilemma is, "How can We justify cutting Their Medicaid, food stamps, and other safety-net programs?"
As for the morality of this plan — i.e., "How can We get away with taking money from Those most in need?" — the GOP’s answer is predictable: "How They live wastes Our tax dollars!"
What the GOP is implying should be eminently evident to everyone on Earth:
"We contemptuously reject the fact that They are individual persons and families, each living according to Their own unique set of beliefs, values, objectives, priorities, aspirations, limitations, guesses, and compromises. The only difference between Them and Us is that We have the meanness and the opportunity. We use Our right to congress to concoct a bunch of little non-white lives about Them; then We deplore the lives that We lie that They live; then We SNAP Their lifelines and force Them to choose: Homelessness or prison? That’s how We care for Our 'entitled' poor!"
Whether the topic is religious reach, voting laws, the safety net, or any other ringing bell, the GOP’s Pavlovian call to trespass is as obvious as it is ignored.
The toll of the trespass is quickly called rotten,
But the trespass itself is as quickly forgotten.
Why?
6
That soldier who defected from North Korea was infested with worms. North Koreans suffer from malnutrition and are apparently facing another famine. But they have a thriving nuclear arms program which is reflected in their impressive military parades. This is the logical end of Trump's policies.
17
Our King of Debt was a 4-time Bankruptcy Baron. It is neither moral nor ethical for 4-time failure to rise-up from his ruinous blundering as a billionaire. That anyone could repeatedly claim bankruptcy, sticking it to his creditors each time, and continue to receive loans is criminal. Trump became a billionaire at everyone else's expense and calls himself successful. He is a debtor-billionaire: an oxymoron. His billions should go to those he cheated.
His administration is adding just short of a trillion dollars to our national debt, one-third of which is going to the military. Will he then boast that he created new jobs trying to make it look like business did it? Beefing up the military-industrial-complex is not job recovery . . . it's taping a pearl to a hairpin and calling it a crown. Adding new jobs on the taxpayer's tab after giving business a tax-cut to create jobs sounds rather like a Gordian knot.
Next, he says to offset expenses he'll domestic food programs will be butchered . . . . When does the madness stop?
How often has history seen a leader build up the military and stage a coop? It wouldn't be the first time. I never would have thought it possible here, but I never thought I'd see a president hold Congress hostage, put his cronies and family into key governmental positions, spend tax dollars lavishly on travel and golf and partying with little, if any, push-back. I feel like I’m watching a parody of Evita.
Have we all gone insane?
25
This is madness. No Democrat, other than in the face of the exigent circumstances that confronted FDR, would do this. The GOP would create intolerable burdens for future generations.
11
After working a couple of decades in the military industrial complex, I would say the military doesn't need the money. Why is there no word about streamlining processes, increasing transparency of contractors and asking contractors to justify profits. Just look at their stock prices. Keep in mind, the USAF is largest air force in the world and the US Navy has the second largest air force in the world. They have the largest budgets if you count both primary and secondary funding and yet they are said to be in bad shape. Hmmmmm how do we define mismanagement then.
21
With deficit reduction and balanced budgets out the window, what does the Republican Party stand for/ Possibly, buddying up to Russia?
14
During the Cold War, Ronald Reagan put us into debt to build up our military, with a purpose in mind: make the Soviet Union run so hard to keep up the arms race that they would exhaust their economy and crumble. It worked.
Donald Trump is putting us into debt to build up our military because he has serious -- and probably warranted -- questions about his own sexual equipment. At least that's why he likes the idea. Of course, the real reason the GOP is urging him to go along is that taxpayer money shoveled at the Pentagon comes back to Congress in pork, corporate earnings and campaign contributions.
11
Both political parties love DoD pork and waste.
The military spending continues jobs in states with jobs dependent on defense/military spending. Get it?
12
I blame democrats and I'm upset with the elected democrats in the congress. Where is "The Deficit Clock" when you need it. Republicans went on and on about the deficit under President Obama and blocked him at every opportunity. Why doesn't the Democratic Party have a spine? This notion of going high when they go low isn't working. Go lower! We need Trump's taxes and we need the deficit clock back!!!! Democrats are so weak an opposition party it's becoming nauseating! We need you Mr Biden of "a noun, a verb & 911" fame. Where is the leadership of the Democratic Party. Mrs Pelosi, please retire for a younger person with more fire. Mr Schumer, you are too close to Trump and too soft on him. We need the taxes of Mr Trump and democrats are quietly letting the topic slip. Here is a huge deficit addition, they are asleep on the wheels. Thank God for Rachel, Chris Hayes, Lawrence Odonell and CNN!! I'm afraid for our country's future.....or has everyone other than the media been paid off??
8
While I agree with your sentiment, unlike the Congress that gleefully blocked Obama at every opportunity, the Dems don't have enough votes to win any vote that breaks strictly along party lines -- as most do, nowadays. Hence the importance of getting out the vote in November. Two more years of GOP rule and we won't have a democracy left to defend.
9
It's pretty hard for a minority party to exercise the kind of power you envision, given the structure of Congress. The only power Democrats hold is in the Senate filibuster, but the filibuster is inoperative when you pass a bill by reconciliation, as the GOP did their tax bill.
Democrats will block this bill. I'm not worried about their spine; they got a lot done during Obama's first two years in spite of the GOP's wall of obstruction. However, if you want to see real change in Congress, please vote in November. The GOP controls the Senate because too many voters sat out 2016.
7
Anyone, especially a Times reporter, who can write "Republicans ... their longtime embrace of balanced budgets", has been living in la-la-la-neverland. How can this be? Youth, perhaps, too young to remember Reagan, Bush, and Bush Jr.? but old enough to be a Times reporter?
11
This guy has got to be kidding. Add to the already dangerous, outsized, unpayable American Federal Deficit?
7
Gee, and the Black President had our deficits and debts headed downwards towards something like balance by 2027.
Golly, I wonder what changed? Surely it can't be that Donald Trump is trying to run the country like Trump University, and plans to take it on the lam ere the bills come due.
24
This man has never been concerned about debt. He thinks that this country is one of his Atlantic City casinos. Borrow, borrow, borrow, saddle it with debt, hope for the best and "what me worry?" if it doesn't work out the investors, us, the taxpaying citizens, are left holding the bag. Shame on him and his enablers.
23
Goodbye America. This budget and this man represent the end of the road for you. A sort of irrational mass suicide. Completely nuts.
18
Small correction. It's murder, not suicide.
14
And we pay for the tax breaks with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. When an older Trump voter has to forego health care because of cuts to these programs, you’d think they would re-rethink their choices in upcoming elections. What’s really sad is they won’t even know how this happened, and if they know, they won’t connect the dots between tax cuts and safety net cuts. So when Republican voters can’t get their parents into a dementia care facility, for example, because it’s not covered adequately, they’ll blame the government but never get they voted this government. They’ll have to mortgage their house and empty savings to covers cost for their parents. Then, guess what, they have nothing for their older years. And Orrin Hatch said he’s tired of hearing about class warfare. Orrin here’s another word for you to consider, false consciousness. The Republicans are despicable to cuts these benefits.
24
The more we watch the evolution of the Trump/Republican plan the more I perceive a parallel to those countries like North Korea, Russia and others who put the interests of their military and powerful elites above the welfare of their citizens.
And I am tired of the phrase entitlements - social security is not an entitlement, we pay for it and Congress spends the money rather than invests. Medicare is a different story but we also pay some for that and the increasing costs are a result of our broken healthcare system and aging population.
15
I guess his military spending is intended to make up for the size of his hands.
15
Thank the founders the power of the purse lies with Congress and not the President. As already stated here and elsewhere, this particular budget proposal has already been declared dead on arrival. Not that Republicans can't still do considerable damage to Americans who are not wealthy but this proposal is just another Trump fantasy for now. And there's an election coming up that could change everything. I'm choosing guarded optimism today.
8
Republicans have mortgaged their future, and the future of our country, with their attacks on law and order and the trillions they’ve added to our deficit. They are making a mockery of everything they claimed to stand for. Trump does soil everyone that gets near him and this is just one more example. Rand Paul was amusing speaking out against this new spending after voting for the $1.5 trillion tax break for the rich. Guess who is paying for that? I’ll give you a hint- the same people who are going to pay for Trump’s wall.
13
The president plans to cut taxes for the rich by capping the Medicaid of the people. There are people in this country who rely on Medicaid to keep them alive, how can he do this to his own people?
9
And GOP wags are chortling over its nickname: The Let Them Eat Cake Budget.
8
Anyone else see the parallel here?
The US managed to break the Soviet Union by making it spend more than what it could afford.
Now here is Putin's Puppett trying to do the same thing to us. -with the backing of the Russian Red Republican party and its leadership.
That is called treason, sir.
22
"Congress controls the federal purse strings and may disregard the wishes of whomever is sitting in the Oval Office."
OK, I'm a grammar freak, but that should be "whoever is sitting". If America's finest newspaper can't get it right, how do we expect regular people to do so.
5
You are in Italy and probably read and write better English than people in the US these days. While they keep yelling at immigrants to speak better English, many Anglo Americans cannot read or write in their own mother tongue well.
8
We need to get back to closing military bases.
18
The last two presidents who had balanced budgets were Johnson and Clinton, both Dems. Under Bush W, Cheney was quoted as saying "Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter." Well, they do matter when they start to reach record highs greater than in WWII when we needed them to defeat the Nazis and Japan.
Oh, it will be alright until we hit a Black Swan like we say under Jimmy Carter when Treasury Notes were paying 14.5% in 1981. That would cripple the US.
But wait, Trump has a plan! He said he'd run government like a business. Of course, he'll default on the national debt and Make America Ghastly Again.
9
Once again, I am expected to reach deeper into my pockets to finance the Free Stuff for the Wealthy Program. The US wealthy seem to surpass even the Russians in their greed for more and more and more. They seem to feel entitled for me to help buy their teenager a lamborghini just because they are Awesome and I am not. As a reward for my generosity they will cut into my Medicare. Thanks again Republicans...........
26
Do the Republicans realize that the U.S. Military also, though perhaps inadvertently, protects the poor? Or will the poor be somehow made even more vulnerable to the attack of a hostile nation than we cherished few? Can we winnow out the poor from protection with even more urine tests?
7
This isn't a budget. It's a heist.
33
You said it all succinctly and clearly. Well done!
5
Mr. Trump, remember, fancies himself a dealmaker. In that world, everything is done with “other people’s money,” and the main way out of a bad deal is leaving those “other people” holding the bag (bankrupting a shell company works too). The whole point — the art of it, so to speak — is whether I win or lose, you lose.
This is the fallacy of businessman-turned-president. (Especially a sleazy businessman-turned-president.)
13
Cut food stamps and put housing authorities in charge of mandatory work requirements. So...forced labor and bread lines.
13
The American experiment has gone off the rails in a matter of just over a year. The past twelve months has been quite an education to the rest of world as we see the payback Republicans have provided to their donor class, the Electoral College putting an illiterate buffoon in the Oval Office, the propanganda, lies, and attacks against institutions of democracy by the current occupant in the White House, his syncophants, and the GOP, which a significant portion of ignorant citizens have bought hook, line, and sinker, unmitigated racism and xenophobia, increased polarization that is ripping the country apart...I could go on and on.
Yes it's been quite illuminating and made me, a Canadian citizen, realize how grateful and proud I am to live in a country with good social programs, universal health care, strong public education, no "gun culture," in truth, everything that the U.S. doesn't have and which the party in power is determined to take away.
Goodbye democracy and hello plutocracy. It was nice while it lasted.
14
People have been saying this for awhile...but Americans have stopped listening. Commentators in the NYT are thousand times better than commentators in other newspaper in the US. They use abusive language, verbal attacks and do not discuss...but shout, vilify, intimidate and humiliate. They are just like the American Congress. US is now a scary place. I am thinking of moving too...unless some decent job comes my way. Imagine, I am a PhD woman in Texas. Texas is waking up too. It has to...
6
Trump is well known for his reckless spending. Increasing the deficit means nothing to him.
8
Ah, hypocrisy in its truest form.
8
We spend more on defense then the combined defense spending of the next 10 industrial countries. So take France, China, Germany....... add together all that they spend and we spend more. For what? Well we can spend trillions in Afghanistan for a 14 year war to fund a kleptocracy? I sure don't see that a good use of my tax dollars. Or we can spend billions on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter which is $163 billion over budget, seven years behind schedule, and will cost taxpayers about twice as much as sending a man to the moon.This plane can't even take off because the software is so buggy the unit can't "boot" So yeah, I'm not too thrilled about throwing more of my tax dollars down the Military Industrial Complex Rat hole.
12
I’m not a big booster of this program, but by way of correction: the F-35 testing has accumulated 50,000 hours of flying, including numerous take-offs. And the F-35B Marine version is operational at this time.
2
You are corrrect, when the plane is working it can fly, sort of. Here is the info I was talking about.
"
"These ongoing challenges were on full display at Edwards last week during a development test flight of an Air Force F-35A, when the jet's team was on the ground troubleshooting for nearly two hours before the aircraft finally launched.
The problem, which revolves around a glitch in the next increment of F-35 software, is a recurring one that causes the plane's systems to shut down and have to be rebooted – sometimes even mid-flight.
Officials say development test pilots here have trouble booting up their jets about once out of every three flight"
Dear Trump voters,
You folks getting tired of winning yet?
15
When our tough talking Generalismo in Chief was of draft age during Vietnam, he wanted no part of the military with his 5 , count'em 5, deferments. Now he's a born again patriot , or a fraud.
22
It's definitely the latter. Definitely!
Those heel spurs never seem to bother his golf.
6
Trump, Ryan and others want to burn the country to the ground, and they just might get away...in certain respects.
One of the cool things about our system of government is that states have lots of independent rights...they even have their own armies afforded to them under the Constitution.
My point? States and cities will rise up (and simply thumb their collectives noses) against the Feds. Washington State and the City of Seattle are already doing it. We are protecting DACA individuals, enforcing stringent environmental laws, ensuring civil rights are protected, enacting the most innovative climate-change programs in the world (taxing Carbon/CO2), signing on to the Paris Accords, banning everything the current Feds allow. California and other states are following suit.
The losers are those who can't afford to live in the right blue states with lots of tax revenue. Oklahoma comes to mind. That's most of America. Indeed, there are ways around the Feds, but nothing is being done to help the lower classes and disenfranchised. That, my friends, is America, losing its soul.
16
Voice of the new Confederacy.
You might be on to something. I heard a radio program where the people want State troopers to start preventing refugees from other States from coming in droves. Seventy percent of homeless population in California is from outside the State.
2
On what credible, verifiable data are these slashes to the safety net based?
Where is the data that shows the safety net is harmful and thus needs to be cut?
By what numbers is Trump going against his campaign promise that he would not touch the safety net?
And with retiree income tethered to the rise and fall of the stock market, coupled with deep cuts to Medicaid, the nations’s largest payer of nursing home care, are how elderly people to afford nursing home care?
The overwhelming, vast majority of people on the safety net are elderly, children in poverty, and disabled. How are they to manage these cuts? By working? Cutting back - on what?
Did Republicans bother themselves with any of these questions? Did they bother to collect data?
And why is it okay to hand the obscenely billions of taxpayer-funded dollars to park in offshore accounts, but the scourge of our times for each of us to pay pennies on the dollar to feel the children and babies Republicans insist be born, even in cases of rape and incest?
It’s like Republicans believe bad things only happen to bad people. There is some underlying current of prosperity gospel here that is as sick and psychotic as it is cruel and just plan creepy.
We are being led by sociopaths. No doubt about it.
14
I am an ardent supporter of President Trump; I support his budget proposals. People tend to forget that Donald J. Trump is not a career politician, he is a businessman, he knows budgets, he knows numbers, he knows the art of the deal, how else did he become the scion of New York. Once the Trump tax reform kicks in, the economy will cook, in fact, it will overheat. America will not be able to keep up with the economy, heads will be spinning, as the bank accounts roll. Even liberal Democrats, who love money just as much as the next guy, will be applauding, but in secret, because they can't show the world they appreciate Trump. I support the president. I support Trump. Thank you.
1
When that Trump moonshine high wears off, I'll feel sorry for you. Trump doesn't care about you, or anyone else.
11
Southern Boy, the dictionary definition of "scion" is "a descendant of a wealthy, aristocratic, or influential family". You become a scion by being born into riches. That's how Trump became one.
11
Oddly, you did not discuss or even so much as identify one of his budget proposals.
One wonders what that might be. By the way, did you note the Medicaid chops? To, you know, the programs that keep your granny in the decent nursing home?
12
Since the private sector is being asked to fund the infrastructure program, why not ask them to fund the military? After all, the military is basically for the defense of their foreign interests.
13
The increases to the military budgets are to pay for large weapons platforms that have been out of date for a decade or more including manned aircraft and the entire surface fleet which has been obsolete since Argentine Exocet missiles sank the British warships Sheffield and Coventry in 1982. Modern missile swarming technology would sink any of our surface fleets within minutes although the Navy continues to falsely claim that it can protect its ships.
7
Just when I thought I could sleep at night again.....
We finally have our answer as to why the Republicans refuse to throw out their bill-signing puppet:
1. They are eliminating America’s safety net with cuts to health care, food stamps and housing resulting in putting millions of lives at risk.
2. They are exhausting our nation's wealth on military industrial contractors, war machines in the middle East, and tax cuts for the wealthy.
7
Both political parties decry short-term deficits and long-term debt as being unhealthy for your country’s future as long as they are not in power. Once a party is in power, however, no deficit is too large nor any debt too big to satisfy the political agenda of that party. Future financial problems will have to be solved by future politicians and not by those who created or exacerbated those problems. “Sad,” as your current president might tweet.
1
;Not really. Deficits go down under Democratic presidents, then rise again under Republicans.
Do you have a similar dynamic in Canada?
1
This about time that Congress consider , Trump administration 's Budget request in the upcoming round for additional funds for the build up of Defense, Infrastructure and reduction in Entitlement programs and other changes , under the Regular Order . The Committee reviews and public Hearings in bipartisan committee for deliberations , debate in both Chambers and compromise with a strategy in a time - frame . Recently Congress led by leaders of both political parties pushed in a rush for the two year budget deal. The GOP 's bipartisan compromise ( a dirty Word ? ) led by Sen. McConnell , Speaker Ryan and GOP majority in Congress would have opportunity to explain for Americans their case if any. Why increases the budget deficit by over $1.5 Trillion ? An overwhelming majority of Americans are horribly in shock and appalled by the upcoming economic challenges:Including the budget deficit and out of control huge debt.If U. S. National Debt of $20 Trillion is of serious concern for the future ? The Congress has not been following either the Regular order for the Budget and the Authorization of the War on Terrorism for more than two decades . What do you think ?
America first? Who is America? All the people or just the wealthy and arm industry? There is a tiny country called Costa Rica who teach us how the tax payers money can wisely be invested! They do not have an army and never had gone to war since they eliminated it. Expending in military in the USA is ok but withing rasonable limits; billions and billions of us$ are wasted in weapons that will never be used. Wander why China is the second economic power and advancing to be the number one? Take a looks to its military expenses vrs huge investments in other countries!
12
The NYT should, in all fairness take some effective responsibility for such a budget: it is the unofficial--or official--media organ for the Pentagon global war on terror, and reliably, for the past 15 years. Moreover, domestic security spending is unprecedented as the War was turned inward, all, again, accompanied by tacit editorial credentialing by the Times, and absent any substantive investigative reporting, including on details of the Patriot Act for example, and related costs. And obviously, Trump didn't write the current budget; the unelected special-interest staff did, some also claiming unabashed loyalties outside the US.
6
The military could save money on the parade Trump wants by inviting countries who Trump likes to send honor guards to kind of plump up the spectacle Russians, Turks, Poles, Saudis, Filipinos, Chinese would all be spiffy looking in any parade. And those Hungarian officers hats are the best!
13
More pork for the billionaires. The guys at Halliburton must be pretty happy.
21
I do not mind giving up the Medicare benefits I paid for for my entire working career, and having the teaching stipend me daughter gets to help her pay for graduate school, as long as the money goes to defense contractors like those who raped our Treasury and sent me to Vietnam to die for their greed.
Not.
35
The irony here is that President Obama, a center left/liberal figure, kept capitalism in this country alive with the actions his administration took subsequent to the 2007/2008 financial meltdown. I.e., there are those among the left who believed - and believe to this day - that the senior management of AIG, BoA, Wells Fargo, etc. etc. should have had their heads impaled on sticks in lower Manhattan; yet the so - called socialist and his economic team took steps which sustained market confidence and led to 32 - plus quarters of growth. President Trump as a member of the grifter/plutocrat class is proposing a budget that could set the stage for the sort of economic upheaval that we tend to see only in revolutions in the third world.
17
Seven trillion dollars is likely to be added to the national debt over the next ten years by a serial bankrupt. It is all monopoly money to Trump but for many Americans, including the majority of his prized base, it will have diabolical long-term consequences, especially if the proposed cuts to health and other basic services are approved. What is he and his enablers aiming to create – a nation of serfs or gun-fodder for future military ventures?
19
Like the 2017 administration budget request, this year's proposal again seeks to eliminate the community development block grant program.
This is lunacy -- that program is tremendously effective at stabilizing infrastructure, homes, and communities throughout the US. See NYT coverage in May 2017 "Meet the People Facing Trump’s Budget Cuts" for more.
The program was originally proposed by Nixon and rejected at the time by a Democratic Congress; in slightly modified form it was enacted under President Ford and has delivered tremendous value at low cost since then. The only reason to slash it would be if you have no idea what it does, or hate infrastructure spending.
9
Military spending is stick with no carrot approach. Carrot is the nutrition without it sticks will break easily.
We currently have a government that cares only about assuring the military contractors and defense companies have record profits. After all they and their CEO's are so poor! (Oh, and the wall, let's not forget about the money for the wall.)
Donald Hood - take from the poor and give more and more to the rich!
Please vote in November!
19
Hey NYT gatekeepers - let the outrage through and the chips fall as they may.
8
Why does the NY Times continue to use the words "entitlement programs" for Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. Please stop! They in no way describe the relationship of the tax apportionment to these social programs. Would you call military spending entitlements?
34
Agreed. I think we should start calling them earned benefits.
3
There's a term for this already: Military Keynesianism.
It's certainly justifiable in the even to of a depression, but we do not appear to be in a depression.
Or, maybe, we actually are. At the very least this could trigger an arms race with Russia or China.
4
It's time to party like it's 1981 and 2001. This is deja vu all over again. Cut taxes, increase defense spending, and what, the budget deficit as a share of GDP is through the roof. How did that happen? Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and now, Donald Trump. The party of business once again proves it can't manage the economy.
21
Maybe the bipartisan spending bill passed has shown some compassion despite Little Dictator sitting at an empty desk with no papers or pens or concepts or ideas. No one is going to force states to do infrastructure. That is unrealistic.
3
America is its people, not its military. We sell off our unused military equipment and then buy some more. Put Americans first, not tanks and artillery
26
The only positive aspect to this budget by Emperor Trump is that cutting Medicare will enrage the middle and even upper-middle class and ensure the start of a fast coming Second American people's patriotic but peaceful "Political/economic and socialist Revolution Against Empire" --- with the only possible rash act being the public drowning of an orange whale at Mar-a-Lago.
25
I thought it would take a few months before the hypocrisy of the GOP tax plan would be exposed. I am surprised it was only a few weeks
23
Reality check as the dollar devalues price of everything goes up doesnt mean worth more . At what point do we put americans back work who are on disabilty . Government should be more concern not with spend but how it spends money on imports kills jobs in usa that pay income taxs
When 45 talks about the budget or infrastructure he really thinks he sounds like President Obama or perhaps Roosevelt. When in reality his execution of a simple sentences or verbal thoughts are embarrassing for a person who says he is super intelligent.
If he didn’t have his finger on the nuclear button we could all have a laugh.
9
Too too funny!
What exactly did America get when obama blew thru $10 trillion?
At least with trump we actually get something
2
What did Americans get? First off, he and his cabinet saved the American economy and its car companies with tens of thousands of jobs. We also got intelligence, decency, medical care, civility, peace, a family man, a person that cared about our cobstitution, and person both our world and forgotten Americans looked up to for leadership.
There is more of course, the bar was high, making this president more deficient with each passing day.
10
Yes, We know exactly what we will get with Trump, a wall, toll highways, and my parents who have worked their entire lives will be denied proper medical treatment because they are on Medicare. So funny its ridiculously stupid.
9
Most of that was for Bush's wars.
3
We pay for billionaires to wallow in even more obscene luxury, and for useless military contractors to fatten even further, and pay for it LITERALLY with the lives of the old, the health of the sick, the education of our children, and the future of the nation.
As Biden says - show me your budget and I KNOW your morals.
Republicans have none.
28
Republicans know they'll lose the presidency come 2020 and now they want to make the midterms really competitive. Fools & their elective offices are soon parted!
10
He's pawned the presidency for ratings
12
I was definitely born into a first world country. I am now pretty sure I am going to die in a third-world backwater.
32
Look at the bright side. All this spending on the military will keep you safe. However, you're on your own if you have to use the roads, trains, bridges, tunnels, airports, breath air etc.
13
@RNS: ARE we really much safer if we spend the extra money, though? If we were not safe with the more than half-trillion dollars already allocated to defense, then we've probably reached the point where our problems cannot be solved with more money.
7
We should vote with our tax dollars. We should be able to file our returns and allocate percentages to different sectors of the gov't or specific programs. Let Americans tell Washington what we value. True, most of us don't know enough about how the gov't works to have this plan result in a workable allocation if followed literally, but at least it provides a guideline.
3
You would think it would be in the interest of national defense that the citizens of this country should have access to sufficient food, decent shelter, educational opportunity, and timely medical care. So why cut programs that foster this?
What exactly would our military be defending?
21
The military will be needed to protect Emperor Trump and his ilk from the hungry, sick masses of Americans.
10
When did the Republican Party stop being the party of small government and fiscal responsibility and turn into the party of racism, and religious fanaticism?
29
Did you get that Trump voters? Billions for an unnecessary military buildup. A trillion for the one percent. And cuts for you.
Are you sick of winning yet?
52
Sadly they won't ever get it.
16
Trumpsters wanted 45 to shake things up. They've gotten their wish and its not in a good way. Sadly, this budget proposal affects many in his base. After bending over backwards to give massive tax cuts to the rich they now propose to take from the needy. Paul Ryan is like a pig in slop to finally get to slash Medicare and Medicaid even after 45 vowed they were off limits.
23
The megalomaniac wants to command an army.
16
God Speed Mr. Mueller.
39
Trump knows he has to ask for the world and he will get one golf course. The budget will get slashed and cut and modified. Just how democracies and budgeting works. He has cut Pakistan's budget from $2 billion to less than $300 million.
1
The only entitlements I can see are the fantastic tax cuts of 2017 that the entitled ruling class gave themselves and now this boost to military spending.
Republicans cannot save. Instead, they cut revenue and then claim there's not enough income to cover expenses, as if it's all "your fault." So much for the "What you don't spend, you don't have to earn" group.
250
Deficit correction in the works. Cut social programs, eliminate and/or diminish Medicare, Medicaid and SS. What remains will be made more difficult to access. This will diminish moneys to those who need and divert to those who don’t. Then those who are deprived will have a diminished life expectancy consequences thereof will be diminishing requirements for social programs and spending. See how easy it is to divert money to War, Military and Nuclear War without spending on useless programs and tamping down the deficit. We are blessed with the most compassionate caring smartest president ever who has a unique ability to trump reality.
9
I just want to thank Mr. Trump for condemning me to a life of total silence if this budget passes. My hearing was taken by a virus at the age of 59. Because of it I could not work in retail any longer, and to be on Medicaid I had to wait a year because, you know, sometimes people get over these things. My entire savings was gone in that year and once on Medicaid I was told I could get an implant to restore hearing and return to the workforce, but that I couldn't have it till I was on Medicare, because Medicaid didn't pay for it. So here I am at 63 trying to get buy till I am 66 and on Medicare so I can have a life again.
With this budget proposal It doesn't look like frivolous things such as ever hearing again will be a part of that as I am told it will cost about 30K for one ear to hear again (and you know the price will go up as the years go on.
So thank you Mr. Trump, at least I can be proud of the fact I NEVER voted for you.
61
I'm not sure how the boosting of "both domestic and military spending by $300 billion" will benefit the millions of "vintage" tax payers like myself once our "entitlement" programs are gutted to the point where many folks won't have enough money to buy dog food to live on . . . especially when there isn't even a dog in the house.
Obviously, my example is a gross exaggeration (the dog food part). But I find it cruel, insensitive and irrational to spend BILLIONS on domestic and military items while at the same time, giving the green light to financially hurt and cripple the tax payers who have been paying INTO the same programs that are proposed to being financially annihilated. This suggestion and scenario presented by the President and Paul Ryan is simply wrong and un-American.
23
Well. It's started, hasn't it? The original efforts of Mr. Ryan to cut Medicare have started. In the past 8 months, my life was saved by excellent medical intervention for my broken hip. Without this care, I would likely be writing this in the hereafter, and no one would see it I guess. Medicare saved my life, as cohort of the victims of this sort on injury are likely to die in the first six months after the accident. Other travesties in this budget seem to lack any logical basis in reality. The cuts here have cause the Hansen's disease clinic here to close its doors. Arizona Republic today. That's Leprosy folks of biblical fame. Leper colonies anyone?
The massive defense increases do not appear urgent, as we already have the most powerful and efficient military on the planet. I am a retired Army Officer and watch this area very closely. I hope that after the congress has time to fine tune this monster and that folks like me will urge our representatives to "get real".
23
Didn’t Trump bankrupt casinos (an almost impossible task) in Atlantic City by going hog wild on spending, promising the world, and ignoring the advice of level-headed people?
This is the guy who is in charge of setting budgets?
Good luck with that.
21
The sequester which was started during the Reagan era was suppose to work for both parties to keep spending under control. Obviously it was only meant for the Democrats to follow as Trump and friends are out of control on military spending. I saw medicare will be hit next then social security. I hope Americans will have the stomach to fight to keep these safety net programs and not let the GOP bullies destroy them. Always something with the GOP but never in the right direction.
10
That's MY Medicare and Social Security he's using to pay for the billionaires' tax cut! Blue-collar workers, if you believed him, how can you now? He gave away all the money for infrastructure, so if your bridge falls down while you're crossing it, guess who's to blame.
460
Here's the latest on the infrastructure (pipe dream) plan: the Trump's administration calls for $1.5 trillion in infrastructure improvements but gov't will only chip in $200 billion. Trump's puppet-head architect for this non-plan said today that it will succeed because the states will get to "determine the priorities". Whoopie! And they will gladly and generously put up the rest of the $1.3 trillion and work together with private companies to "make it happen". (No matter that the Trump/Republican tax overhaul transfers $1.5 trillion in wealth from the middle and lower classes to the wealthy elites and corporations--shrinking tax revenues states and the federal gov't could count on to fund services.)
2
Trump has essentially started a Go Fund Me campaign for our nation's infrastructure. Unfortunately, the projects to benefit wealthy areas will be like the cute little white kid with cancer, and the crumbling old bridges and roads in areas that can least afford repairs will be like the junkie who needs a new kidney.
Huge increases in military spending means huge increases in profits for munitions manufacturers. The rich get richer. Period!
15
Okay I keep on saying this over and over again. Pitchforks anyone!!!
25
Is this a Fake Budget?
20
Negotiating 101: Ask for way more than you really want as an opening salvo.
6
Joe,
I'd like anti-gravity boots. But I don't think anyone's going to take me seriously if I ask for them.
5
He’ll be long gone when that silly ship docks! The leadership of the republican party... though that’s an oxymoron... needs to have its’ various heads examined.
14
What an absolute horrific so-called-leader. This nation will be set back at least 10 if not 30 years by the time this amateurish administration if finished, and more like 75 years with regard to race relations within our own nation.
24
Medicare cuts, oh how 45 has lied over and over.
30
He wants Medicaid to have a cap? There are people in this country who are severely ill and will not live if there is a cap on Medicaid. Wouldn't that be a Death Panel? To cap someone with a life-long illness?
Let's close a few of the near 1,000 military bases we have around the world. And the toxic dumps - that give soldiers like Beau Biden - brain cancer.
We're a crumbling empire. A crumbling empire that can't or won't take care of it's people. And if we do deign to help people we do it punitively as if people who need Medicaid are 'losers' who do not deserve help.
Disgusting beyond words.
561
And the antithesis of everything Jesus Christ advocated. You're simply not a true follower of Christ if you support a party with policies that reward the wealthy while punishing the poor.
6
Sophia, not to be a grammar cop, but "it's" is a contraction (it is), not a possessive pronoun, ("its people"). Your careless writing undercuts your otherwise persuasive argument.
1
Exactly. What are they going to tell old people with cancer, or parents whose children have chronic illnesses, guess what you passed your cap, so dig a hole and get in?
What on earth is wrong with these people. They are wired wrong. We have a bunch of sociopaths running the government.
3
I wonder how many congress-people will actually read it before they vote on it?
15
And there’ll be a beautiful, audacious, private country club in every subdivision!
10
There is nothing "lower priority" about climate change. At some point, it will be our ONLY priority. The ignorance and destructiveness of this administration is beyond belief.
21
Yeah reminds me of the other article I just finished about the "Codfather" and fishermen who ignore that overfishing eventually kills their own livelihood.
3
Yet another page Trump is tearing from the dictator's playbook: Take care of the military first, while everybody else waits in line.
22
People need to understand the money doesn't go to the soldiers who are at risk as much as it goes to the board members and stock holders who profit of the military industrial complex. We don't need the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II - $1.5 Trillion for a mess of trouble or the $3 Billion per Ship spent on the Zumwalt Class Destroyer . These projects with their huge cost overruns are what drives the defense budget into the stratosphere.
44
Military spending is the price ordinary Americans pay to maintain an empire of of bases around the world and the endless war on terror. Monies should be going to affordable housing, healthcare, education and protecting the environment. The priorities of the elites are diametrically opposite of people's needs. The military-industrial complex is in fact undermining real national security. The rulers are dedicated to enhancing their power and privilege. We need a radical reorganization of the economy and US foreign policy - read imperialism. More nuclear weapons? How insane is that? The US is in direct violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Does anyone talk about that? Also in violation are India, Israel and Pakistan. Alternatieradio.org provides some insight into these issues and possible solutions.
26
Trump says if we don't have a military to fight off enemies, we won't have a country left to defend.
I say if we don't take care of the most vulnerable among us, and live out our American value of the common good, we are not a country worth defending.
63
Trump loves his Generals and has been listening to them as far as the
Defense Dept budget goes.
What happened to Trump's campaign remarks that we have too many bases all over the world and that they should be cut back?
18
T has a wish yet to be fulfilled. He wants to play war with "his soldiers and War
Machines". He's given us hints about it since the campaign - sort of like a kid
with a wish list at Xmas. He's all psyched about new war toys which we'll see if we can finally have his thoughts " my (President) rights to declare war' report
released by the Pentagon. Sen. Tim Kane has officially requested this and, of
course, there's plenty of push back. If he doesn't want us to see it we had better make sure we do. Be assured he will spend as much as he can for the
very best toys available, In his mind they will declare him Uber King of all things.
10
Self-sufficiency in US defense and construction industries is not very high. A good percentage of the Trump spending will go to China, Japan, Mexico, etc.
2
So we'll get a big flush of impassioned and outraged comments about this travesty, and then tomorrow it will all die down. Or there will be a new imbroglio to be outraged about. That's the way it works in the good old U.S.A. these days. Are we just going to keep taking this? What are we going to do about it?
17
A narcissist always must have the "biggest", the "boldest", the "loudest". Besides, just think what it will cost to have those military parades.
8
trump is just hoping this gets him his military parade so that he can show off his bone spurs.
13
Hey, you need lots of new shiny equipment for the Emperors big parade. The military has become bloated and wars are never ending and by the way the US has not won a war since WW II. Great losing streak. I was part of the Vietnam War which Trump the patriot took a pass on and what did it prove. Check your hats and clothes and seafood - gee they come from Vietnam. They did get on revenge the instant coffee beans in your coffee come from the areas that we oversprayed with Agent Orange. On a serious note the large military is required for the new wars coming on Iran because Israel wants it and you know when they want something they did it. Then one with North Korea. I do love how the Republicans have passed themselves off as the fiscal responsible party unlike the tax and spend Democrats. I love this now as Paul Ryan and Rand Paul tell us we need to gut social programs because of the large deficits and debts also with the tax cuts the revenue is reduced so tighten your belts. I love Paul he voted for the massive tax cuts and now whines how social programs have to be cut why because of the tax cuts. Time to gut Medicare and next up Social Security which by the way was in excellent health until the Congress began stealing the money from it. I honor the military, but it is time Americans looked in the mirror it seems every day is some honor the military day and I have grown sick of one can not watch a sporting event without one of the teams wearing military uniforms. Jim Trautman
8
The United States and its allies (including Canada) won the Korean War--whatever MacArthur may have thought. The North Koreans and Chinese intended to overrun all of South Korea and annex it to the DPRK. We stopped them. Our mission was never to conquer the North. Vietnam was certainly a loss, no doubt. Subsequent minor contingencies in Grenada and Panama were clear-cut victories. And then there was Operation Desert Storm of 1991--perhaps the most obvious victory in the modern era. The removal of the Taliban and Hussein regimes were overwhelming successes as well . . . the issue that is haunting us and killing us is the post-conventional stage of long-term counter-insurgency . . . in that, like in Vietnam, we are not up to the task.
But to suggest the U.S. (or Canada as part of the western alliances) has never won a war since WWII is nonsense. I'm not sure if Canadian troops participated in the anti-Communist COIN campaign led by the Brits in Malaya in the 50s (Aussies and (I believe, Kiwis) did). But that was a success as well. Not only did the US win wars after WWII, so did the British Commonwealth.
None of this means the invasion of Iraq was a good idea. Canada was quite smart to sit that one out.
When the Dems are the party of fiscal responsibility, you know something has gone horribly wrong.
2
News flash: They have been since at least the Reagan administration. And when they do spend it's to help those who need help, not to line the golden feather beds of the ultra rich.
10
No surprise here. Fiscal irresponsibility is huge. Reversal from campaign statements is complete. There's a 71 year-old teenager wanting to chatter on and write checks! Wow!
8
This is the budget you get from someone with four major bankruptcies.
21
Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. are not nor have ever been 'entitlements', it's a word engineered by the Right that the Left (or what's left of it) blithely and ignorantly goes along with. They are instead Necessary Social Costs that a nation of our wealth and standing should gladly be leading the world in administering to our citizens and and championing to other nations. Alas, we are not. We spend to destroy other nations and perhaps eventually the world in and thru our obscene military spending. Shame on us, for we are the enemy of the good, the true and the beautiful thru our monetary values extolling militarism and hegemony. Hardly a godly nation. hardly...
23
I guess I'm going to keep hammering this home. Donald Trump is such questionable commander-in-chief material, I really believe he lavishes accolades and money on the military in order to ensure they stand behind him when this all falls apart. Keep in mind, he's the one prodding us toward the fall.
There have to be members of the military, from the enlisted ranks up to the top echelon, who have privately asked themselves how far they would go for this man. Would they be willing to turn their weapons on their fellow citizens? Would they obey crazy but politically expedient (in his mind) orders? You'd have to be crazy not to ask yourself this.
Remember all that talk about race and gender affecting unit cohesion? How does someone of Donald Trump's ilk affect military cohesion?
Get your gun. You're probably gonna need it.
214
"One of the greatest barriers against getting to know a schizophrenic is his sheer incomprehensibility; the oddity, the bizarreness, obscurity in all that we can perceive in him. There are many reasons why this is so. Even when the patient is striving to tell us, in as clear and straightforward way as he knows how, the nature of his anxieties and his experiences, structured as they are jn a radically different way from ours, the speech content is necessarily difficult to follow. Moreover, the formal elements of speech are in themselves ordered in unusual ways, and these formal peculiarities seem, at least to some extent, to be the reflection in language of the alternative ordering of his experience, with splits in it where we take coherence for granted, and the running together (confusion) of elements that we kept apart."
Excerpt from THE DIVIDED SELF by R.D. Laing
Me thinks this describes our leader completely.
4
That is why this liberal has always believed in the right to bear arms. Your comment is reasonable, particularly given Trump has installed several generals in the White House, with General Kelly showing he is willing to do and say anything to support his Master Trump. If General Kelly is so willing to abandon any notions of honor, decency, discipline, and critical thinking, it isn’t hard to believe many more white military men and women will do the same.
3
There are. I don't know who many of us there are, but we are here.
Nothing this administration does surprises me anymore. As I recall, it was Mick Mulvaney who initially proposed cutting support for Meals on Wheels.
12
The Trump budget is a radical and reactionary plan that would decimate our scientific research in environmental and climate disciplines and in health care.
It would cede American leadership in these fields and lead to a much lower standard of living and quality of life for our children. Its absurd cuts in Medicare would destroy our hospitals and healthcare industry that represents 20 percent of our economy. It would increase
human suffering and impoverish our economy.
It is already time to reverse the rushed Tax Scam and impeach these unthoughtful demagogues.
They are horrible!
11
a true banana republic = the republican dream
10
Or at least bananas.
1
not so.
The united states has never had a one-pony economy.
The Banana Republic refers to certain central american dictatorships where one cash crop- bananas- was crucial to the existence of that dictatorship.
King of Debt?..... King of Bankruptcies is more like it......
8
Could this also be an attempt for a 'yay' to that ridiculous parade?
We have a clown 'governing' our nation!
9
This is a fascist budget.
Let's see if Pelosi stands up in her heals against THIS.
7
Imagine that.
1
They shoot for the moon and then they settle somewhere in the clouds.
1
It's a request from the WH only!
2
Constantly sucking-up to the military, 100% employed since 2004. What's the motivation? Hmm. More USA spending at the War Department than military spending in the next nine or eleven nations combined. Why? And the vast public not-noticing is writing on the wall...
10
Why does the US keep increasing the amount we are spending on our military? Are there more military contracts being set up for another war? Meanwhile our elderly must decide if they should spend their money on staying warm during the winter months or buying needed medication.
11
If spending on the military is to protect the American people and to defense the homeland, then the expenditures have long passed the point of diminishing returns.
9
We older Americans paid for our Medicare and Social Security over our 50 years of real work. These are earned benefits, not "entitlements". Cutting these programs to give corporations, the wealthy and the military even more of a share of the nations resources is unconscionable. Further degradation of the environment for private profit is unconscionable. Beggaring our children's future is unconscionable. It's time for another American revolution.
33
The demographics show over age 50 white males voted for him. Maybe now they will get it.
3
Why are we spending so much money on the military when we already have the most powerful military on the planet?
If we don't invest in our people, our health, our environment, our infrastructure, etc., there will be nothing for the most powerful military in the world to protect and defend.
16
If Trump and what passes for the GOP mess with Social Security and Medicare, there will be a day of reckoning. Older Americans, who do vote, will have their revenge. There won’t need to be revisions to gerrymandered districts; this country will turn so blue that no amount of gerrymandering will save the GOP.
15
So the other shoe drops after tax "reform".
Ryan has been aching to go after Social Security and Medicare for years and here goes the GOP, setting the table for the attack.
A deal is a deal and we've all kept our part of the deal, paying in for years.
If the GOP is looking to go down in flames, go ahead, cut Medicare and threaten Social Security. We'll all remember it in the midterms.
Count on it.
17
Trump seems to be revolutionizing government, and not in a good way. And definitely not in a Republican way, with his willingness to run huge deficits. Who will stop him?
2
The President proposes to zero out the budget from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The response, by all media, should be to zero out use of the word Trump. Refer to the President, but not by name any more. Not in headlines, not in any story of any kind. Stop feeding the President's ego. Just stop it. Find other words, descriptions, adjectives, and maybe even create a symbol to stand in, but edit out the word Trump. The media seems to have learned nothing from the run-up to the 2016 election. It is time to think about that again. This is an opportunity to begin to impose some long-needed cooperative and self-discipline in the media.
5
As I understand it, public TV/radio gets only 10% or less of its funding from the government. Maybe it should be completely public funded—-then NPR can stop appeasing Republicans and do away with the ridiculous false equivalencies. Can’t tell you the many mornings I’ve switched off NPR and streamed BBC World News instead.
2
Eisenhower spent decades planning military operations before he commanded United Nations forces in North Africa, Sicily, and Europe. He had seen how much money could be spent on weapons systems etc. that proved to be wasted. He understood that the power that the U.S. used to win World War II was strategic industrial productiveness and economic prosperity more than any particular weapons system. The peaceful endeavors from universal education and economic well being of the people to the awesome production of consumer goods and basic materials like steel and agricultural products actually won the war. America could build the greatest navy and air force and arm and supply far more soldiers that served in the American forces because it was a wealthy and highly productive country. It borrowed money and ran deficits but it also created far more wealth than ever before, too. So he warned the country to beware of the overspending that the military and defense industries were inclined to cause happen. The need to manage priorities to ensure prosperity was more important to him than having every new weapons system possible.
Now we have this rich profane twit in the Presidency, eager to turn all of the nation's wealth into the hands of self absorbed people like himself and run up debt that will bankrupt the country to produce one generation of military systems before the whole country becomes too burdened with the costs of the debt to be able to repeat what it did in World War II.
6
Keynsian argue against running deficits when the economy is at full employment and growing. Fiscal conservatives likewise hate deficits. Thus, why is Trump doing this? If Trump is ok with deficits, then should he not tell Republicans and Democrats that the Continuing Resolutions are silly since deficits are ok? Should he tell both sides to avoid Government shutdowns?
Secondly, about a year ago, was he not crying about Boeing getting too much of the government money? What has changed?
7
Trump regularly bankrupted his businesses. Whenever he can he leaves someone else holding the bag. Did anyone think he would change now that he has access to the US Treasury? Unfortunately we the taxpayers, and our children, will be stuck paying the bills.
14
Donald Trump brought his company to the brink of bankruptcy which forced his lenders to bail him out. Looks like he's on that path again; which would leave tax payers and bondholders potentially holding the bag.
11
Some historical leaders have considered war an investment. Others have considered war at a distance, folly.
4
Trump is running the country into the ground, just as he did his casinos and other businesses. He is addicted to spending other people's money and continually borrowing his way out of trouble until ultimately filing for bankruptcy, only to start the self-destructive cycle all over again. This man is a destroyer claiming to be a builder, a divider of people while promising to unite them. Putin could not have picked a better foil to advance his ultimate aim, to annihilate our economic and social well-being, while making Russia great again.
14
Dear New York Times: Could we please stop referring to Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid as Entitlements? That just reinforces the Republican belief that they are gifts rather than programs into which we all have paid cold hard cash.
13
I disagree. An entitlement is the fact of having a right to something, and that's exactly the way Social Security and Healthcare should be considered. What should be tackled is the (often wilful) confusion between the definitions of 'an entitlement' and 'having a sense of entitlement'. The latter is the belief that you deserve to be given a special privilege.
If you stop referring to the fundamental staples of existence, such healthcare, shelter, education and a basic standard of living, as entitlements, they automatically become more precarious.
3
This kind of nonsense is being promoted by a man who declares bankruptcy at the drop of a hat. Maybe he thinks the US Government can pull the same type of immoral business practice that is his stock and trade as a private citizen. The hits just keep on coming!
9
Its the rest of the worlds faith in our dollar that props up our debt. Trump is destroying that and driving these supporters to China, which has its own global currency plans. All it would take is for that to materialize and kerplunk... US economy goes the way of the Dodo Bird.
8
LISTEN UP!!!
November 6, 2018. That's the date on which 33 senate seats, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, and 14 governorship's will be up for re-election. Put it on your calendar now and be prepared to be an informed voter. If you are worried, concerned, angry, disappointed about the direction the government is going this is the most effective way to make a change, stop complaining and start planning. Remember the president is only one cog in the government machine, and you can make effective change through voting for your local and state representatives, this is the check that can balance this situation. Pass it on….
15
Did people suddenly think Trump was going to become a Democrat? This is what Republican presidents do. They take money from the elderly, sick, young, poor, and minorities and give it to the wealthiest Americans and their industries. They dub social programs a Welfare state while given Wealthcare to corporate America. My only qualm is why do poor people vote for presidents like Donald Trump and the Bushes.
13
Because of god and guns...
2
Sounds like the time-tested Trump business model.....enrich Trump and his "friends"; skip on paying bills, declare bankruptcy, and leave you know who holding the bag. The last thing we needed was a corrupt and selfish businessman at the head of our government.
12
Remember Rome...
7
Trump is purposefully trying and succeeding to destroy the country. He is a Russian agent.
10
They should name that book "An American Tragedy".
4
I'm curious, will this be a chapter 7 or chapter 11?
8
If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Period.
2
Trump made all kinds of promises on projects and then declared bankruptcy leaving others holding the bag 4 times. So’s who’s surprised that he’s doing that to his latest project, the United States government. Trump is a scammer and a con man and everyone knew this when he was elected.
15
Funny how our 5 times draft-dodger president is pouring money on the military. Guilt. If he succeeds, we lose.
19
I doubt that it is guilt. I suspect that he sees military spending on hardware as a place where he can skim a lot of money off the top for himself or get some nice plump kickbacks from vendors
7
The accelerating death of the American Mind is something to behold.
Those who have made a God of moral-bankruptcy have created a whole army of intellectually-bankrupt puppets via a propaganda machine so effective, Josef Goebbels would admire it.
Logic, reason, science, wisdom, critical thinking, the lessons of history - all are in decline, or, on their way out. Soon, they may even be considered heresy.
The proof? Just read every third comment...
24
Stupid is as stupid does. We have enough weapons to obliterate most complex life on the planet many times over. Why do we need more?
What we don't have enough of are jobs, healthcare, educational opportunities, and dwindling natural resources.
Trump and the Republicans want to divest from science, education, and environmental protection to invest in making rich people and corporations richer.
30
Trump is clearly planning WW3, and the elimination of all civil rights at home. Remember the JapaneseAmericans sent to concentration camps?
11
Will the military obey him in the breach? Will the civil-rights eliminators do their jobs?
Hi, Kadi. Great comment!
2
What evidence does the author have that paring deficits is "longtime Republican orthodoxy"? None that I'm aware of.
Ever since Reagan, the GOP only invokes the deficit when a Democrat is in the White House. They don't talk about deficits when a Republican is president.
30
I spent 25 years working on DOD projects for White Sands Missle Range, Nasa White Sands, and Holloman Air Force Base, NM. Started as a carpenter, ended as a project manager. I helped build many facilities for testing and research. I worked on the Star Wars test bed, built a USN test bed for firing the Exocet missle. another test bed for an airborne laser missle defense system sold to Israel by TRW, a shooting range for the ill fated Sgt. York DIVAD system, a nuclear effects laboratory, a missle assembly building foe the Armys Pershing missle, etc. etc. etc. Many of them never actually went into use. DIVAD (a $10 million dollar const. contract in 1985 dollars) was cancelled when our project was only 50% complete. The Army had us finish the contract, and there is sat for many, many years. Had a remodel project on the Star Wars test facility. There were roads, buildings, power lines, but nothing in the buildings except dirt floors. NOTHING! A ruse for the Russians, or a ruse for the american public. The Star Wars main headquarters on post was a WWII barracks from Werner Von Braun days. Never saw anyone go in, or out. On, and on, and on. I've seen it with my own eyes. I would joke back then that we would dig huge holes in the desert, and then start backing up dump trucks full of money, and once the holes were full of money we'd cover them with dirt, and be finished. I've seen the military industrial complex.
41
"...while taking into account the current fiscal situation."
So the current fiscal situation can't support the proposed spending levels...but it's the same current fiscal situation with low levels of unemployment and near-record stock market indices (even after the recent gyrations) for which the administration has been taking all the credit!
Unless the claim is that cutting taxes for the wealthy and ratcheting up military spending (to do what exactly...start another longest-running war in national history?) is the way to prosperity.
Somebody's been watching way too much World Series of Poker and thinks it's smart strategy to go all in holding a pair of threes.
12
Shiny tanks & no social services! Plus an unsustainable accrewal of debt! What's not to like. When's the military parade anyway? I want to see some rocket launchers in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
17
During the 2016 campaign, didn't Trump say he wasn't going to touch Medicare?
33
He also said Mexico would pay for the wall
10
Yes. Trump repeated promised not to touch Medicare & Social Security. But then he is an habitual liar.
12
He made many promises and that was one. He also promised the best health care. The only promise he has kept was cutting taxes for the rich. As for the rest of us, during debate in the primary, he stated that Americans make too much money (not the rich of course) and he would do away with a min wage.
So this budget is on par for him. He always used the cheapest labor he could get, even importing polish construction workers for Trump tower.
3
No surprise in this budget. Trump has given us a tax cut, he gets his wall, increase military expenditures, and deep cuts in Medicare, Medicaid. May all of the folks who voted for Trump get what the deserve.
27
He is consistent. Living off of others while not paying his bills, with tax cuts careening towards national bankruptcy while bleeding the middle class and poor.
31
I would like to see the New York Times write and describe the future scenario of an America where the military spending is cut half and the saved money would be spend for relevant infrastructure, education, science, public health and environmental protection. How would America look after let’s say ten years? I bet it would be a truly great place to live.
40
This is the perfect plan to exacerbate inequality - make the rich richer and the poor more desperate. Between cutting taxes for cooperations and this mean budget and our campaign finance rules - we are at a very low point in our democracy, our country and our morals.
16
Let's remember that this is the business leader who always financed his building projects through borrowed money. Let us also remember that he went bankrupt six times and left others holding the debt.
26
This is the kind of military spending that ruined the Soviet Union and caused it to fall apart.
54
Most people don't realize that. They think that Reagan just told the soviets to tear down the wall and they did so on his command.
What they don't know is that Reagan increased military spending and the soviets tried to keep up. They destroyed the domestic economy in doing so. And the government collapsed
We out spend the next 9 nations in the world totally and our people have a great income inequality. So yes we are on track to do the same here.
6
I wonder how much we could get for the Statue of Liberty. And maybe one of Trump's companies could manage it for us.
9
It’s really crazy to be increasing our military budget substantially.
Trump looks very unhealthy and unhappy. There’s no telling what he’ll do if anyone has the backbone to hold him accountable for his actions.
His casual talk about using nukes is terrifying. His horrifying treatment of immigrants and the people of Puerto Rico is beyond contemptible. The list of his downright mean and nasty actions is practically infinite,
The money he wants to spend on the military could obviously be used in so many better ways.
16
Well, we finally know what he stands for: fewer social benefits to his base; US to play bigger role in the world through military involvement and not diplomacy; mortgage the future with huge deficits.
So all you Trump supporters - you put up with the insults, the lies, and the chaos - now you know his vision. DEBT!
16
And his base will be one of the people who will suffer. Many of them depend upon those programs.
It won't matter to them, Trump will blame minorities for taking the money away from them. And they will foolishly agree and vote in lockstep for him and the republicans who have supported this kind of budget for so long.
3
Trump said he would run the US like a business.
Looks like it will end up like one of his many bankrupt businesses.
18
Trump's budget is D.O.A.. If it is his vision of America's future, we need a new outlook. Trump and Mulvaney are divorced from reality.
9
Trump's desire to expand the military has nothing to do with reality-based requirements and ALL to do with his aspirations to become a dictator with THE BIGGEST MILITARY EVER!!. The Republican Congress has it's head in the sand or, sees what is happening and condones it. Or perhaps they are afraid of Trump and his "base." Trump would like to cut needed domestic programs (like healthcare!!) because they don't contribute to his GREATNESS the way he believes that an in-your-face military would. Their participation in the movement towards un-democratic values will be the Republicans' legacy. I believe they are going to pay for it, hopefully this spring. Not all Republicans are addicted to Fox News.
11
Actually, this budget is what the republicans have been demanding for so long, cut domestic spending and increase the military budget. This budget should make their hearts go pitter patter.
2
So now we know where the money for the big parade will come from.
6
Democracy, not Hypocrisy! This how we rule.
2
It won't affect me, but God Help our Children and Grandchildren who will suffer due to Trump who could care less about the future.
9
Trump is trying to do to the United States what Reagan did to the Soviet Union--force it to spend until it breaks. Trump isn't just colluding with the Russians, he's a sleeper Soviet Trojan Horse.
24
Just like the "Americans."
Okay. More guns, bombs,etc, which will create more veterans. Cut public support nets, so that the 70% of the homeless who are vets, literally will have nothing for the service we gave. Some country he's created. Just wait for all the trained vets to get fed up. Then he'll finally have woken his own sleeping giant.
7
There is NO way a 'defense' (war) increase should be allowed in any shape or form, never mind the utterly ridiculous proposal of .... $4.7 TRILLION?! The US' military spending is criminal, and goes hand-in-hand with our love of guns. Enough!
12
This budget will be dead on arrival. Trump's biggest voting block is older white voters aged 55 and up - precisely those who are now using or will start using Medicare and Social Security shortly. Many of them live in red states. Congressmen and women from those states aren't that stupid to offer support cuts to these programs. It would be like hanging themselves in November, although Trump's antics are already fitting the noose around many a "red" neck right now...
11
No, you are wrong. This is the kind of budget that the republicans have been running on for decades. They have always wanted to slash these programs. And increase military spending.
Norquist stated what republicans want when he said to shrink the government down so it could fit into a bathtub and drown. And they pledged themselves to that ideal.
2
Well dah....
Who else besides our military will protect the nation from sharks?
4
We are protected. A military can be activated...it does not have to strangle all of us. We need a decent deficit not a massive untenable one. We need Medicare and Medicaid. We need to care about our people, not just our military.
3
As Trump and his fascist followers are undermining our former democracy, they are building up the fascist government dominating Military. This can't end well.
8
Trump boasted about being the King of Debt as well as about declaring bankruptcy 6 times to the detriment of his employees, creditors and investors. Now he's trying to add to his list of accomplishments by cheating pensioners out of the medicare and social security they have already paid for in order to fund the military and provide tax breaks to him and his wealthy collaborators. It's difficult to know where he can go next: maybe bankrupt the country and provoke a nuclear was. What a disgrace!!!!
14
I assume that the industrial-grade paper shredder that is the ultimate destination of all these very impressive-looking, very thick budget books is just out of the frame? What a colossal waste of ink and paper. What utter nonsense. What a travesty and crime.
Trump is freaking crazy, and those who enable him are criminals.
13
With 19 years in the Army, I’m getting out to protest this President’s misuse of our armed services. Others are joining me. #19&out
16
Trump just wants to throw money at the corporate world. This is risk free until he starts cutting social programs to pay for this largesse. Social programs do not fund the economy, hence the GOP's aversion to them. If you want spending to aid the voters, vote Democratic.
10
Clearly it is the patriotic duty of every American to give up Medicare, Social Security, Public Education, food stamps, government funded infrastructure....
We owe it to our children's future.
These things are just too expensive now after our plutocrats have received the tax cuts they so richly deserved.
17
Donald Trump is trying to create Biff's World in Back to the Future.
I didn't realize the movie was actually a political documentary.
4
How about an expose on who actually benefits from an outsized military. Which cities, states, businessmen, and politicians reap the most $ from military contracts?
7
Both parties love to spend on Defense because it is welfare for the middle class. Contractors get rich and lots of retired military turned Gov't civilians taking in 300K a year in Gov't checks to track a meaningless metric.
1
Obama managed to steady the ship that Republicans did their best to sink under Bush. He had to fight Republicans tooth and nail to do it. Now they're at it again but this time it looks to be without an acceptable level of help for those who will suffer the most when Republican's ponzi scheme economy blows up. Trump Donors will be fine, they'll have a good chunk of the money cut from the social safety net, most Trump voters not so much.
7
Sea water infiltration, a consequence of climate change, will be much more expensive to correct that it would take to offset. That and the absolute flood of red ink in this budget proposal seem destined to make the swamp much larger than ever. There is no comfort in the environmental or fiscal policies of this administration.
3
I love the title of this book. Pure Dreiser.
1
Isn't Trump's MO to drive his businesses to bankruptcy - with other people's money? In this case the country is the business and we are the saps who pay to be led to poverty.
2
Once Trump over the cliff budget destroy the Dollar, American expatriates will be given the boot to go home because many will not be able to pay their bills.
What Trump could not do to win the currency war against China and Japan and even Europe, he will singlehandedly win by destroying the Dollar's value.
American will be working more but with less purchasing power. Soon, even the Mexicans will not want to come to America because the Dollar won't go as far.
1
This sad budget marks the return to the Reagan years when the DoD budgets were increased ridiculous amounts, and we got Iran Contra. We certainly should fund our military adequately, especially their pay, training and equipment. But the big winners will once again be the mega uber near monopoly defense firms. Being at war for 15+ years in the middle east (thanks to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and yes, Congress) and still losing like the British and Russians did before us, has cost too many unnecessary lives and lost treasure. Paul Wolfowitz was totally wrong when he said the Iraq oil revenues would fund this horrible conflict. Meanwhile needed investment in education, true heath care improvements, and decaying infrastructure takes a far back seat on the bus. Shame on the White House and all who support this budget, and the pipe dream that a public/private partnership will save the day. There will never be a high enough return-on-investment for any bankers to do this, unless maybe Congress waives all the investment criteria to allow banks and hedge funds to create more dark market derivative products and borrow trillions to buy them. That would make 2007-8 look like a kid's tea party.
2
Given the fact that about 70% of the federal budget is payments to individuals, any responsible budget must tackle runaway budget-busting entitlement spending
1
Your figures are off. Plus we pay into those entitlement programs as we work. It is the military budget that is overblown and costly to us. And real responsible budget would be cutting the bloated military.
3
Don't be silly.
The rich control far more of the nation's resources than recipients of entitlements.
2
Medicaid and Medicare are routinely audited by outside independent accountants and management consultants. However, the Pentagon has successfully thwarted many efforts by Congress to have a sweeping audit performed on the DOD. The last time it was done-- Eisenhower was President. The Pentagon points to several factors to support their position. But Sen Rand Paul put it best recently when he said that when you boil it all down the Pentagon is saying that an "audit would be too difficult because the military IS TOO BIG."
4
The military spendings are roughly 1000 times higher (yes one thousand times) than the spendings for environmental science and technology.
“The White House estimates that this (the EPA cuts of 1/3) saves the tax payer 600 million.”
Awesome!
But costs the tax payer probably 100 billion every year due to climate change related disasters like hurricanes and never ending draughts/wild fires.
Not really costly are of course the forgotten people’s health like the people of Flint. Who now can be sure to have further no control that the water they drink is not poisoned.
But what is a little lead and whatever hoax inside compared to the “thousands and thousands of jobs” in (no longer relevant) industries (owned by Trump golf buddies)?
4
That was a point that I was thinking of, save 600 million at the expense of billions that we would have to pay for the damage. The cost of disasters is actually at least 200 billion though.
But Trump is true to his belief that climate change is a chinese hoax, even though the US scientists were among the first to document it.
1
Trump and the Republicans are going out of their way to impoverish and demoralize the American populace. Think of it: we have a Congress of elected officials who are doing everything they can to make sure that we citizens have no health insurance, no social security, no public education, no pension system, no services, no support for the poor, no consumer protections and no voting rights. Their plan is to keep harassing us and grinding us down, leaving us in constant state of insecurity, instability and worry. Under the Republicans, the U.S. grows weaker by the day. Why have we allowed these people to hold office if their main purpose is to harm us?
8
It is clear that those currently in power do not care for the average American, and certainly don't care for the disadvantaged American. As the cost of creating a singularly muscular state increases, we have forgotten that we do not have a level playing field for everyone and when some lag behind it is usually our fault. Cut the military budget and spend money on creating education for all, healthcare for all, or invest in R&D for the future.
5
Trump budget priorities are what destroyed the Roman Empire, which went out with a whimper instead of a bang. "Mr. I Have a Big Red Button on my Desk" is hoping for just the opposite.
3
To paraphrase the late Senator Everett Dirksen: a trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there, pretty soon it starts to add up to real money.
5
This level of deficit spending, combined with recent tax cuts (largely for the rich) could very well bankrupt the Government, if not put it in a hole that will take generations to repair. Trump does not care about this at all, but it is disappointing that people like Paul Ryan, who knows better, fail to speak up and organize some effort to tap down on budget expenditures. especially the military. Eventually, the Hill has to wake up and put some brakes on this spending/tax cut insanity. Who will lead?
2
This is what Ryan wants though. He wants the huge tax increase so he can do away with domestic spending. He wants the large increases in the military budget. This budget reflects Ryan's 'values'.
1
The party will end when the market decide American credit is no good and the dollar worthless, at which point we will all be trying to figure out how to grill cats and grow our own food, or when the American people get the states to call an article V convention and impose a balanced budget amendment on congress. They are NOT going to limit themselves.
2
In other words cut the very things that will keep the land we live on, the water we drink, and the air we breathe at a quality we can thrive on. And make sure to cut any program that might assist people in finding new jobs, getting an education, or working in and on keeping our country and planet habitable.
As I watch what Trump and the GOP and their rich masters are preparing to do to this country and have done I find myself wishing that I had the guts to commit suicide rather than waiting for a natural death. All the GOP and its masters seem to be interested in is amassing money, running up the deficit to avoid spending on programs that help working Americans and those out of work, those who are handicapped, and those who have retired without a fortune to their names.
We live in a pay to play country now. Honor, integrity, the willingness to work hard to get somewhere mean nothing. It's a matter whose palms you grease on the way to the store.
18
No one on the liberal side complained when Obama ran up more debt than al the other presidents in history.....
5
Would you agree that this goes against basic conservative principles?
1
Why would anyone complain about an administration that brought deficits DOWN from 9.8% of GDP when Obama took office - amidst the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression - to 3.5% of GDP in his last fiscal year? Does that make any sense? For the record, that's the fastest deficit reduction achieved by any administration, including Clinton's, since the demobilization following WW2.
A couple of weeks before Obama took office the CBO projected that the deficit for that fiscal year would be about $1.2 trillion based on a continuation of Bush policies (because Obama wasn't president yet. Bear in mind that this CBO projection was released before it was known that the economy had essentially fallen off a cliff in late 2008. You seem to be blaming the person who inherited a fiscal mess, not the one who cleaned it up. And, by the way, Obama's did not run up "more debt than all other presidents in history." Reagan, however, ran up almost twice as much debt as all preceding administrations.
5
Obama ran up the debt to finance the stimulus that saved the banks and the automotive industry. That money has been paid back by the way.
3
Everything out of the Trump administration looks like a grotesque parody of what an "evil Republican" government would like in a liberal comedy show. They are so crass and so obvious in their sordidness, and so shameless in their hypocrisy, that it defies belief.
Sometimes it really feels like we're living inside a giant sitcom and we're just waiting for the punchline and the background laughter... or so we hope.
21
Trump is a hard core Democrat... and his words, deeds, including actions, proves that he has been, is, and will always do what's best for the Democratic Party!
LOL!
Since when are democrats demanding tax cuts for the rich? Hint they don't, but republicans do.
Since when do democrats want to do away with health care? Hint they don't, but republicans do.
Since when do democrats hate immigrants? Hint, they don't, but republicans do.
And Trump is for all of that. There isn't one thing so far that Trump has done that democrats approve of.
3
Increased military spending is necessary after Obama’s failures in Iran and North Korea and after Obama took a chainsaw to defense spending
1
No it's not. There's absolutely no reason why we need to spend even half of what we do on military spending. We are the only country that spends anywhere near the amount we do. It's absurd.
9
MATH 101 (for Politicians): 1 + 1= 21,000,000,000,000
4
Just got home. Will read the article in a minute. But just have to say, I'm already worried about losing ACA. Of course with only three years to go before I'm eligible for Medicare, they'll want to cut that. Just shoot me.
No doubt in my mind this guy is cozying up to the military so they don't turn on him.
What a mess.
16
He announced his intent to cut Medicare today.
5
Fiscal insanity; nothing less.
If you want to destroy the United States from the inside-out Trump’s budget is the way to do it.
Just imagine, accomplished through a complicit, lapdog “fiscally conservative” Republican congress.
11
Hey, didn't the Tea Party have a major problem with the government ballooning the deficit and the national debt?
What ever happened to those guys, their tri-cornered hats and blood watering the tree liberty schtick?
Could it be that they were huge hypocrites, whose only intention was to hide their racism behind a government-spending-is-bad facade?
Could it be that they never cared about spending at all, except when it was used to help people who didn't look like them?
Maybe they traded in their gadsden flags for tiki torches and just decided to come out of the closet altogether.
18
I said it from the beginning that these people were merely astroturf. Billionaires like those in the Koch network funded and directed those people. It's all a marketing game and these people are world experts at marketing.
5
I have been payin into Medicare my whole life, but now it seems that the Trump Administration now considers Medicare to be an "entitlement" that they are free to decimate. Does that mean that the program I've been paying into or 40 years was a scam all along -- or that this budget is a scam?
22
Where is all that Prosperity that the Tax Cuts were going to bring?
Projections of over Seven Trillion in Deficits! Seriously? Are we looking to have the same amount of deficit as the rest of the world combined?
Our military spending... larger than the next five or six nations combined. Now we need Vastly More? Why?
The GOTP is going to ramp up a fierce battle to contain spending. It will come on the backs of average people, or those who don't have an army of Lobbyists (or a Billionaire or two) behind them. The Democrats, and millions of citizens, warned of this as the Congress finally dropped all pretense... and openly declared that they were Paying Their Debts to the Rich People who put them in office. They all swore to serve the Nation - not the interests of the top one thousand donors that are their true Masters!
The Right recklessly cut and spent during the Bush Years, and then spent the next eight years blaming Obama for their heedless behavior. Now, the cycle begins again... and their base will immediately forget the Years of bitter complaint, to fall in line with this financial disaster again!
A brutal reckoning is coming!
14
Trump wants to cut EPA budget in half to save money. It's a little like cutting off your foot to save on shoes. Not an ideal long-term strategy.
22
Yes, this “budget” is abhorrent, but keep in mind while Trump has taken credit for it, he is steered by one person who is more of a threat to our nation than Trump, who is often just a puppet to his cabinet members. Mick Mulvaney is the voice of cruelty in relation to the budget. Remember, he was the person who snarked ruthlessly about the Meals on Wheels grants - (barely a blip (if even) on the budget radar). He gets Trump’s wish list and then slashes everywhere else. The man does not have a conscience.
He should be called out loudly and often, and watched closely. Keep in mind that calling your Members of Congress and telling your stories, holding them accountable, is your first weapon against this form of insanity. Next is to register now and vote, vote, vote. Lastly, join a group of like-motivated people, such as Indivisible, SwingLeft, or others in your community.
Letters to the editor allow us to vent, but action speaks louder than words. Voting and getting out the vote will return us to the democracy we once had.
38
It’s a race to the financial bottom. And a great strategy.
Build your military complex, have your adversaries spend on their military complex, and the first country to go bankrupt looses. You don’t even need to fire one bullet.
13
Medicare is not an entitlement program
Medicare is not an entitlement program
Medicare is not an entitlement program
Medicare is not an entitlement program
45
It really doesn't matter because very soon the WH will come crashing down. Trump knows that Mueller has a laundry list of impeachable offenses and maybe even more criminal activities where Trump was THE player. Sally Yates said it all with reference to Flynn, implying that Flynn was bought and paid for by Russian influences. So has Trump been bought and paid for in a huge money laundering scheme where oligarchs paid more than 2X the inherent value of an apartment or property owned by the Donald. that is not a question.
It's like a car dealership where a customer comes in to buy a fifty thousand dollar car and it is an all cash deal, literally. The government requires reporting that type of transaction. When Trump accepted millions of dollars in cash for apartment purchases, he closed his eyes to the transaction and took the cash.
He will fire Mueller and poisonous snakes will be released from Mueller's bag in the oval office. Trump will not be able to escape the wrath of the American public.
6
Where did this word "entitlements" and its stigma come from? We are ENTITLED because it is OUR PAY, drawn from our payroll taxes. TAXES pay for Medicare and Social Security, they are not charity from the government. That is what the Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts are -- charity and welfare to corporations and the filthy rich whose money comes from wealth, not work.
Those of us who work have paid into Social Security and Medicare -- it is a social contract. JOURNALISTS yes I am yelling at you because it is your job to clarify this and not repeat the Republican PR language of twisted logic -- there is no such thing as "Social Security entitlements" anymore than there is a "death tax" anymore than there is such a thing as "chain migration." It is your job not to unthinkingly and uncritically repeat whatever PR jargons these amoral, greed-blinded hypocrites churn out.
136
All the Social Security taxes you paid have already been spent. Social Security is a failed bankrupt Ponzi scheme whose day of reckoning is coming
No, Larry, that is more lies and myths perpetuated by those who believe working people don't understand what public policy choices are. There are many places to educate yourself on what is a lie and what is a fact -- here is one:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2014/08/14/social-security-cann...
2
No actually the GOP used SS like their private bank. Oh and Larry, no matter what state you live in...your taxes are going to get higher.
The military is sort of like the national football team now: something the masses can get behind and cheer, feeling big and boastful because their team's the best and no one can beat it. Maybe we'll even have a parade.
He may be taking away the bread, but the Trump circuses are always big league.
10
WH proposes a $4.4 trillion budget that "has little or no chance if being enacted".
Does the Government's business have to be done this way?
3
This spending has nothing to do with defending our nation, he did not and will not defend Putin's meddling of our election .
It is all about his veiled macho and insecure personality as well as racism by undoing everything president Obama did to please his and GOP's hidden racists.
Traditional Republican's value is dead, only the GOPs who have already sold their soul to Trump are left. President Lincoln who saved our nation , a Republican, is turning over his grave.
Good luck to those poor and low income Trump voters : Your parents and your medicare and Medicaid are in danger .
12
Donald Trump is correct to see that at this moment in history America faces an existential threat. Our problem is that this threat is HIM. No amount of military spending is going to fix this. His removal would make America great again and the world safe.
15
If Trump & the GOP are going to continue to let Russia manipulate US elections what difference does more money for the military make?
It's like paying a lot of money for outside guard dogs after you've invited the wolf to come inside the house.
10
Campaign ad in the making:
Trump then: I'm a friend to [fill_in]
Trump now: I'm friend to rich, white, male!
Trump then: Who pays for the wall?
Trump now: You are paying for my wall!
Trump then: I won't cut Medicare
Trump now: I'm cutting Medicare!
14
When are Trump voters going to wake up to the fact they got scammed. In Trump they supported someone they thought was neither Republican or Democrat, instead they got trickle down Republicanism. Budget busting tax cuts that line the pockets of the wealthy with a couple of bucks per paycheck for the rest of us. A cheapskate infrastructure program that no state can afford. Gutting of Medicare and Social Security are next.
13
Could someone explain why Medicare is considered an "entitlement " something that is paid into ones whole working life. And to top it off the government has borrowed from our Medicare. If any of this is incorrect information that I have read over and over please let me know.
13
and, to top it off even further (well, I guess, to spill it over the top) many of us pay taxes on the Social Security benefits we receive...
3
Obama didn’t mind driving up the national debt.
3
You need to take Macro-Econ 101.
2
Neither did Ronald Reagan. Under his watch it QUADRUPLED.
4
That might have had something to do with that little thing called "The Great Recession," brain trust...
2