Trump’s Dystopian Budget Proposal. Slashing Social Programs. More Money for War

by Steven Lendman on Global Research

Trump’s dead on arrival budget proposal to Congress is all about funding greater militarism and belligerence, along with serving corporate interests and high-net worth households – while gutting vital social programs.

It’s a proposal only Wall Street, the military, industrial, security complex, Big Oil, and monied interests could love.

Totaling $4.75 trillion, Trump wants an increase of $34 billion in war spending, euphemistically called “defense” – at a time sharp cuts are needed.

Washington’s only enemies are invented ones. No real ones exist. He wants $8.6 billion more for wall construction along the southern border with Mexico.

His priorities include slashing Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, housing assistance, student loans, and other essential social programs – along with big cuts in environmental protection programs.

He wants about $1.5 trillion cut from Medicaid spending in the next decade, $845 million less for Medicare over the same period, $25 billion from Social Security and disability spending, a 9% reduction in non-defense spending across the board – funds shifted to “defense” priorities, corporate handouts, and other initiatives benefitting high-net worth households.

Other proposed cuts over the next decade include $220 billion less for food stamps, $21 billion from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), $207 billion less for student loans, along with billions more cut from housing assistance and other social programs.

Note: In February 2017 during his first address to a joint congressional session, Trump pledged “no changes” to Social Security and Medicare.
He said

“America must put its own citizens first…Above all else, we will keep our promises to the American people…Our obligation is to serve, protect, and defend the citizens of the United States.”

He broke virtually every positive promise made to ordinary Americans, serving monied interests exclusively. His FY 2020 budget proposal calls for more of the same, disdainful of the general welfare he doesn’t give a hoot about...

[read more here]