WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump unveiled a $4.4 trillion budget for next year that heralds an era of $1 trillion-plus federal deficits and — unlike the plan he released last year — never comes close to promising a balanced ledger even after 10 years.

The growing deficits reflect, in great part, the impact of last year’s tax overhaul, which is projected to cause federal tax revenue to drop.

And Monday’s budget submission does not yet reflect last week’s two-year bipartisan $300 billion pact that wholly rejects Trump’s plans to slash domestic agencies.

Tax revenue would plummet by $3.7 trillion over the 2018-27 decade relative to last year’s “baseline” estimates, the budget projects.

Trump is requesting a record $686 billion for the Pentagon, a 13 percent increase from the 2017 budget enacted last May.

The spending spree, along with last year’s tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington.

Trump’s plan sees a 2019 deficit of $984 billion, though $1.2 trillion is more plausible after last week’s budget pact and $90 billion worth of disaster aid is tacked on.

That’s more than double the 2019 deficit the administration promised last year.

All told, the new budget sees accumulating deficits of $7.2 trillion over the coming decade; Trump’s plan last year projected a 10-year shortfall of $3.2 trillion.

“In one year of working together, we have laid the foundation for a new era of American greatness,” Trump said in the budget message accompanying his spending document.

“America is back to winning again. A great spirit of optimism continues to sweep across our nation.”

The 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year’s proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.

“A lot of presidents’ budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored,” said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama.

“In fact, Congress passed a law last week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted.”

In a preview of Monday’s release, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump’s $1.5 trillion plan for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

He also is asking for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery.

A request for $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.

Trump would again spare Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare as he promised during the 2016 campaign.

And while his plan would reprise last year’s attempt to scuttle the “Obamacare” health law and sharply cut back the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have signaled there’s no interest in tackling hot-button health issues during an election year.

The budget also endorses a plan by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., to replace the Obama-era health law with $1.6 trillion in subsidies to states over the coming decade.

The plan also reprises proposals from last year’s Trump budget to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies, reduce pension benefits for federal workers and cut food stamps, among other proposals.

Mick Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that Trump’s new budget, if implemented, would tame the deficit over time.

“The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits,” Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Just because this deal was signed does not mean the future is written in stone. We do have a chance still to change the trajectory. And that is what the budget will show tomorrow,” he said.

Last year, Trump’s budget projected a slight surplus after a decade, but critics said it relied on an enormous accounting gimmick — double counting a 10-year, $2 trillion surge in revenues from the economic benefits of “tax reform.”

Now that tax reform has passed, the math trick can’t be used, and the Trump plan doesn’t come close to balancing.

Trump plan also promises 3 percent growth, continuing low inflation, and low interest yields on U.S. Treasury bills despite a flood of new borrowing, underestimates the mounting cost of financing the government’s $20 trillion-plus debt.

Many economists are likely to find the prospects for such a rosy scenario implausible.

The White House is putting focus this year on Trump’s long-overdue plan to boost spending on the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

The plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years to leverage $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

Critics contend the infrastructure plan will fail to reach its goals without more federal support.

Proposals to streamline the permitting process as a way to reduce the cost of projects have already generated opposition from environmental groups. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump unveiled a $4.4 trillion budget for next year that heralds an era of $1 trillion-plus federal deficits and—unlike the plan he released last year—never comes close to promising a balanced ledger even after 10 years.

The growing deficits reflect, in great part, the impact of last year's tax overhaul, which is projected to cause federal tax revenue to drop. And Monday's budget submission does not yet reflect last week's two-year bipartisan $300 billion pact that wholly rejects Trump's plans to slash domestic agencies.

Tax revenue would plummet by $3.7 trillion over the 2018-27 decade relative to last year's "baseline" estimates, the budget projects. Trump is requesting a record $686 billion for the Pentagon, a 13 percent increase from the 2017 budget enacted last May.

The spending spree, along with last year's tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington. Trump's plan sees a 2019 deficit of $984 billion, though $1.2 trillion is more plausible after last week's budget pact and $90 billion worth of disaster aid is tacked on. That's more than double the 2019 deficit the administration promised last year.

All told, the new budget sees accumulating deficits of $7.2 trillion over the coming decade; Trump's plan last year projected a 10-year shortfall of $3.2 trillion.

"In one year of working together, we have laid the foundation for a new era of American greatness," Trump said in the budget message accompanying his spending document. "America is back to winning again. A great spirit of optimism continues to sweep across our nation."

The 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year's proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.

"A lot of presidents' budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored," said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama. "In fact, Congress passed a law last week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted."

In a preview of Monday's release, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump's $1.5 trillion plan for the nation's crumbling infrastructure. He also is asking for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery. A request for $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.

Trump would again spare Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare as he promised during the 2016 campaign. And while his plan would reprise last year's attempt to scuttle the "Obamacare" health law and sharply cut back the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled, Trump's allies on Capitol Hill have signaled there's no interest in tackling hot-button health issues during an election year.

The budget also endorses a plan by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., to replace the Obama-era health law with $1.6 trillion in subsidies to states over the coming decade.

The plan also reprises proposals from last year's Trump budget to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies, reduce pension benefits for federal workers and cut food stamps, among other proposals.

Mick Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that Trump's new budget, if implemented, would tame the deficit over time.

"The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits," Mulvaney said on "Fox News Sunday."

"Just because this deal was signed does not mean the future is written in stone. We do have a chance still to change the trajectory. And that is what the budget will show tomorrow," he said.

Last year, Trump's budget projected a slight surplus after a decade, but critics said it relied on an enormous accounting gimmick — double counting a 10-year, $2 trillion surge in revenues from the economic benefits of "tax reform." Now that tax reform has passed, the math trick can't be used, and the Trump plan doesn't come close to balancing.

Trump plan also promises 3 percent growth, continuing low inflation, and low interest yields on U.S. Treasury bills despite a flood of new borrowing, underestimates the mounting cost of financing the government's $20 trillion-plus debt. Many economists are likely to find the prospects for such a rosy scenario implausible.

The White House is putting focus this year on Trump's long-overdue plan to boost spending on the nation's crumbling infrastructure. The plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years to leverage $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

Critics contend the infrastructure plan will fail to reach its goals without more federal support. Proposals to streamline the permitting process as a way to reduce the cost of projects have already generated opposition from environmental groups. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is proposing a $4 trillion-plus budget for next year that projects a $1 trillion or so federal deficit and — unlike the plan he released last year — never comes close to promising a balanced federal ledger even after 10 years.

And that’s before last week’s $300 billion budget pact is added this year and next, showering both the Pentagon and domestic agencies with big increases.

The spending spree, along with last year’s tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington.

The original plan was for Trump’s new budget to slash domestic agencies even further than last year’s proposal, but instead it will land in Congress three days after he signed a two-year spending agreement that wholly rewrites both last year’s budget and the one to be released Monday.

The 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year’s proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.

“A lot of presidents’ budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored,” said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama. “In fact, Congress passed a law week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted.”

In a preview of the 2019 budget, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump’s $1.5 trillion plan for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. He also will ask for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery. A request of $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.

Trump would again spare Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare as he promised during the 2016 campaign. And while his plan would reprise last year’s attempt to scuttle the “Obamacare” health law and sharply cut back the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have signaled there’s no interest in tackling hot-button health issues during an election year.

Instead, the new budget deal and last year’s tax cuts herald the return of trillion dollar-plus deficits. Last year, Trump’s budget predicted a $526 billion budget deficit for the 2019 fiscal year starting Oct. 1; instead, it’s set to easily exceed $1 trillion once the cost of the new spending pact and the tax cuts are added to Congressional Budget Office projections.

Mick Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that Trump’s new budget, if implemented, would tame the deficit over time.

“The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits,” Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Just because this deal was signed does not mean the future is written in stone. We do have a chance still to change the trajectory. And that is what the budget will show tomorrow,” he said.

Last year, Trump’s budget projected a slight surplus after a decade, but critics said it relied on an enormous accounting gimmick — double counting a 10-year, $2 trillion surge in revenues from the economic benefits of “tax reform.” Now that tax reform has passed, the math trick can’t be used, and the Trump plan doesn’t come close to balancing.

But critics are likely to say this year’s Trump plan, which promises 3 percent growth, continuing low inflation, and low interest yields on U.S. Treasury bills despite a flood of new borrowing, underestimates the mounting cost of financing the government’s $20 trillion-plus debt.

The White House is putting focus this year on Trump’s long-overdue plan to boost spending on the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years to leverage $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

Critics contend the infrastructure plan will fail to reach its goals without more federal support. Proposals to streamline the permitting process as a way to reduce the cost of projects have already generated opposition from environmental groups.

Presidential budgets tend to reprise many of the same elements year after year. While details aren’t out yet, Trump’s budget is likely to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies, reduce pension benefits for federal workers and cut food stamps, among other proposals. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday sent Congress a $4.1 trillion federal spending plan that promises faster economic growth and steep cuts to programs for the poor in a bid to balance the government’s books over the next decade.

The proposed 2018 budget immediately came under attack by Democrats, and even some GOP allies deemed it a non-starter. The proposal is laced with $3.6 trillion in cuts to domestic agencies, food stamps, Medicaid, highway funding, crop insurance and medical research, among others.

At the same time, the blueprint boosts spending on the military by tens of billions and calls for $1.6 billion for a border wall with Mexico that Trump repeatedly promised voters the U.S. neighbor would finance. Mexico emphatically rejects that notion.

Budget experts, Democrats and Republicans challenged the economic assumptions of the White House and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.

During the campaign, Trump attacked the weak economic growth of the Barack Obama years, and pledged that his economic program would boost growth from the lackluster 2 percent rates seen since the recovery began in mid-2009. Trump’s new budget is based on sustained growth above 3 percent, sharply higher than the expectations of most private economists. Without more than $2 trillion in such “economic feedback” over the coming decade, the budget would never reach balance and would run a deficit of almost $500 billion.

“Three percent, I’m not seeing how you get there mathematically,” said Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C. “I think realism in the way we forecast numbers is part and parcel to a constructive budget process.”

The proposal projects that this year’s federal deficit will rise to $603 billion, up from the actual deficit of $585 billion last year. But the document says if Trump’s initiatives are adopted the deficit will start declining and actually reach a small surplus of $16 billion in 2027. However, that goal depends not only on the growth projections that most economists view as overly optimistic but also a variety of accounting gimmicks, including an almost $600 billion peace dividend from winding down overseas military operations.

The government hasn’t run a surplus since 2001, and deficits spiked during former President Barack Obama’s first term in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

“Through streamlined government, we will drive an economic boom that raises incomes and expands job opportunities for all Americans,” Trump said in his budget message. His budget is titled, “The New Foundation for American Greatness.”

“In the America of President Trump’s budget, children, working families, seniors and people with disabilities will be ‘fined,’ while the wealthiest Americans will get a ‘bonus.’ What’s so ‘great’ about that America?” asked Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois.

Food stamp cuts would drive millions from the program, while a wave of Medicaid cuts could deny nursing home care to millions of elderly poor people.

“Isn’t it reasonable to at least ask the question, ‘Are there people on that program who shouldn’t be on there?'” Mulvaney asked.

The budget does feature a handful of domestic initiatives, including a six-week paid parental leave program championed by Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. Some $200 billion in federal infrastructure investments are promised to leverage another $800 billion in private investment.

Trump would keep campaign pledges to leave core Medicare and Social Security benefits for the elderly alone, but that would translate into even deeper cuts in programs for the poor such as Medicaid and food stamps.

Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor and many disabled Americans, would be cut by more than $600 billion over 10 years by capping payments to states and giving governors more flexibility to manage their rosters of Medicaid recipients. Those cuts go on top of the repeal of Obamacare’s expansion of the program to 14 million people and amount to, by decade’s end, an almost 25 percent cut from present projections.

Likewise, a 10-year, $191 billion reduction in food stamps — almost 30 percent — far exceeds prior proposals by Capitol Hill Republicans. The food stamp program serves about 42 million people.

“These cuts that are being proposed are draconian,” said veteran GOP Rep. Harold Rogers, who represents a poor district in eastern Kentucky. “They’re not mere shavings, they’re deep, deep cuts.”

Other cuts in Trump’s budget include reductions in pension benefits for federal workers, in part by requiring employees to make higher contributions. In agriculture, the proposed budget would limit subsidies to farmers, including for purchasing crop insurance, a move already attacked by farm state lawmakers.

On taxes, Trump promises an overhaul that would cut tax rates but rely on economic growth and erasing tax breaks to avoid adding to the deficit. There would be three tax brackets — 10 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent — instead of the current seven, and there’s a promise to lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent.

But the budget has virtually no detail to prove it would deliver on Trump’s promise for “massive” tax cuts. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) - In a twist on Washington’s truism about presidential budgets being D.O.A., President Donald Trump’s 2019 fiscal plan due Monday is dead even before arrival.

The original plan was for Trump’s new budget to slash domestic agencies even further than last year’s proposal, but instead it will land in Congress three days after he signed a two-year spending agreement that wholly rewrites both last year’s budget and the one to be released Monday.

In a preview of the 2019 budget, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump’s $1.5 trillion plan for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. He also will ask for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery. A request of $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.

Trump’s latest submission was completed before the budget pact delivered the nearly $300 billion increase above prior “caps” on spending. The $4 trillion-plus 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year’s proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.

“A lot of presidents’ budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored,” said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama. “In fact, Congress passed a law week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted.”

Trump would again spare Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare as he promised during the 2016 campaign. And while his plan would reprise last year’s attempt to scuttle the “Obamacare” health law and sharply cut back the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have signaled there’s no interest in tackling hot-button health issues during an election year.

Instead, the new budget deal and last year’s tax cuts herald the return of trillion dollar-plus deficits. Last year, Trump’s budget predicted a $526 billion budget deficit for the 2019 fiscal year starting Oct. 1; instead, it’s set to exceed $1 trillion once the cost of the new spending pact and the tax cuts are added to Congressional Budget Office projections.

Mick Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that Trump’s new budget, if implemented, would tame the deficit over time, though unlike last year’s submission, it wouldn’t promise to balance the federal ledger eventually.

“The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits,” Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.” ”Just because this deal was signed does not mean the future is written in stone. We do have a chance still to change the trajectory. And that is what the budget will show tomorrow.”

Last year, Trump’s budget projected a slight surplus after a decade, but critics said it relied on an enormous accounting gimmick - double counting a 10-year, $2 trillion surge in revenues from the economic benefits of “tax reform.” Now that tax reform has passed, the math trick can’t be used, and the Trump plan doesn’t come close to balancing.

Trump’s infrastructure plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years to leverage $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

Critics contend the infrastructure plan will fail to reach its goals without more federal support. Proposals to streamline the permitting process as a way to reduce the cost of projects have already generated opposition from environmental groups.

The budget’s call for increased border security funding would probably depend on Congress passing legislation to deal with young immigrants brought to the country illegally. The Senate was set Monday to begin debate on immigration policy, the fate of the so-called Dreamers a central question.

The White House budget office said Friday that Monday’s submission would reflect stringent limits on appropriated spending - that’s the more than $1 trillion spent each year for agency operations - that were the hangover from a failed 2011 budget deal. Last year, Trump promised a $54 billion, 10 percent increase for the Pentagon, financed by an equal cut to foreign aid and domestic agencies.

What Congress instead delivered on Friday was a budget law would instead increase defense by $80 billion this year and boost nondefense appropriations by $63 billion. For the 2019 budget year submitted on Monday - and Trump’s plan as originally devised would adhere to the old limits - Congress has already shattered the spending cap by $153 billion.

“Our leadership caved. The swamp won. And the American taxpayer lost,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”

Presidential budgets tend to reprise many of the same elements year after year. While details aren’t out yet, Trump’s budget is likely to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies, reduce pension benefits for federal workers and cut food stamps, among other proposals.

Such cuts went nowhere in Congress last year as Republicans focused on trying to repeal and replace Obama’s Affordable Care Act and, after that failed, turned their sights to a successful rewrite of the tax code.

But the election in December of Alabama Democrat Doug Jones to the Senate seat cut the GOP’s margin of control to 51-49. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says the chamber won’t tackle politically toxic cuts to so-called mandatory programs. </s> President Donald Trump's first budget is truly remarkable in its unseriousness. To see why, try for a moment to take it seriously.

The plan purports to be fiscally responsible, saying that the national debt will fall from 77 per cent now to 60 per cent in 2027. A worthy goal, to be sure.

At the same time, it calls for tax cuts but no changes in spending on the two main entitlement programs, Medicare and (non-disability) Social Security.

To square these ambitious pledges, the budget then needs either a close-to-impossible acceleration in economic growth, or an implausibly severe squeeze on most other kinds of spending.

With characteristically Trumpian disdain for reality, the budget proposes both.

The Trump administration has until now said its planned tax cuts would pay for themselves by pushing economic growth to 3 per cent a year -- a claim already seen as outlandish by every serious analyst, liberal and conservative alike.

The budget appears to go one better: It says this boost in growth will be sufficient not just to maintain revenue (despite the cut in rates) but will actually raise revenue by $US2 trillion ($2.7 trillion) over 10 years compared with current policy. Perhaps somebody just made a dumb mistake, counting the revenue from faster growth twice over. With this administration, it's wise not to rule it out.

There's more. The administration's magical tax reform is "in its very early stages," as Budget Director Mick Mulvaney generously put it on Monday. Yet to have even the faintest hope of being revenue-neutral, let alone revenue-enhancing, the reform would have to revive the idea of "border adjustment" -- in effect, a tax on imports.

The idea has aroused strong opposition from US businesses, the White House has blown hot and cold, and few in Congress think it will be implemented.

Turning to the spending side of the budget, things get no better. The plan includes cuts in America's Medicaid health coverage system and other welfare programs so severe that many conservative Republicans are wincing.

In all it looks for policy savings of more than $US3 trillion over 10 years, without troubling to say how they'll be achieved. Of this total, $US1.4 trillion is projected to come from the administration's "two-penny plan," which isn't a plan at all, just a declaration that eligible discretionary spending will henceforth be cut by 2 per cent a year.

Trump's budget has been almost universally called dead on arrival. That may be an understatement. This plan, if you can call it that, was never capable of life.

White House budgets are often set aside, yet still can guide deliberations in Congress, where tax and spending decisions actually get made.

This budget serves no such purpose. It is simply an extended tweet, and a waste of everybody's time. </s> President Trump’s first proposed budget shows respect for the people who pay the bills. The administration’s proposal reverses the damaging trends from previous administrations by putting our nation’s budget back into balance and reducing our debt through fiscally conservative principles, all the while delivering on President Trump’s campaign promise not to cut Social Security retirement or Medicare. The budget’s combination of regulatory, tax, and welfare reforms will provide opportunities for economic growth and creation. Get the facts about President Trump’s budget.

Unlike any budget proposed by the previous administration, the Fiscal Year 2018 Budget achieves balance within the 10-year budget window and begins to reduce the national debt within that same window.

The policies in this Budget will drive down spending and grow the economy. By 2027, when the budget reaches balance, publicly held debt will be reduced to less than 60 percent of GDP, the lowest level since 2010.

The President’s Budget does not cut core Social Security benefits. And the President is fulfilling his presidential campaign promise not to cut Medicare benefits.

President Trump’s budget saves the American people billions of dollars through welfare, tax, and regulatory reform.

The President is requesting $54 billion, or 10 percent, more than the defense level President Obama signed into law for both the 2017 CR and the 2018 budget cap. This increase balances the need to rebuild the military with the need for disciplined, strategy-driven, executable growth.

The Budget includes over $2.6 billion in new infrastructure and technology investments in 2018 to give CBP frontline law enforcement officers the tools and technologies they need to deter, deny, identify, track, and resolve illegal activity along the border.

President Trump’s budget provides national paid family leave for the first time in the history of this country.

Find out more information about President Trump’s Taxpayer First Budget at WhiteHouse.gov/taxpayers-first. </s> Eric Ueland, Republican Staff Director for the Senate Budget Committee, hands out copies of President Donald Trump's fiscal 2018 Budget in the Dirksen Building on May 23, 2017. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

The ambitious fiscal blueprint now heads to a bitterly divided Congress, which has the authority to adopt or reject the White House spending plans. Trump’s budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, will visit the Capitol this week to try to sell the $4.1 trillion outline to top budget writers in the House and Senate.

Those hearings will officially kick off the fiscal 2018 budget and appropriations cycle in Congress, a process that has been on hold for months as lawmakers waited for Trump’s full budget proposal and as they finished up last year’s spending work.

At a White House news briefing Tuesday, Mulvaney framed the proposal as a “taxpayer first” budget that would trim needless federal spending and reinvigorate the economy with massive tax cuts and deregulation.

“We looked at this budget through the eyes of the people who were actually paying the bills,” he said.

But large portions of the White House budget are unlikely to gain traction in Congress. Democrats on Tuesday slammed Trump’s plans to bulldoze domestic discretionary spending and cut social safety net programs like food stamps and health care for kids.

Republicans largely praised Trump’s efforts to balance the budget and bolster economic growth, but many GOP members have been quick to point out that the power of the purse ultimately lies with them, not the administration.

“I hope that people don’t panic over the president’s — any president’s — budget,” Senate Budget Chairman Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., said last week. “They’re just suggestions.”

Enzi echoed those remarks in a statement Tuesday, while praising Trump for writing a budget that would trim government spending and balance within 10 years.

House Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., didn’t comment on Trump’s budget proposal in a statement Tuesday, instead laying out how Congress will analyze the request and “put forward our own plan to fund the federal government.”

Mulvaney acknowledged the tradition of Congress ignoring presidents’ budgets, but he said the document still sends a message about what Trump wants to do with the budget and the economy in the big picture.

“If Congress has a different way to get to that end point, God bless ‘em,” he told reporters at a budget briefing on Monday. </s> Donald Trump, whose populist message and promises to help American workers propelled him to the White House, is set to issue a budget proposal on Tuesday that instead takes aim at the social safety net on which many of his supporters rely.

Rather than breaking with Washington precedent, Trump’s spending blueprint follows established conservative orthodoxy, cutting taxes on the wealthy, boosting defense spending and taking a hatchet to programs for the poor and disabled – potentially hurting many of the rural and low-income Americans that voted him into office.

The budget proposal underscores the wide gulf between campaigning and governing, even for a president who promised to rewrite the presidential rule book.

The president’s budget plan calls for more than $1 trillion in cuts to a wide range of social programs with millions of beneficiaries, from farm subsidies to federal student aid. That includes a $600 billion cut to Medicaid over 10 years, despite Trump’s repeated promises on the campaign trail not to cut the program. The budget also takes an ax to the federal food stamp program and Social Security Disability Insurance.

Trump also proposes some of the deepest cuts to agriculture subsidies since Ronald Reagan, squeezing out nearly $50 billion over 10 years.

Trump’s budget would drastically cut domestic programs controlled by Congress, slashing $1.7 trillion over 10 years. At the end of the decade, the U.S. would spend nearly twice as much on defense as on other domestic programs. Domestic discretionary spending would be capped at $429 billion per year, below 2004 levels, while military spending soars to $722 billion.

The annual budget proposal – which has no chance of becoming law as proposed even though Republicans control Congress because GOP lawmakers write their own budget – serves as a starting point for negotiations and as a messaging document for the president and his party.

“There’s a certain philosophy wrapped up in the budget and that is — we are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs or the number of people on those programs,” White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, one of the budget’s chief architects, told reporters on Monday. “We’re not going to measure our success by how much money we spend, but by how many people we actually help.”

Mulvaney rejected accusations that Trump’s budget unfairly targets the poor, arguing instead that it amounts to a broad rethink of the country’s welfare system.

“We need folks to work. We need people to go to work. If you’re on food stamps, and you're able-bodied, we need you to go to work. If you’re on disability insurance and you're not supposed to be, we need you to work,” he added. “There’s a dignity to work, and there’s a necessity to work.”

Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman and founding member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, has long sought dramatic cuts to Medicaid and other programs.

Mulvaney said the budget does not touch “mainline” or “core” Social Security, but it does cut Social Security’s disability insurance. The White House is also leaning on anti-fraud programs to save billions of dollars in Medicare.

The White House plans to heavily promote its commitment to Social Security and Medicare, though its attempt to eliminate the federal deficit while largely preserving those entitlement programs — which together make up the bulk of federal spending — will leave behind a path of destruction for other safety net programs.

Trump’s budget would tighten the belt on programs for low-income families ranging from cash assistance to the child tax credit. Nearly $200 billion in cuts will come directly from the federal food stamp program, which helps feed 44 million people each year.

Trump would also slash $72 billion by tightening the rules for programs for people with disabilities — programs that Trump’s advisers have described as riddled with fraud and abuse. A federal watchdog, however, found last year that 17 anti-fraud programs already exist.

In an administration document outlining budget talking points, the White House pitched its proposal as a way to replace “dependency with dignity of work.” The internal guidance, which POLITICO obtained early Monday, highlights an estimated $193 billion in savings by further limiting who can receive food stamps. The administration estimates $40 billion in savings over 10 years by preventing illegal immigrants from claiming the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, which provides a break to households making up to about $53,000 per year, depending on family size and filing status.

“If I had sort of a subtitle for this budget, it would be the ‘Taxpayer First’ budget,” Mulvaney said Monday. “This is, I think, the first time in a long time that an administration has written a budget through the eyes of the people who are actually paying the taxes. So often in Washington I think we look only on the recipient side — how does the budget affect those who either receive or don’t receive benefits?”

Democrats, who have opposed cuts announced in drafts released earlier this year, reiterated their objections ahead of the budget’s release.

“Candidate Trump campaigned as a populist, said he wanted to help the working people, but since he has taken office he has governed like a hard-right conservative — pushing policies that help the uber wealthy at the expense of the middle class,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement Sunday night.

“It’s a complete about-face,” said Seth Hanlon, a former economic adviser to Barack Obama. “It’s a betrayal of a lot of people who put their faith in him.”

But even some Republicans — both inside and outside Congress — say they’re worried about the sheer magnitude of the proposed cuts.

“I’m deeply concerned about the severity of the domestic cuts,” Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), a long-time member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, told POLITICO on Friday.

Rogers has been an outspoken critic of Trump’s proposed cuts to programs that benefit rural regions like his home state, like the Appalachian Regional Commission.

“I think we do need healthcare reform. I think we do need welfare reform. But the kinds of reductions that he’s talking about go exactly against the states that brought [Trump] to the dance, so to speak,” said G. William Hoagland, a former long-time Republican Senate budget aide.

He added, “The argument can be made that there are certainly programs that are not achieving their goals. That doesn’t mean we should take the money away and forget about it.”

The White House says it expected a “mixed” reaction from Hill Republicans, according to a senior administration official. The defense hikes and tax cuts are sure to be popular, but many of the cuts could make more moderate Republicans skittish. “It’s more than a messaging document and it begins the negotiations,” the official said.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are expected to deliver their rebuttal to the White House’s budget proposal in mid-June, about two months behind schedule.

While the congressional document is also in many ways a wish list, it serves to set the spending levels that lawmakers must abide by the ensuing year. The delay of that document means appropriators will face a time crunch ahead of the September deadline to fund the government or avert a shutdown.

The Trump administration is relying on more than aggressive cuts to mandatory programs to achieve its goal of eliminating the deficit within 10 years – a gold standard of budget writing.

The White House is also making a rosy assumption of 3 percent economic growth – nearly double the 1.9 percent rate estimated by Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeeper – to help offset its ambitious spending plans. That includes $200 billion for new infrastructure projects as well as $19 billion for paid family leave.

The budget blueprint also assumes that Trump’s tax reform plan, which is still in the early stages of being written, will go into effect. Officials said that plan is expected to deliver a boost to the economy without adding to its bottom line, but produced no details beyond a one-page document released in April.

Trump’s proposed budgets for federal departments and agencies next year are mostly unchanged from the so-called skinny budget the administration released earlier this year, despite the public outcry from some disgruntled Cabinet members

A half-dozen agencies got slight boosts in their budgets, however, including those in the departments of Agriculture, Interior and Labor. The State Department, which faced some of the harshest cuts in Trump’s first budget draft, is slated for a $2.6 billion bump compared with the March numbers.
President Donald Trump's proposed budget for fiscal year 2018, titled "America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again," has a $2 trillion accounting error over 10 years because it uses the same money twice for two different purposes.