- President Trump is expected to announce his FY 2021 budget on Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported.
- The president will reportedly ask for $2 billion for his border wall, less than half of what he requested in 2019, which led to the longest government shutdown in US history.
- There are funding changes to agencies across the board, including a 12% increase to NASA and a 26% decrease to the EPA.
President Donald Trump on Monday is expected to unveil his latest budget, a $4.8 trillion proposal that will ask Congress for $2 billion for his long-promised border wall, will raise military spending, and will propose cuts to social safety-net programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.
According to a report Sunday from The Wall Street Journal, a senior Trump administration official said the president has plans to increase military spending $740.5 billion beginning in FY 2021, an increase of 0.3%.
As The Wall Street Journal noted, the president’s budget is not likely to be passed into law in the form that it will be in when he announces it Monday. It’s a jumping-off point of sorts that begins the negotiations between the president and Congress. Further complicating his plans is the fact the president again faces a Democratic majority in the House, likely to push back on the president’s proposals, especially after his impeachment last year.
Trump has asked for $2 billion to fund his enhancements to the border wall between the US and Mexico, a cornerstone of his 2016 bid for the Oval Office. Trump has faced significant barriers toward building the wall, particularly a Congress less than thrilled about funding the project, which the president used to claim would be paid for by Mexico.
In his budget proposal last year, the 45th president asked Congress for some $5 billion to construct his new wall, which in addition to funding issues has had practical issues as well, like the requirement of floodgates in certain areas — open for months at a time, and an under-construction portion of the wall that blew over in a gust of wind.
The $5 billion request sparked a fight with Congress last year, which triggered the longest-on-record government shutdown when the previous years’ budget ran out. When Trump proposed $5 billion for the wall, Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, proposed $1.6 billion in general border security funding, which Trump rejected.
NASA sees a sizable increase in funding out of any federal agency, with a 12% boost as the president has expressed a desire to have an American back on the moon by 2024, according to the Wall Street Journal. Funding to the Environmental Protection Agency would decrease by 26%, according to the report.
The report said the president is also expected to announce a $4.4 trillion cut to federal spending over the next decade, which includes $130 billion in changes to prescription-drug prices through Medicare, $292 billion from safety-net cuts, like work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP, The Wall Street Journal said. The president will also suggest a $70 billion cut through limiting eligibility for federal disability benefits.
According to the report, the president’s plan will assume a higher level of economic growth than is predicted by most economists and will assume that Trump’s 2017 tax-cuts will be extended past their current expiration date in 2025.
Other funding shifts come to the Department of Veterans Affairs, which sees a 13% increase, and the Department of Homeland Security — the agency in charge of border security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement — would see a 3% increase. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget would see funding increase by 19%, according to The Wall Street Journal report.
Foreign aid would be slashed by 21%, the report said. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle last year said they did not support the president’s previous proposals to cut foreign aid. The Ben Carson-helmed Department of Housing and Urban Development’s budget would be cut by 15%, and there would be a 9% decrease in funding for the Centers for Disease Control.
As reported by Business Insider