A president’s budget often has less to do with what Congress might be willing to pass, and more to do with the greater message our nation’s leader wants to send.
Unbound by political realities, such spending plans make clear statements about an administration’s priorities, vision and values.
Sadly, when it comes to President Donald Trump’s latest budget proposal, the message it sends is disappointingly unpresidential.
A president’s goals should include standing up for the least fortunate among us, while thinking ahead toward the world we want to leave for future generations. Yet Trump’s budget largely does the opposite.
His spending plan would cut funding for food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, by $17.2 billion in 2019. That amount equates to 22 percent of the program’s total cost last year, according to The Washington Post. Some of the cost savings would come from sending boxes of nonperishable food, including shelf-stable milk, to SNAP recipients, stripping them of the basic dignity of being able to go to a store and select the foods that best meet their families’ needs.
The president’s budget goes even further by once again pushing Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, along with the corresponding Medicaid expansions adopted by nearly three dozen states — a move that could leave millions uninsured. Trump’s spending plan would also cut about $1 billion from low-income housing vouchers next year, while aiming to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare over the next decade.
At the same time, the president’s proposal would add about $1 trillion annually to the federal deficit, creating a greater burden on all Americans down the road. Environmental programs geared toward preserving natural resources for future generations and curtailing climate change also end up on the president’s chopping block.
These proposed cuts came the same week the president took days to begrudgingly speak out against domestic violence, after initially defending a former aide accused of abusing two ex-wives. They came a day before Trump’s personal lawyer admitted to paying a porn star $130,000 to keep her alleged affair with Trump under wraps.
On Presidents Day, we honored George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and some of our country’s greatest leaders, many of whom helped steer our nation onto better paths.
Between his immoral budget and his weekly scandals, Trump is time and time again showing himself to be unworthy of the same admiration.
— The Seattle Times