President Donald Trump posted a tweet on Saturday vowing that “We won’t be touching your Social Safety and Medicare in Fiscal 2021 Funds.” In the future later, the Wall Avenue Journal printed a report indicating that Trump is doing precisely that together with his price range proposal.
The Journal’s report, which got here a day forward of the administration formally releasing its price range on Monday, signifies that Trump’s $4.eight trillion price range consists of “steep reductions in social-safety-net applications,” together with cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Safety:
The White Home proposes to chop spending by $4.Four trillion over a decade. Of that, it targets $2 trillion in financial savings from obligatory spending applications, together with $130 billion from modifications to Medicare prescription-drug pricing, $292 billion from safety-net cuts—reminiscent of work necessities for Medicaid and food stamps—and $70 billion from tightening eligibility entry to incapacity advantages.
That Trump is proposing cuts to those applications isn’t shocking — his 2020 budget cut all three as well. It’s a long-running contradiction for the president. He usually says he gained’t contact these entitlement applications, however he’s continued to make use of Republican get together officers who make slicing these applications middle to their work.
Trump retains proposing entitlement cuts after which denying that he did so
In 2015 and ’16, Trump differentiated himself from the remainder of the Republican presidential hopefuls by campaigning on a vow to not lower entitlements.
“I’m not going to chop Social Safety like each different Republican and I’m not going to chop Medicare or Medicaid,” Trump advised the Every day Sign, a conservative publication affiliated with the Heritage Basis, in 2015.
As his price range proposals point out, this promise was an empty one. Trump, nevertheless, appears to appreciate that slicing entitlements is a political loser for him, and in consequence has continued to make assertions about preserving them which can be at odds with actuality.
All Republicans help folks with pre-existing situations, and in the event that they don’t, they are going to after I communicate to them. I’m in whole help. Additionally, Democrats will destroy your Medicare, and I’ll preserve it wholesome and effectively!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2018
Final month, nevertheless, Trump appeared to have a second of radical honesty when he advised CNBC throughout an interview carried out in Davos that “sooner or later” entitlement cuts will probably be on the desk.
CNBC: Will entitlements ever be in your plate [for cutting]?
TRUMP: “Sooner or later they are going to be”
CNBC: However you mentioned you would not do that previously
TRUMP: “We even have property that we by no means had” pic.twitter.com/FgZnzYz33l
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 22, 2020
These feedback created a damaging stir, so the very subsequent day Trump tried to stroll them again.
Democrats are going to destroy your Social Safety. I’ve completely left it alone, as promised, and can put it aside!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2020
Quick-forward lower than a month, and Trump is once more pushing entitlement cuts. It’s whiplash-inducing.
Democrats have already signaled Trump’s price range goes nowhere
Whereas Trump tries to have it each methods by proposing entitlement cuts whereas claiming he’s probably not doing that, Treasury Division spokesperson Monica Crowley was considerably extra easy throughout a Monday morning look on Fox Enterprise.
Requested by host Stuart Varney if she agrees that the brand new price range “hits the protection internet,” Crowley unhappy the president “understands that Washington’s behavior of uncontrolled spending with out consequence must be stopped.”
Treasury Secretary Assistant Sec. Monica Crowley defends cuts to entitlements in Trump’s new 2021 price range proposal: “The president additionally understands that Washington’s behavior of uncontrolled spending with out consequence must be stopped.” pic.twitter.com/4VdP3fItJ6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 10, 2020
However for Trump, not all spending is unhealthy. Whereas his price range cuts non-defense spending by 5 p.c, he truly slates protection spending for a rise to $740.5 billion for fiscal 12 months 2021.
After all, price range proposals are simply that — proposals. And whereas Trump insists that Republicans are those attempting to save lots of entitlements from destruction, the irony is that the reality is precisely the alternative: Entitlement cuts are lifeless on arrival so long as Democrats management a chamber of Congress.
Home Funds Committee Chair John Yarmuth (D-KY) alluded to this actuality in a statement he launched on Sunday blasting Trump for “proposing deep cuts to vital applications that assist American households.”
The “price range reportedly consists of harmful modifications to Medicaid, SNAP, Social Safety, and different help applications that assist People make ends meet — all whereas extending his tax cuts for millionaires and rich companies,” Yarmuth wrote. “Congress will stand agency towards this President’s damaged guarantees and his disregard for the human value of his harmful insurance policies.”
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