Trump Seeks Sharp Increases In Military Spending, “Drastic Cuts” To State Department, EPA

Monday, February 27, 2017
By Paul Martin

by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Feb 27, 2017

As part of his proposed budget, President Trump will instruct federal agencies on Monday to assemble a spending plan for the coming fiscal year that includes sharp increases in Defense Department spending and “drastic cuts” to domestic agencies such as the State Department, the EPA and other non-defense programs, so that he can keep his promise to leave Social Security and Medicare alone, according to four senior administration officials cited by the NYT. The budget outline will be the first move in a campaign this week to reset the narrative of Mr. Trump’s turmoil-tossed White House.

Coming one day before delivering his high-stakes “State of the Union” address on Tuesday to a joint session of Congress, Trump will demand a budget with tens of billions of dollars in reductions to the Environmental Protection Agency and State Department, administration officials reported. The NYT adds that social safety net programs, aside from the big entitlement programs for retirees, would also be hit hard. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, speaking on Fox News earlier on Sunday, said Trump’s budget would not seek cuts in federal social programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

While preliminary budget outlines tend to be little-noticed administrative exercises, the first step in negotiations between the White House and federal agencies that usually shave the sharpest edges off the initial request, this plan, a product of a collaboration between the Office of Management and Budget director, Mick Mulvaney; the National Economic Council director, Gary Cohn; and the White House chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, is intended to make a big splash for a president eager to show that he is a man of action.

Resistance from federal agencies could ease some of the deepest cuts in the initial plan before a final budget request is even sent to Congress. And Capitol Hill will have the last word. To meet Mr. Trump’s defense request, lawmakers in both parties would have to agree to raise or end statutory spending caps on defense and domestic programs that were imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act.

As Reuters adds, one of the officials said Trump’s request for the Pentagon included more money for shipbuilding, military aircraft and establishing “a more robust presence in key international waterways and chokepoints” such as the Strait of Hormuz and South China Sea. Meanwhile, the State Department’s budget could be cut by as much as 30%, which would force a major restructuring of the department and elimination of programs.

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