Breaking: Report – Trump Budget Includes Massive Cuts in Federal Spending, Kills Important Agencies and Programs

$10.5 Trillion Reduction in Spending Over 10 Years

Donald Trump will submit a budget that reduces federal spending by $10.5 trillion over the next ten years. The plan, according to a report in The Hill, was developed primarily by a far right extremist think tank, the Heritage Foundation, headed by former conservative Republican U.S. Senator Jim DeMint, and contains priorities from the most conservative elements on Capitol Hill, including the Republican Study Committee, the far right wing caucus of House Republicans.

On the chopping block are well-known agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which helps fund PBS and NPR, would transition to private ownership.

Vital cabinet-level departments, including the Dept. of Justice, the Dept. of State, and the Dept. of Transportation would take major cuts.

At the Department of Justice, the blueprint calls for eliminating the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Violence Against Women Grants and the Legal Services Corporation and for reducing funding for its Civil Rights and its Environment and Natural Resources divisions.

At the Department of Energy, it would roll back funding for nuclear physics and advanced scientific computing research to 2008 levels, eliminate the Office of Electricity, eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and scrap the Office of Fossil Energy, which focuses on technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Under the State Department’s jurisdiction, funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are candidates for elimination.

It’s important to note that the examples in The Hill’s report are miniscule. The contents of the proposed draft are not public, and have to contain thousands of other examples.

Responding to The Hill’s report, The Washington Post’s Philip Bump notes that the arts agencies Trump wants to kill amount to 0.02 percent of the federal budget. Putting it into perspective, Bump explains that the federal government’s spending on the NEA, NEH, and CPB would amount to a person who earns $50,000 a year spending less than $10.

Some responses via Twitter:

For a good quick look into this Trump insanity read this thread:

And this thread:

You can respond directly to Donald Trump by sending your comments to him on Twitter: @realDonaldTrump and to his transition team: @transition2017
You can also contact your Senators and Congressmembers by calling the Capitol Switchboard at: (202) 224-3121.
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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license