President Trump’s Budget Fails to Mend the Gaps… Again
NETWORK Government Relations Team
February 14, 2020
We believe the budget is a faithful, moral document that should reflect our values as a nation. Unfortunately, the President’s FY2021 budget that came out earlier this week does not do this. President Trump’s budget proposes$4.8 trillion in drastic cuts to non-defense discretionary spending for vital federal agencies, including a 37% spending cut for the Department of Commerce and a 15% cut for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This will increase the gaps between the wealthy and the impoverished in our nation.
President Trump’s budget abandons the most vulnerable in our nation by reducing funding for fundamental social safety net programs. The budget would increase the number of uninsured people in the United States, cut desperately needed assistance for low-income families, and invest almost nothing into our nation’s dilapidated infrastructure. It is time to mend the racial and income gaps in our nation. We cannot accept this immoral and divisive budget proposal from President Trump.
Once again, President Trump lays out a budget that provides a preferential option for the rich while gutting critical programs proven to lift people out of poverty. His budget would give an additional 1.4 Trillion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthy paid for by cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and other safety net programs. This is sinful. We must heal the wounds of economic and racial injustice with those facing systemic exclusion and oppression. We echo the words of the Prophet Isaiah who warned the corrupt rulers of his time, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.”
The president’s budget proposal lays out another hopeless roadmap that offers no relief or clear pathway to prosperity for disheartened working families. The proposal includes $4.4 trillion in steep cuts to nondefense spending over 10 years, starting with $42 billion for FY2021 to offset increased funding for defense and immigration enforcement. This president fails the moral test of great leaders to care for those with the least among us– the 99% of the country who are over-worked, under-valued, and under-resourced. We must expect more from our leaders and urge Congress to reject this budget by investing in affordable housing, health care, Medicaid, SNAP, and fair elections.
Here’s how President Trump’s FY2021 budget proposal would negatively impact the Common Good and widen the gaps across our nation:
Endangers the health care of the most vulnerable in our nation by attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and by imposing deep cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.
- Proposed cuts of $1 trillion in Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA over the next ten years
- Implements mandatory work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries
- Ends Medicaid expansion for states that have opted to expand coverage. This will eliminate care for the 13 million people who secured care from the expansion
- No proposals for an ACA replacement plan if it is struck down by the Supreme Court
- This will lead to elimination of the ACA’s protection against discrimination based on pre-existing conditions and the ACA’s requirement that health plans cover essential health benefits
Implements irresponsible and discriminatory immigration policy.
- Requests $2 billion to build 82 miles of border wall, plans to divert an additional $7.2 billion from other accounts, and brings the total allocated over Trump’s term to $18 billion.
- Includes $3.1 billion for 60,000 beds, in ICE detention centers, an increase of 6,000 beds from last year’s budget.
- Adds $182 million to hire 750 new Border Patrol agents, a quarter more than last year, and $544 million to double Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff.
- Calls for a 3.2-percent increase in funding for the Department of Homeland Security to carry out immigration enforcement and family separation, but cuts the Department of Justice by 2.3-percent for all federal law enforcement
- Requires Social Security Number for public benefits
- Discriminates against non-citizen residents who do not have a Social Security Number
Increases income inequality and racial wealth disparities through more tax cuts for the 1% and drastic cuts to safety net programs.
- Permanently extends the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for high-income taxpayers
- This will cost $1.4 trillion through 2030 for tax breaks for the wealthiest in our nation
- Cuts SNAP by $182 billion (30% of the program) over ten years
- Cuts basic assistance for those with disabilities through Social Security Disability Insurance
- Reduces support for families experiencing poverty by cutting the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program by $20 billion over ten years
- Eliminates the Social Services Block Grant
Decreases security in our nation’s elections.
- Cuts the Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency that secures our nation’s voting machines, by 14%
- Diverts $1.1 billion on cybersecurity spending from the Federal Election Commission to the Department of Homeland Security
Inadequately invests in our nation’s dilapidated infrastructure.
- Proposes $190 billion in one-time funding for a new infrastructure initiative
- This investment in our nation’s housing and infrastructure is a short-term fix for a long, expensive problem
- It will not be enough to adequately address our nation’s housing problem
- Cuts various infrastructure programs that support highway, mass transit, airport, and port infrastructure through discretionary appropriations
- Weakens community efforts to enable families to secure housing free from discrimination and fight housing policies that restrict housing access
President Trump continues to promise that he will protect the health care of working families, but his FY2021 budget proposal is just another attack on care for our nation’s most vulnerable. The Trump administration continues to gut the backbone of our nation’s social safety net by slashing funding for Medicare and Medicaid, as well as through continued attempts to enforce Medicaid work requirements. Also, by attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act with no suitable replacement, President Trump continues to jeopardize the lives of millions who rely on the ACA for quality and affordable care.
President Trump’s proposals shown above illustrate his misaligned priorities. Every dollar spent in carrying out punitive immigration policy, is a dollar less in critical human needs programs, serving communities across the country. President Trump is requesting a huge windfall for agencies that police, detain, and separate families, but neglects food security programs, health, and more. President Trump’s FY2021 budget is a statement of values, which show that the president is more concerned with funding his border wall than serving the people of the United States.