Trump fires opening salvo in budget wars

The Trump administration on Monday proposed a $54 billion hike to military spending that would be paid for with steep cuts to domestic agencies, including the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The budget proposal for fiscal 2018, which will be released in full in mid-May, amounts to the opening salvo in the budgetary battles that are set to grip Washington this year.

{mosads}President Trump called the proposed $54 billion funding jump for the Pentagon “a message to the world, in these dangerous times, of American strength, security and resolve.”

The budget blueprint won’t address ObamaCare repeal, tax reform or entitlement reform, though Trump promised to share more during his address to Congress on Tuesday evening.

“It’s going to have to do with military, safety, economic development and things such as that,” Trump said. “Great detail tomorrow.”

But Trump’s proposed $603 billion defense budget quickly met opposition from leading defense hawks in the GOP, who called it inadequate.

“With a world on fire, America cannot secure peace through strength with just 3 percent more than President Obama’s budget,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. “We can and must do better.”

That criticism was echoed by Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He said the military deserves a bigger increase to make up for years of automatic funding cuts.

“We cannot make repairing and rebuilding our military conditional on fixing our budget problems or on cutting other spending,” Thornberry said in a statement.

Thornberry and McCain are pushing for a defense budget of $640 billion.

Trump’s top-line budget, if enacted as written, would fundamentally alter the spending rules known as the sequester that were brokered in a 2011 deal between then-President Obama and Congress.
  That agreement set a cap on discretionary spending across the federal government, with lawmakers agreeing that defense and nondefense spending would have to rise and fall in tandem.

If Congress moved forward with Trump’s spending plan as drafted, the increase in defense spending could require changing the sequester — something that would require 60 votes in the Senate, and thus some Democratic support.

Yet Republicans could also seek to enact the additional defense funding through a war account that is not subject to sequestration — a tactic Republicans used in the latter years of the Obama administration.

The push for increased defense spending has long created friction in the GOP, with fiscal conservatives worried about adding to the federal debt.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a Trump supporter and chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he wouldn’t dismiss Trump’s spending hike out of hand, but also stopped short of endorsing it.

“I certainly support the president’s desire to increase funding for our national security and believe that we have critical needs that have been long ignored,” Meadows told The Hill.

“I would have to review the overall budget to see if $54 billion is justified.”

The Freedom Caucus has between 30 and 40 members, so support from its members will be critical as GOP leaders seek to pass a budget resolution this spring.

Republicans will likely have to stay unified to enact Trump’s budget vision, as his proposed cuts to nondefense spending — including to foreign aid and programs to combat climate change — are likely to be nonstarters with Democrats in both chambers.

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said Trump’s budget outline would bring nondefense discretionary spending down to $462 billion. Reaching that goal would require massive cuts to the EPA budget, foreign aid and safety net programs — all without touching Social Security or Medicare, according to Mulvaney.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted Trump’s proposal, arguing the president is putting the priorities of the wealthy ahead of struggling families.

“It is clear from this budget blueprint that President Trump fully intends to break his promises to working families by taking a meat ax to programs that benefit the middle class,” Schumer said in a statement.

“Most Americans didn’t vote to ease up on polluters, or to give Wall Street the green light to rip them off.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the White House figures “a prescription for America’s decline.”

“The president is surrendering America’s leadership in innovation, education, science and clean energy,” said Pelosi in a statement. “President Trump has decided to put Wall Street first while abandoning working families.”

Trump and his aides say government would be able to do more with less, creating a leaner, more accountable bureaucracy.

But cuts on the level that Trump is proposing are likely to cause heartburn for members of both parties, making the process politically fraught.
“It’s not easy. It’s not a layup or a chip shot to dramatically downsize government,” said Danny Werfel, a former acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

  “If your aspiration is to downsize these programs smartly, effectively, efficiently in a way that does not create confusion and concern from citizens, then it requires a fair amount of planning and execution,” said Werfel, who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations. 

Trump could also face resistance from committee chairmen who don’t want to see cuts to programs that fall under their jurisdiction. Agencies could struggle to eliminate or downsize programs under their purview without strict guidance and planning.

And the process for turning the cuts into law will be long and difficult. Even after the House and Senate enact a budget resolution, the spending cuts would have to be codified in appropriations bills or some kind of overarching spending package — both of which could be filibustered by Senate Democrats.

Scott Wong and Rebecca Kheel contributed.