Sanders: Trump budget ‘must be defeated’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday attacked President Trump’s first federal budget blueprint, saying it “must be defeated.”

“Far from compassionate, Trump’s budget — if enacted — would be one of the cruelest in American history,” he said in a series of tweets Monday. “It must be defeated.”

Sanders also slammed Trump’s proposed budget for cutting funds to various children’s programs.

{mosads}“The budget could cut as much as $1 billion from Head Start, meaning some 95,000 children will be thrown out of early education & child care,” he tweeted.

“His budget eliminates the 21^st Century Community Learning Program — leaving 1.1 million kids in the streets or home alone after school,” the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate added.

Trump released his first federal budget blueprint earlier this month, revealing a plan to dramatically shrink the size of government.

The document called for deep cuts at departments and agencies, potentially eliminating entire programs and slashing the size of the federal workforce. Trump’s budget would eliminate programs that assist the poor, fund climate change research and science and provide aid to foreign nations.

Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said last week that Trump’s supporters would find a lot to like in the plan. 

“The president knows who his voters are,” he said during a March 19 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “His voters are folks who pay taxes as well.”

“And I think for the first time in a long time, you have an administration that is looking at the compassion of both sides of the equation,” Mulvaney, a former GOP representative from South Carolina, added.

Sanders on Monday challenged Mulvaney’s remarks about the document’s “compassion,” citing its potential impact on a single mother in Detroit as an example.

“’Compassion’ from Trump for this single mother means $6.2 billion in cuts to affordable housing, which could force her out of her apartment,” he wrote.

“Trump’s 31% cut to the [Environmental Protection Agency] means this woman’s children would likely be breathing dirtier air and drinking contaminated water.”

Presidential budget requests are only a guide for Congress, which controls the power of the purse and usually passes its own spending plan.