President Trump's budget reveals his major priorities: Here are the highlights

WASHINGTON — White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney defended Tuesday the major cuts to social safety-net programs included in President Trump’s budget proposal, saying there’s still plenty of funding for people who truly need help.

“We are not kicking anybody off of any program who really needs it,” Mulvaney said after the White House sent Trump’s first full budget plan for fiscal year 2018 to Capitol Hill.

But there are people getting food assistance or disability payments who should be working instead, and the federal government can’t afford to spend as much on health care programs for more than the most disadvantaged, Mulvaney said.

With those and other program cuts, Trump’s proposal promises a balanced budget in 10 years while increasing funding for the president’s top priorities, including boosting national defense, building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and cutting taxes.

“They are all campaign promises the president made,” Mulvaney said.

To get there, the White House assumes the economy will grow faster than it’s projected to expand under current policies. And, budget experts say, the administration also relies on other unrealistic expectations, such as that the tax cuts won’t reduce federal revenue. It also promises to make to cuts that aren't actually detailed in the plan — and assumes future budget reductions Congress is unlikely to make.

“This one has all the gimmicks you could possibly get,” said Stan Collender, a private budget analyst.

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Because the budget does not touch the two largest federal programs — Medicare and the non-disability portion of Social Security — the approximately one-third of federal spending primarily benefiting low- and middle-income recipients would bear the brunt of the burden to balance the budget.

“Many of these programs need reform, and the goal of reducing public debt is laudable,” said G. William Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “But there is a level of unfairness in the president’s budget proposal that would be devastating to low-income families and states struggling to provide critical public services.”

During the campaign, Trump pledged not to touch Medicare of Social Security. Those programs — along with Medicaid — are the largest drivers of federal spending growth. Trump also said he would not cut Medicaid. But Mulvaney has acknowledged the House health care bill, which the president supports, would do that. The proposed cuts to safety-net programs, Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said, "betrays many voters who placed their trust in him."

Reaction on Capitol Hill was muted among some lawmakers with key roles in the budget process.

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, the New Jersey Republican who heads the House committee that writes the annual spending bills funding federal agencies, emphasized that it’s Congress — not the executive branch — that retains the “power of the purse.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who chairs the Senate committee that writes tax bills and rules for health programs like Medicaid, said his panel will examine whether Trump’s proposed cuts are sustainable in the long run.

Here’s how Trump’s budget would affect key areas:

Immigration

The budget follows through on Trump’s promises to crack down on illegal immigration by building a wall along the southwest border with Mexico and strengthening immigration enforcement throughout the country.

The Department of Homeland Security would get $44.1 billion, a 6.7% increase from the previous year. That includes increases of $1.7 billion to catch, imprison and deport undocumented immigrants; $300 million to hire 1,500 new federal immigration agents; and $2.6 billion to expand and improve the border wall. “We are absolutely dead serious about the wall,” Mulvaney said.

The Department of Justice would also get more money to hire 75 new immigration judges to help clear the years-long backlogs in the nation’s immigration courts. But one cut that is sure to upset police chiefs and sheriffs around the country is the gutting of Justice Department grants that have long helped local departments. Those grants would drop from $1.1 billion in 2017 to $636 million, including the elimination of a grant that pays local jails that hold undocumented immigrants.

National defense

The $639 billion slated for military spending would allow the Pentagon to bolster its ranks by more than 56,000 troops, buy more helicopters and trucks for the Army, boost the Navy’s fleet and pay for more stealth warplanes for the Air Force.

The White House, citing a more dangerous world, has proposed a budget that exceeds last year’s request from the Pentagon for $582 billion.

Under the spending plan for 2018, the Pentagon would spend $603 billion for weapons buying and everyday costs, and $65 billion for the wars against the Islamic State across the Middle East and the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Environmental programs

No Cabinet-level agency would absorb a bigger hit than the Environmental Protection Agency, a favorite target of President Trump and Republicans who say the EPA epitomized the over-regulation that characterized the Obama era.

The budget would cut EPA’s budget from $8.2 billion to $5.7 billion, or 31%. Few programs escape unscathed, notably programs that monitor and address climate change. Less controversial programs would see significant reductions too, including Superfund toxic waste removal (30%), categorical grants to help states monitor and comply with federal water and air standards (45%), and the program to identify and eliminate leaking underground fuel tanks.

The Trump administration would also eliminate at least 10 EPA regional programs, including the Great Lakes, Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay, created to help restore fragile ecologies in vulnerable areas.

Farm programs

Federally subsidized crop insurance programs would be cut more than one-third over the next decade, an idea unlikely to go far with farm-state lawmakers for whom the subsidies are an $8 billion a year safety net for their constituents. It would also eliminate entirely the Rural Economic Development Program, saving $6 million the first year, $154 million the next and then zeroing it out in outlying years.

On crop insurance, the proposal would limit each farmer to receiving at most $40,000 a year, for a $16.2 billion savings over 10 years, while imposing income eligibility limits that would deny subsidized crop insurance to those with more than $500,000 in adjusted gross income. It would save $11.9 billion through the elimination of the harvest price option, which protects farmers from losses if a crop’s price at harvest is higher than the guaranteed price at planting, preventing what critics contend are government-subsidized windfall profits.

Some additional revenue is expected to be achieved by establishing inspection user fees on food safety, animal and plant health and the agricultural marketing service, raising $350 million over 10 years.

Food assistance

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, widely known as food stamps, would take one of the bigger hits – a cut of $190 billion over 10 years. Mulvaney said the cuts are intended to get able-bodied adults off the program, which has ballooned since the Great Recession. And the administration also wants states to share in the cost, a move Mulvaney said would give states an incentive to make improvements.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, who chair the Agriculture committees in their respective chambers, released a statement supporting the budget’s economic growth goals but added that they will fight “to ensure farmers have a strong safety net so this key segment of our economy can weather current hard times and continue to provide Americans with safe, affordable food.” They added they will look to see nutrition assistance programs help “the most vulnerable in our society.”

Senate Agriculture ranking Democrat Debbie Stabenow of Michigan was far less amenable to the proposal, calling its planned cuts to crop insurance and SNAP “harsh and short-sighted.”

Education

Trump's proposed 13% cut to the Education Department includes eliminating a $1.2 billion afterschool and summer program that the White House says “lacks strong evidence of meeting its objectives, such as improving student achievement.” And he’d cut arts, civics, history, foreign languages, basic literacy and teacher preparation programs, among others.

Trump is also proposing cutting childcare for low-income parents attending college and eliminating a fund that underwrites anti-bullying programs, Advanced Placement courses and STEM coursework. He’d keep the same level of funding — $492 million — for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other “minority-serving” colleges.

He’d also end a Bush-era college loan forgiveness plan in which college graduates who pursue public service careers have their federal loans forgiven.

Trump would use some of the savings to spend more on one big priority: private and public school choice. Trump’s budget includes $1.4 billion more, for a total of $20 billion, allotted for choice proposals. That includes $168 million for charter schools, $250 million for a new private school choice program, and $1 billion more for districts to adopt a system of “student-based budgeting and open enrollment” that enables federal, state and local funding to follow students to the school of his or her choice. “Title I portability” is controversial, since critics say it could shift federal funding out of neighborhood public schools.

Law Enforcement

Highlighted by big boosts to immigration and violent crime enforcement, the Justice Department’s nearly $28 billion budget proposal reflects some of the Trump administration’s most popular campaign themes.

At least 300 federal prosecutors would be added to the department’s ranks, with the bulk of the new positions—230—detailed to assist with violent crime enforcement. The remaining 70 prosecutors would be assigned as part of the administration’s beefed-up border security effort.

The overall budget request, however, represents a nearly 4% decrease. A large portion of that  decline includes $700 million in past construction costs.  Yet one notable program was eliminated: the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. The $209 program was designed to reimburse local governments for assistance in deportation operations.

Despite the administration’s commitment to immigration enforcement, Justice officials said the program was expendable because of the added resources to deny illegal crossings at the border.

Drug addiction help

The president’s fiscal plan reverses a much-criticized proposal — floated by Trump administration officials earlier this month — to gut the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which directs the country’s drug prevention effort. The White House initially considered slashing the ONDCP budget by 95% and eliminating two anti-drug programs, a move that was greeted with bipartisan condemnation from Congress.

In its budget released on Tuesday, the White House still proposes small cuts to the drug-control budget — just under 3%. Even those scaled-back trims may be ignored by lawmakers eager to invest federal money into the fighting the opioid epidemic.

Energy 

The Energy Department will take a 5.6% funding cut. The National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the nation’s nuclear stockpile, which will get an 11.4% increase. But all other energy programs are targeted for an 18% cut, including the Office of Science, which funds energy research.

In addition, the Trump administration is proposing to boost government revenues by selling half of the nation’s emergency oil stockpile. The budget projects that would bring in $500 million in 2018 and $16.5 billion over the next 10 years. The administration also proposes to raise government revenues by allowing drilling in Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge. Both proposals are likely to face stiff resistance in Congress.

Contributing: Alan Gomez, Tom Vanden Brook, Ledyard King, Deirdre Shesgreen, Greg Toppo, Bartholomew Sullivan, Michael Collins, Kevin Johnson.