Facts
On Monday, February 10th, President Trump released his federal budget proposal for 2020. The President’s proposal for a $4.8 trillion budget is geared towards continuing to build up the nation’s military while proposing cuts for things like student loan assistance and Medicaid. A Presidential budget proposal is essentially a policy tool to promote the President’s agenda. As is the past, President Trump will likely continue to make deals with both sides of the aisle that will result in spending growth for both the military and social programs.
Left
The Left was generally critical of Trump’s budget proposal. The Washington Post stated, “Trump’s budget is a tremendous fraud – and it lays tremendous waste to his promises.” Uncharacteristically, the Left has criticized the President’s failure to balance the budget. Critics also noted that the President’s proposal continues to increase military spending (up $459 million) while making cuts to entitlements like Medicare.
Right
Reviews of Trump’s budget from the Right are mixed. Generally, the Right supports Trump’s plan to increase defense spending, but even many of his supporters believe spending cuts should be much greater and the President should make more of an effort to balance the budget. Executive Editor of the Washington Examiner, Philip Klein was critical of the budget process in general and wrote, “ To be clear, the Trump budget has no chance of becoming law, because Congress has already signed an agreement that will allow lawmakers to punt on the spending issue until after the 2020 election. There’s little reason to believe that Trump will fight hard for any of the spending reductions he’s outlined in the latest budget document. In the past several years, he has proposed budgets vowing to make deep cuts to discretionary spending and to restore fiscal sanity, only to sign whatever Congress sends to him
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