Trump Budget Cuts HHS, NIH; Spares Medicare & Social Security
President Donald Trump’s first budget blueprint slashes HHS spending by 18 percent for fiscal year 2018.
The plan released today sets HHS’s budget at $69 billion, a decline of roughly $15 billion from 2017, and proposes cuts across various agencies, including a $6 billion cut to the NIH and a $403 million cut in health workforce training programs….
The NIH funding cuts could run into resistance even from Republicans on Capitol Hill. Key GOP appropriators in the House and Senate have voiced support for increasing the agency’s budget for next year.
Overall, Trump’s budget includes a $54 billion boost in defense spending that is offset by reductions to nonmilitary programs across the federal government, including deep cuts to the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency..
The budget won’t touch Medicare and Social Security as Trump promised during his campaign, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters Wednesday.
Politico Rachel Pradham
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President Trump on Thursday will unveil a budget plan that calls for a sharp increase in military spending and stark cuts across much of the rest of the government including the elimination of dozens of long-standing federal programs that assist the poor, fund scientific research and aid America’s allies abroad.
Trump’s first budget proposal, which he named “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” would increase defense spending by $54 billion and then offset that by stripping money from more than 18 other agencies.
Trump’s budget would not take effect until the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, but the president must still reach a separate agreement with Congress by the end of April, when a temporary funding bill expires. If they can’t reach an agreement, and if Trump’s new budget plan widens fault lines, then the chances would increase for a partial government shutdown starting on April 29.
The president and Congress must also raise the debt ceiling, which has become a politically fraught ritual. Although the ceiling was extended until March 15, budget experts say the government should be able to continue borrowing money by suspending or stretching out payments through August or September.
Trump has said he wants to eliminate all disease, but the budget chops funding for the National Institutes of Health by $5.8 billion, or close to 20 percent.
It also proposed abolishing the Community Development Block Grant program, which provides roughly $3 billion for targeted projects related to affordable housing, community development and homelessness programs, among other things….
Wall Street Journal By Damian Paletta and Steven Mufson