Budget Proposal

[Millhouse]

(03-17-2017, 11:37 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Well of course they will reject it.  They reject every President's budget.  I've never really understood why a president submits a budget.  Trump probably doesn't want to do half the crap in there, but now he can say he tried.  

Well he has to submit one because he ultimately will have to sign off on the finalized version sent back to him from Congress. Whether or not he means to actually go through with a lot of it, this is his first official stance on what he envisions the government should be spending taxpayers dollars on. 

And the kicker of it is it isnt about reducing the deficit and debt our country is in.

[GMDino]

(03-17-2017, 02:10 PM)Millhouse Wrote: Well he has to submit one because he ultimately will have to sign off on the finalized version sent back to him from Congress. Whether or not he means to actually go through with a lot of it, this is his first official stance on what he envisions the government should be spending taxpayers dollars on. 

And the kicker of it is it isnt about reducing the deficit and debt our country is in.

No conservative cares about the deficit anymore than any liberal does.  They never cut the deficit.  They just move the spending to their buddies.

[Millhouse]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/62-agencies-and-programs-trump-wants-to-eliminate/ar-BByb5tr?li=BBnb7Kz

Here is another list I found on MSN that goes through the agencies.

A common theme as I read through them was that Trump and his people could give two shits about poor people, the environment, wildlife refugee areas, museums, libraries, national heritage sites, Public Broadcasting, and the Arts.

That said there are a few things though that should either be scaled back or eliminated. The Institute of Peace, Impact Aid Support Payments for Federal Property, Abandoned Mine Land grants are three at least I wouldnt have an issue with.

[Millhouse]

(03-17-2017, 02:13 PM)GMDino Wrote: No conservative cares about the deficit anymore than any liberal does.  They never cut the deficit.  They just move the spending to their buddies.

Oh I know. Bottom line is regardless who was elected, this country will be deeper in debt after the 4 or 8 years in office. Whter it would be spending more on social programs or the military, eventually it is going to catch up to the future generations in a bad way.

[GMDino]

From 1969.

[*michaelsean*]

(03-17-2017, 01:46 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: That they are. Especially one that hasn't been getting a lot of talk, the Appalachian Regional Commission. Appalachia has some die hard red areas, but there are a lot of places in the region that are filled with Obama to Trump voters. Cutting ARC sends a message that he doesn't care about those folks.

A lot of people like the idea of small government until it results in cutting programs and agencies that they have come to rely on.

What kind of hillbilly welfare program is this?

[Belsnickel]

(03-17-2017, 02:10 PM)Millhouse Wrote: Well he has to submit one because he ultimately will have to sign off on the finalized version sent back to him from Congress. Whether or not he means to actually go through with a lot of it, this is his first official stance on what he envisions the government should be spending taxpayers dollars on. 

And the kicker of it is it isnt about reducing the deficit and debt our country is in.

Not really. His role in the budget process isn't a part of his constitutional responsibilities, it is based on a nearly hundred year-old law, The General Accounting Act of 1921. This is what created what is now known as the OMB and the GAO. The OMB is tasked with taking budget proposals from the departments, who gather them from the ground up. The OMB then funnels them to POTUS who sends it to Congress. Before that, there really was no budget process. Appropriations were made when needed by Congress and that was that. But, with the growth of the federal government in the Progressive Era and with what was to come, a budget process was needed to make sense of it all.

All of that being said, the budget is damn near ignored by Congress these days. Instead of funding the executive branch based upon their expressed "needs," they give them some of what they want and then start looking for pork-barrels, earmarks, and then the ever present logrolling brings it full circle.

[GMDino]

Quote:Trump Budget Director Defends Blueprint That Won't Balance

Provided by NBCU News Group, a division of NBCUniversal Media LLC
WASHINGTON — President Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney on Sunday defended the administration's budget blueprint for not reducing the federal deficit — despite his past reputation as a deficit hawk member of Congress.

"Keep in mind, the administration is different than members of the Hill, the members of the House and the Senate," Mulvaney told host Chuck Todd on "Meet The Press."

"Every House member, which I used to be, has a constituency," said Mulvaney. "We have a group of people we represent. Senators represent the whole state. There's also a lot of special interests, a lot of lobbying involved. The president's not beholden to any of that. The president represents everybody."

Mulvaney estimates that if the president's budget were to be approved by Congress, that the deficit would remain the same as it is now. On the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump repeatedly promised to balance the budget "quickly," and at one point, even made a pledge to get rid of the federal debt in eight years.

Mulvaney also pointed out that the current proposal is more of a spending outline, and that the administration will be introducing a full budget in May, with a longer budget window and other policy changes.

"We won't be able to balance the budget this year but we are working on trying to get it to balance within the 10 year budget window, which is what Republicans in the House, the Senate have traditionally done the last couple of years."

He did not know about a timeline for when the administration would be able to introduce a balanced budget.

"We don't know yet," he said. "We don't know what health care reform will look like, what it will do to the budget. We don't know what tax reform will look like, will do to the budget. We haven't finished the infrastructure program yet. Those are the really, really big picture items that we won't know more about for a couple months."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-budget-director-defends-blueprint-that-wont-balance/ar-BBynVWM

[Belsnickel]

I think the most disgusting thing was Mulvaney saying it was kind to Trump's supporters, when it literally will take food out of their mouths.

Anyway, moving past that and to the whole thing about not making it deficit neutral. This document is nothing more than setting policy priorities. No one with any knowledge and understanding of how this all works thinks that this is actually a budget, let alone the one that will pass through Congress. What this document does is send a message to the people of what the priorities are for the administration. This means that you can be as pie in the sky as you want to be ambitious and set out a deficit neutral skinny budget, then do it, because what Congress wants means absolutely nothing to this. He's already handing them a political nightmare to defend because of cuts to very popular programs among his supporters.

[GMDino]

Contains a breif, NSFW moment.

[GMDino]

Quote:Trump budget chief who wants to cut Meals on Wheels says he is sacrificing by giving up business cards



When it comes to cutting the budget, President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have proposed significant cuts to federal spending that helps the least among us. Severe cuts will come from programs that help poor seniors, military children, education, health and more. At the same time, Trump is still using $3 million each weekend in taxpayer dollars to vacation at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.

“You could always attack a budget for being political, right?” White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told “Face The Nation” host John Dickerson Sunday. “In fact, we — we are going to do so. But keep in mind who the president wrote the budget for. He — he wrote the budget for everybody. We’ve heard a lot of criticism, for example, about different line items in the — in the budget blueprint from members of Congress. That’s to be expected. I used to be a member of Congress. I used to represent 700,000 people. And my first job was to represent their best interests. We had special interests at play on The Hill. We had lobbyists at play on The Hill. The president wrote this budget without consideration for those things, without being beholden to anybody except the people, and that’s who this budget is written for.”

(READ MORE: Trump’s new budget cuts millions from Small Business Administration)

Dickerson couldn’t see how the president squares this kind of budgeting while claiming that he’s writing the budget for “the people.”

“If you think about the coal miner and the single mom, doesn’t saving begin at home?” Dickerson asked. “I mean, there are things the president can do to cut back on his own using that text… The coal miner doesn’t get to fly down to Mar-a-Lago either.”

Mulvaney agreed that he knew the bill would hurt children and prevent them from having access to nutritional food from organizations like Meals on Wheels, but he wants people to know he’s suffering too.

“Yes,” he began. “I don’t have a business card to give to you today, John, because, at the Office of Management and Budget, we have to pay for our own business cards. So it does start at home but it’s already started.”

Watch below at the 5:15-minute mark:

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/trump-budget-chief-who-wants-to-cut-meals-on-wheels-says-he-is-sacrificing-by-giving-up-business-cards/?comments=disqus

[BmorePat87]

$20b spending bill today for Mars exploration.

I like science and all, but this guy's budget director just said a few days ago that we need to cut a few hundred million towards feeding kids because tax payers don't want their taxes wasted.


Would that single mom of 2 from Detroit really want this over her kids getting food and after school programs?

[*michaelsean*]

(03-21-2017, 05:47 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: $20b spending bill today for Mars exploration.

I like science and all, but this guy's budget director just said a few days ago that we need to cut a few hundred million towards feeding kids because tax payers don't want their taxes wasted.


Would that single mom of 2 from Detroit really want this over her kids getting food and after school programs?

The mother from Detroit may view Mars exploration as a potential opportunity to move her kids to a nicer place.

[Vas Deferens]

(03-21-2017, 06:43 PM)michaelsean Wrote: The mother from Detroit may view Mars exploration as a potential opportunity to move her kids to a nicer place.

Yeah maybe they should just pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get themselves to mars while Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, general dynamics and UTC piss away billions colluding over corporate welfare contracts.

Sounds about right.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(03-21-2017, 05:47 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: $20b spending bill today for Mars exploration.

I like science and all, but this guy's budget director just said a few days ago that we need to cut a few hundred million towards feeding kids because tax payers don't want their taxes wasted.


Would that single mom of 2 from Detroit really want this over her kids getting food and after school programs?

That seems a little misleading.

https://www.google.com/amp/abcnews.go.com/amp/Technology/wireStory/trump-signs-bill-authorizing-nasa-funding-mars-exploration-46278588

According to ABC, the bill is for NASA's 2017 budget which adds exploring Mars to its list of goals. They also quoted Ted Cruz stating it's the first such bill in seven years. Where the hell was NASA getting their funding?

Also, $20 billion for NASA isn't even half of the proposed increase in (unnecessary) military spending.

PS Although that's a shitload of meals on wheels.