Trump's 2020 budget an unlikely wish list in divided Congress

[GMDino]

Reading his requests makes me think of Frank Drebin calling balls and strikes.  When he realizes he gets cheers for certain things he goes completely over the top with no sense of what a fool he looks like.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/03/11/donald-trumps-budget-calls-billions-more-border-wall/3072621002/

Quote:President Donald Trump called for deep cuts in environmental and safety net programs, billions more for his border wall and a huge boost for the military in a $4.75 trillion proposed 2020 budget that is unlikely to gain any traction in Congress.  



Trump delivered his first budget under a divided government Monday, a road map that would not balance the books for 15 years despite billions in cuts. The proposal calls for $8.6 billion more for his border wall, a request Democrats immediately rejected. 


Even before Democrats claimed control of the House in last year’s midterm election, similar proposals from Trump failed in Congress. The schism between the president's wish list and the actual spending of taxpayer money only deepened after a dispute over the border wall led to a 35-day government shutdown that ended in January. 


"This is not a serious proposal," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.   


Presidential budgets, required by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, have been widely viewed for decades as having more to do with politics than fiscal policy. With the 2020 election already underway, the document gives the president an opportunity to lay out a vision for the country that he can trumpet to his supporters.

What Trump wants
The White House is are eager to sell three messages with the president's third budget: that Trump hasn’t given up on building his long-promised border wall, that he wants to increase military spending and that he hopes to slash just about everything else.


The president requested $8.6 billion more for his wall, just weeks after Congress failed to approve his demand for $5.7 billion. With both sides dug in on the issue, the latest proposal is certain to go nowhere. Trump declared a national emergency in February, a move the White House says will free up billions for the wall.

Trump is also requesting billions more in spending at the Defense Department – one of the few priorities that could gain some attention from lawmakers. After initially considering Pentagon cuts last year, the White House embraced a proposal to increase the Defense Department’s budget 5 percent to $750 billion.



Other proposals include: 


• A $2.8 billion, or 31 percent reduction in for the Environmental Protection Agency and a $327 billion cut to safety-net programs. Some of that reduction would be carried out by imposing a work requirement for food stamps, Medicaid and other programs. 


• A new user fee on e-cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery system products to "address today’s alarming rise in youth e-cigarette use."

• Nearly $315 million to hire an additional 1,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 128 immigration court prosecuting attorneys.


• Almost $300 million toward the goal eliminating nearly all new infections of HIV/AIDS within 10 years. 


Why it won't happen
Trump has proposed many of those same changes before, without much success. Last year’s budget, which came at a time when Republicans controlled both the House and Senate, included $18 billion for the border wall. His 2017 budget proposed eliminating 62 federal agencies entirely. Congress largely ignored those requests, and many others.


None of those agencies were eliminated and lawmakers approved only $1.37 billion for border barriers. That partly reflects a politically divided Congress but also the fact that the president's nonbinding budget has always been viewed mostly as a wish list. 


Government printers published about 20,000 hard copies of the president's budget, and a spokesman for the Government Publishing Office says the online version of the document averages about 2 million retrievals each year.


The president’s budget must include detailed information about how much the government collected in taxes and other revenue, the public debt and proposed spending priorities. But the real work of spending taxpayer money, is handled by the congressional appropriations process. And that means Democrats and Republicans must work together to decide which programs should be prioritized.


But even Republicans remained noncommittal about the White House proposals.  


“I look forward to reviewing additional details," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, 


"Throughout the next few months, the (committee) will conduct hearings and carefully review the president’s proposal."