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Trump to Propose $4.8 Trillion Budget With More Border Wall Funding[/h]
WASHINGTON —
President Trump is expected to propose on Monday a $4.8 trillion
budget that will include billions of additional dollars for his wall along the southern border and steep cuts to safety net programs like Medicaid, disability insurance and housing assistance, according to senior administration officials and documents reviewed by The New York Times.
As a candidate, Trump promised to be a different kind of Republican. Contrary to his party, he declared, he would
raise taxes on the rich and wouldn’t cut programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that ordinary Americans rely on. At the same time, he would invest large sums in rebuilding America’s
infrastructure.
He was lying.
Trump’s only major legislative achievement was the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act. It was standard modern Republican policy: huge tax cuts for corporations, plus tax breaks that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and corporations. The only unconventional aspect of the legislation was the variety of new tax scams it made possible, like the benefits for investors in “
opportunity zones,” which were supposed to help poor communities but have actually enriched billionaire real estate developers.
He also vowed in the campaign to make healthcare better, cheaper and cover more people but his actual plan, if passed, would have imposed savage cuts on Medicaid, eliminated protections for those with pre-existing conditions and taken away health insurance from more than
30 million Americans. Thank you Joh McCain for voting NO. Swampy is now in court trying to get the ACA declared unconstitutional.
There is no hiding the same reverse Robin-Hoodism as in previous budgets: taking from the poor and middle class while giving to the rich. In other words, Trump in practice, as opposed to Trump in pretense, has turned out to be every bit as committed to trickle-down economics as Republicans in Congress have been for decades. He's just better at being a grifter -- claiming that his actual proposals are the opposite of what they'd really do.
