Reverend William Barber, Dr Liz Theoharis & Lindsay Koshgarian, Guardian - With this budget, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and disperses fully $750bn to the military. Out of every taxpayer dollar, in other words, 62 cents go to the military and our militarized Department of Homeland Security. (Veterans’ benefits take another seven cents.)
That leaves just 31 cents for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe drinking water and clean air, health and science research, and the prevention of war through diplomacy and humanitarian aid.
The budget also cuts billions from non-discretionary anti-poverty programs outside of this $1tn. Medicaid and food stamps would be cut and disfigured beyond recognition.
At every turn, the Trump budget finds vast billions for militarization, while it cuts much smaller poverty and other programs, claiming the goal is to save money.
It includes $164bn in war funding, but it cuts $4.7bn in economic development and food assistance to other nations. It finds $14bn for a vanity project military branch called the space force, while it cuts $1.2bn for a program that’s built and preserved more than 1m affordable homes. It includes $11bn for contractor Lockheed Martin to build more F-35 jet fighters, but it cuts $3.7bn in heating and cooling assistance for 6m poor households.
And it includes more than $12bn for a wall at our border, while it cuts $1bn for Job Corps, the program that provides yearly training and work experience to 50,000 poor (and mostly black) youths.
The budget falsely claims to adhere to strict spending limits set by Congress for the military. But it hides an extra $174bn for the Pentagon in plain sight by adding it to a war spending account – despite the fact that the president has said he wants to bring back thousands of troops from Syria and Afghanistan. This gimmick brings total military spending all the way up to $750bn, even while the administration claims it is cutting the base Pentagon budget.
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