How President Donald Trump’s proposed $4.1 trillion federal spending plan would affect individual government agencies.
How President Donald Trump’s proposed $4.1 trillion federal spending plan would affect individual government agencies.
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AGRICULTURE
Up or down? Down 5 percent
Highlight: The proposed budget would limit subsidies to farmers, including a cut in government help for purchasing crop insurance. Crop insurance is overwhelmingly popular program with farm-state senators in both parties, and previous farm bills have only increased spending. The budget would also limit spending on environmentally friendly conservation programs and some rural development dollars that help small towns build infrastructure.
Trump isn’t the first president to try to limit farm subsidies. Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush also proposed major reductions, but farm-state lawmakers have always kept them going. The Republican chairmen of the Senate and House agriculture committees both said Tuesday they oppose Trump’s proposed cuts.
Total spending: $132.3 billion.
Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $18 billion.
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COMMERCE
Up or down? Down 15.4 percent
Highlight: The budget would eliminate three economic development agencies and several grant programs aimed at preserving the environment and dealing with climate change. The Minority Business Development Agency, the Economic Development Administration and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership would be eliminated.
The budget would also eliminate several grant programs run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: the Sea Grant, the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, Coastal Zone Management Grants, the Office of Education and the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund.
Total spending: $8 billion.
Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $7.8 billion.
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DEFENSE
Up or down? Up 3.3 percent
Highlight: The Pentagon’s proposed 2018 budget would fund increases of almost 43,000 in the size of the active duty military and 13,000 in the Reserves. It provides troops a 2.1 percent pay raise, adds F/A-18 fighter jets and seeks a new round of base closures, which Congress routinely rejects. It also increases the amount of money used for training Afghan forces and conducting counterterror operations in Afghanistan. The budget includes $64.6 billion for military operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Africa.
Total spending: $647 billion.
Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $639.1 billion.
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EDUCATION
Up or down? Down 46.9 percent
Highlight: Eliminates after-school and teacher training programs, ends subsidized federal student loans and loan forgiveness programs for public servants, funds year-round Pell grants and expands funding for school choice for low-income students.
Total spending: $61 billion
Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $59 billion
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ENERGY
Up or Down? Down 5.7 percent
Highlight: Trump’s budget would sell off nearly half the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 270 million barrels, over the next 10 years as a way to reduce the budget deficit. The reserve is an emergency fuel storage maintained underground in Louisiana and Texas. Budget director Mick Mulvaney said the sale would not cause a security risk because of an increase in oil production from fracking. The administration says the plan would bring in a projected $17 billion over 10 years.
The budget also would hike spending for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is responsible for maintaining the nuclear stockpile, while cutting other energy spending. The budget seeks $120 million to revive the mothballed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which is hugely unpopular in Nevada and was largely stopped by the efforts of former Democratic Sen. Harry Reid.
Total spending: $28 billion
Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $28 billion
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Up or down? Down 31 percent.
Highlight: The budget cuts EPA by nearly one-third, eliminating more than 3,800 jobs while imposing dramatic cuts to clean air and water programs. Adjusted for inflation, the proposed budget would represent the nation’s lowest funding for environmental protection since the mid-1970s. The Superfund pollution cleanup program would be cut by $330 million, to $762 million.
Total spending: $5.7 billion.
Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $5.7 billion.
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HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Up or down? Down 1.3 percent
Highlight: The budget initiates deep cuts to health insurance programs for people with modest incomes, including coverage for children. Those cuts would go beyond the House GOP bill that repeals much of the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare, ” and limits future federal financing for Medicaid.
Total spending: $1.1 trillion
Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $65.3 billion
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HOMELAND SECURITY
Up or down? Down 3.2 percent
Highlight: The budget asks Congress for $2.6 billion for border security that would include a down payment for Trump’s long-promised wall and increased technology along the U. S.-Mexican border. The budget calls for $314 million to hire 500 new Border Patrol agents and 1,000 agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It also requests a $1.5 billion increase for ICE to arrest, detain and deport immigrants in the country illegally. The plan also proposes cutting about $667 million in grants administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That includes proposed cuts to the Urban Area Security Initiative and eliminating the Transportation Security Administration’s law enforcement grants.
Total spending: $49.4 billion
Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $44.1 billion
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HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Up or down? Down 22.9 percent
Highlight: The budget would eliminate HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program, a $3 billion effort that funds local improvement projects, affordable housing construction and other social supports like meals for seniors and enrichment programs for low-income children. The budget proposal says the program is not well targeted to poor populations and hasn’t showed measurable impact on communities. The administration’s budget also seeks to cut costs to the department’s rental assistance programs — a $2 billion decrease to $35.2 billion. Rental assistance programs comprise about 80 percent of the agency’s total funding.
Total spending: $40 billion.
Estimated spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $40 billion.
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INTERIOR
Up or Down? Down 9.2 percent
Highlight: The budget calls for opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, where it is now prohibited, while eliminating offshore oil revenues used by Gulf Coast states to restore disappearing shorelines. Arctic drilling, a contentious issue that would require congressional approval, would generate an estimated $400 million a year in tax revenues by 2022, according to the White House. Elimination of revenue-sharing to the four Gulf Coast states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — would generate $1.6 billion over the next five years, the document says. The proposal also includes money for seismic surveys to provide data for possible offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean where it is now barred.
The budget would cut $10 million from a program to manage wild horses and burros in the West and allow the Bureau of Land Management to sell or euthanize thousands of horses that now roam in Nevada, Oregon and other western states. More than 70,000 wild horses and burros roam federal lands across the West, a number that officials call unsustainable.
Total spending: $12.5 billion
Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $11.7 billion
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JUSTICE
Up or down? Down 19.1 percent
Highlight: The budget adds $26 million for 300 new assistant U. S. attorneys to fight gangs, violent crime and illegal immigration.
