Trump’s proposed budget reveals clear differences with major rivals

President Trump’s new proposed $4.8 trillion federal budget calling for non-defense spending cuts and no tax increases succeeded Monday in highlighting clear election-year differences with his major Democratic rivals, who vowed to kill the plan.

Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, who led in final polls heading into Tuesday’s New Hampshire presidential primary, said he would do everything he can on the Senate Budget Committee to stop the president’s fiscal priorities. Mr. Sanders favors taxpayer-funded college tuition and canceling student loan debt.

“At a time when 43 million Americans hold a collective $1.5 trillion in student debt, the Trump budget cuts $170 billion from college affordability programs,” Mr. Sanders said. “And at a time when we face an existential threat from climate change, the Trump budget maintains billions in subsidies for fossil fuel corporations while slashing the EPA by over 26% next year.”

The budget proposal calls for another $2 billion to build the border wall. Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg called Mr. Trump’s immigration policies “ineffective, wasteful and cruel.”

Other proposals that have become mainstream in the Democratic primary include Medicare-for-all and a shift away from U.S. fossil fuel production in favor of green energy, two more areas where Mr. Trump differs vastly from his rivals.

The president’s spending blueprint proposes reforms to Medicare that he said would save $290 billion over 10 years to improve the entitlement programs solvency. The White House also said the budget “recognizes and supports the emergence of the United States as a top producer of energy in the world,” largely by seeking further regulation cuts for the industry.

There are other proposals sure to find favor among conservatives. For example, Mr. Trump proposes to cut the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from its current annual level of $465 million to $30 million.

The fiscal 2021 spending blueprint, which would need to be approved by Congress, calls for non-defense cuts of 5%. It would slash funding for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development by $12 billion, or 21%.

Among other agencies that would be cut are the Commerce Department, 37%; the EPA, 26%; Housing and Urban Development, 15%; the Interior Department, 13%; and the Education Department, about 8%.

Departments and agencies targeted for increases include Homeland Security, NASA and the Pentagon.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized Mr. Trump for proposing “savage” cuts to Medicare and Medicaid in his new budget for fiscal 2021.

“The budget is a statement of values and once again the president is showing just how little he values the good health, financial security and well-being of hard-working American families,” Mrs. Pelosi said. “Less than a week after promising to protect families’ health care in his State of the Union address, the president is now brazenly inflicting savage multi-billion-dollar cuts to Medicare and Medicaid — at the same time that he is fighting in federal court to destroy protections for people with pre-existing conditions and dismantle every other protection and benefit of the Affordable Care Act.”

The budget calls for Medicare to grow by 6% and Medicaid to increase by 3%, acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said Monday.

In a meeting with the nation’s governors at the White House, Mr. Trump insisted, “We’re not touching Medicare. We want to keep Medicare. We’re not touching Social Security.”

Mr. Vought said there are some “changes to mandatory programs,” such as lowering the cost of a CAT scan under Medicare and lowering the cost of prescription drugs.

Democrats also criticized the proposed cuts in foreign aid as “reckless.” Mr. Trump has proposed such cuts annually but has previously backed down in the face of opposition from lawmakers in both parties.

The White House proposes to cut spending by $4.4 trillion over a decade, saying it would put the government on a path to balance the budget in 15 years. The proposed cuts include $2 trillion in savings from mandatory programs, such as $130 billion from changes to Medicare prescription-drug pricing, and $292 billion from safety-net cuts such as expanded work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps.

Romina Boccia, director of the The Heritage Foundation’s center on the federal budget, said the budget proposal takes steps toward “achieving sustainable fiscal policy.”

“At a time when the government is running trillion-dollar deficits while the economy is growing, the president offers Congress a path to balance the federal budget in 15 years,” she said. “President Trump’s budget reduces debt as a percentage of the economy while continuing to keep taxes low, improves health care choices, continues to invest in the armed forces and national security, and takes important steps towards meaningfully reducing the growth in mandatory spending.”

But Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the spending plan “doesn’t make sense.”

“Specious spending reductions, juiced economic growth projections, and dubious estimates that extended tax cuts pay for themselves, are not a recipe for fiscal responsibility,” he said. “Spending increases today coupled with unrealistic promised restraint tomorrow will not achieve a government that operates within its means.”

He noted that Mr. Trump and Congress have allowed annual deficits to climb faster than the economy.

“During this administration, the deficit grew from 3% of GDP in 2016 to 3.4% in 2017 to 3.8% in 2018 and 4.6% in 2019. During that same period GDP has gone from $18.7 trillion to $21.4 trillion,” he said. “This budget request, once again, promises to turn the tide. Yet the administration has thus far shown no dedication to its responsible budgetary outlines. Instead, over the past few years it has readily agreed to big increases in both domestic and defense spending while forcing steep revenue cuts.”