Is this what you want?


The Trump budget:

War is up!

$639 billion in total defense spending, including both base budget and Overseas Contingency Operations (the war budget) — a $52 billion increase.

Increases of 7 percent and 6 percent, respectively, for the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Veterans Affairs. That includes funding for a border wall, $1.5 billion more to remove undocumented immigrants, $314 million to hire more Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and a $667 million reduction in grants to state and local governments, including FEMA grants.

Science is down.

Huge cuts to medical and science research spending, including a $6 billion or 18 percent reduction in the National Institutes for Health budget, a $900 million cut to the Energy Department’s Office of Science, a $250 million cut to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grants for research and education, and eliminating the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

A 31 percent cut in the Environmental Protection Agency budget, from $8.2 billion down to $5.7 billion, the lowest level (after adjusting for inflation) in 40 years and below where even congressional Republicans wanted it. More than 50 programs would be eliminated, as would 3,200 jobs. Specifically, the budget “discontinues funding for the Clean Power Plan, international climate change programs, climate change research and partnership programs, and related efforts,” and reduces Superfund cleanup funding.

Art is to be eliminated.

Total elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Legal Services Corporation, the United States Institute of Peace, and 14 other agencies.

Follow the money, people. This is a president who wants to gut the country and start a war to distract us.

Comments

  1. rietpluim says

    Wow. The US defense budget is already bigger than the next 7 or 8 countries combined (I’ve read different numbers, but it’s still BIG) and still it’s not enough?

    Stupid people, think they’re only safe with a gun under their pillow, and still scared.

  2. dhabecker says

    Hey! You people knew what you were going to get when you elected him………insanity with a handful of pussy! Are we Great yet?

  3. dhabecker says

    Trump says our military has been destroyed under Obama. The opposite is true.
    • The US has 19 aircraft carriers, 10 of those are nuclear powered Nimitz class; plus 2 Gerald Ford class under construction with 7 more ordered. Each of the big carriers has a fleet of escort vessels and about 75 aircraft.
    • There is only one other nuclear powered carrier, owned by France. No one else has one. The Russians used to have two conventional powered carriers, but sold one to the Chinese so that they now have one each.
    • US has 18 Ohio class missile subs carrying 24 missiles each plus 36 Los Angeles class attack subs
    • Russia has maybe 6 missile subs and 4 attack active.
    • UK and China have about the same as Russia
    • US; 13,444 military aircraft. Russia; 3,547. China; 2,942
    • Active military manpower: China; 2,335,000. US; 1,400,000 then India then Russia at 766,000
    • Nuclear warheads: Russia has more active; 1,880 to 1,400 give or take. Ours are better and better able to be delivered so that we can each kill the other by a factor of say, 20. Check out Tsar Bomba
    • We spend over 1 trillion dollars per year on national defense; more than just about everyone else combined yet Trump wants a 10% increase. Crazy

  4. dhabecker says

    Trump’s next tweet will warn that an army of giant land walking squid have been developed by a crazed Professor in Minnesota! We need a bigger army!!!!!

  5. cartomancer says

    This is what really depresses me about the modern world – large numbers of people are actively working to make it worse. I can just about cope with things getting worse through decay or neglect or the random fluctuations of circumstance, but when human beings set their minds and resources not to improving the world but to ruining it… there are few words that can do the depression justice.

  6. Snoof says

    Follow the money, people. This is a president who wants to gut the country and start a war to distract us.

    And judging by his behaviour so far, fill his own pockets while he’s at it.

  7. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    Yes this country is so unsafe, so everyone needs a gun to protect themselves, this country has the most deaths by gun per person so everyone needs a gin to protect themselves./sarc
    Never seeing the internal contradictions within that attitude. “Guns are dangerous so we need guns for safety” *i roll my eyes*

  8. robro says

    It’s not just this president, of course. Don’t forget the oil moguls, investment bankers (Goldman-Sachs), politicians, and other globalization billionaires in the oligarchy that are in a position to make a huge amount of money. Not just because of defense spending, but policies that they are determining that directly improve their financial positions.

  9. cartomancer says

    Congenital cynic, #8

    I would suggest you also take advantage of those nifty little “concealed curry” laws your country has, to whip out a lamb biriani in public.

  10. Ed Seedhouse says

    I would say “this way lies madness” except you are. apparently, already there.

  11. says

    Partially cross posted from the Political Madness All the Time thread:

    Trump’s budget cuts both meals on wheels and home-heating assistance funds for low-income people. Poor, elderly, and disabled people he does not manage to starve may freeze to death in the winter.

  12. raven says

    War is good for business.
    Trump’s brain, Bannon thinks (for imaginary values of thinking):
    1. We will have a war between civilizations, 1.4 billion Muslims versus 2.1 billion xians.
    2. A war with China, the other superpower.

    This is all gibbering nonsense.
    The Muslims aren’t a unified block and spend a huge amount of time fighting, among themselves.
    A war with China would destroy both us, them, and much of the world.

    It’s more likely we will start a war with someone much smaller, as usual. Maybe Iran, Lebanon, Iraq again, Grenada if anyone can find it on a map, North Korea, Russia, etc..
    I’m expecting at least one somewhere.

  13. raven says

    The budget is appalling but not as bad as it could be.
    Cutting those programs while increasing the military means, we are able to defend something that isn’t worth defending any more.

    Huge cuts to medical and science research spending, including a $6 billion or 18 percent reduction in the National Institutes for Health budget…

    NIH has a large budget for one reason.
    Even Tea Party moron politicians get sick and die.
    NIH is a big part of the reason why our life spans are long and getting longer.
    They are literally cutting their own throats here.

  14. quotetheunquote says

    Hair Furor, a.k.a. #45, is not so much Hitler as Generalissimo Leopoldo Galtieri (albeit with a much, much, much bigger budget). I expect his next move with be to go to war with New Brunswick to take Machias Seal Island back.

    No doubt all those nuclear-powered carriers would come in handy for this operation.
    [/snark]

  15. anchor says

    They wanted to own the world and now that they think they possess it they’re looking to own the future…

    Except there ain’t gonna be much of it left to own.

  16. chigau (違う) says

    Everyone in the USA should join the armed forces. Everyone.
    Food, shelter, clothing are all supplied.
    Full training and employment.
    Opportunities for travel.
    etc.
    That’s where the money is going, might as well follow it.

  17. Dunc says

    Poor, elderly, and disabled people he does not manage to starve may freeze to death in the winter.

    I believe that’s what passes for a Republican healthcare plan.

  18. anchor says

    #18: and have to listen to those morbid goddamned hymns? Honestly? I’d rather kill myself.

  19. blf says

    @18 reminds me of the “Join the Army, Travel to Foreign Lands, Meet Interesting People, and kill them” signs of some years ago.

  20. says

    Eliminating support for the arts is bad enough, but abolishing the Legal Services Corporation, which provides most of the funding for non-criminal legal aid throughout the country, will be devastating for poor folks with legal troubles.

  21. busterggi says

    Trump is crazy enough to start WW III.

    Maybe he really did become a Christian?

  22. tkreacher says

    aaronbaker #23

    Eliminating support for the arts is bad enough, but abolishing the Legal Services Corporation, which provides most of the funding for non-criminal legal aid throughout the country, will be devastating for poor folks with legal troubles.

    While increasing DHS and anti-immigrant laws which, combined with gutting legal-defense for the poor, allows us to line the pockets of corporations through private prisons *and* round up a shit load of brown people in the process.

    For them that’s win win win, win win win win.

  23. unclefrogy says

    in making budgets and policy it is easy ignore how and why things got the way they are. It is easy to ignore history.
    The budget is an appalling mistake, it reduces the overall strength of the people to strengthen the military which even as proposed will probably not even achieve their desired results. The military is made of human beings and it is very easy to stretch it past the breaking point. It is something lazy politicians seem all to prone to do.
    Add the reducing of financial regulations to the distorted budget the only thing I can see ahead will be a colossal economic disaster that could make the 30’s look tame by comparison the only real question is when will it happen and what will set it off.
    uncle frogy

  24. daved says

    It has just occurred to me that Trump may very well be doing what Obama should have been doing all along, just from the right. One of Obama’s big mistakes was that his *starting* point would be to lay out what he actually wanted. Then he’d inevitably be dragged to the right when the bargaining started.

    Trump may very well be starting from a point that he knows he’s not going to get, figuring that “doing the deal” will put him more where he actually wants to be. That’s more what I’d expect from a businessman (not that Trump is a particularly good one).

  25. unclefrogy says

    what I’d expect from a businessman (not that Trump is a particularly good one).

    his record is one of a businessman who made it a habit of going bankrupt
    this budget continues along the same lines his tax proposals also support his record of business management practices
    we will see if the republican will go along with him for their own selfish reasons or be more reasonable.
    I see little reason to be optimistic.
    uncle frogy

  26. raven says

    I seem to remember an empire that spent too much on their military and not enough on their people.
    They collapsed.
    Hmmm, I think it was called…the USSR.

  27. What a Maroon, living up to the 'nym says

    chigau @18,

    Prison offers many of the same benefits. And Jeff Sessions seems to want to provide that opportunity to an ever-increasing population.

  28. says

    What a Maroon @ 32:

    Prison offers many of the same benefits. And Jeff Sessions seems to want to provide that opportunity to an ever-increasing population.

    Yes. Yes, he does.

  29. vucodlak says

    @ chigau (違う), comment #18

    That was pretty much my plan until my late teens. Alas, I didn’t figure the army and navy would particularly want someone who came preloaded with PTSD (among other things). In 2002, when I turned 18, that was probably true. If I’d tried to join up a couple of years later, I’d probably have gotten in, despite being noticeably more fucked-in-the-head.

    In another couple of years, I may get another shot, despite being in my mid-30’s and staggeringly unfit. They’ll probably be taking anybody who knows which end of a rifle to point at somebody else, just to keep our heads above water in Trumpco’s wars.

    I am not optimistic about the future.

  30. What a Maroon, living up to the 'nym says

    Caine,

    Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. It’s bad enough that recreational users are targeted, but it’s absolutely unconscionable that they’re going after people with medical needs.

    (Note to self: I have to start hanging out at your place more often.)

  31. chigau (違う) says

    I don’t see why the armed forces should have any choice in who to enlist.
    The militaryses should be obliged to take everyone then train and place everyone where they are best suited.
    Feeding, clothing and housing them the whole time.

  32. codeslinger2001 says

    Here’s my question: what happens when the USD collapses? China is moving to give the world an alternative for the carry trade, and (I believe) within ten years the USD is going to be seriously weakened, and (again I believe) within 20 years the USD will no longer the currency of international trade. How is that massive military going to be maintained with no tax base, and without the rest of the world subsidizing the US dollar?

  33. Knabb says

    Remember all those promises to build infrastructure, the one part of the Trump platform that was halfway reasonable? The Department of Transportation and HUD are taking a 13% cut, the Department of the Interior a 12% cut, because clearly there’s excess there when the budget can’t even handle basic maintenance and the ASCE is handing out D ratings left and right.

  34. codeslinger2001 says

    @John Morales:
    Every empire believes that before they fall. When to money to pay for the legions is no more, so are the legions.

  35. ck, the Irate Lump says

    Knabb wrote:

    Remember all those promises to build infrastructure, the one part of the Trump platform that was halfway reasonable?

    It was only reasonable if you didn’t look at what specifically they were proposing. The infrastructure projects were supposed to partnerships with the private sector. In other words, they’re planning on giving big tax cuts to private toll road operators and accepting a promise that they’re do road maintenance.

  36. KG says

    raven@31,

    Great powers in relative decline instinctively spend more on “security” and thereby divert potential resources from “investment” and compound their long-term dilemma. – Paul Kennedy (1988) The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000

    Kennedy explicitly applies this observation to both the USSR (still in existence when he wrote), and the USA.

  37. rorschach says

    I wish @andersoncooper, @jaketapper and @cnn, while doing good work on the “facts are a thing” front, would realise the wiretap tweets are meant to distract from Trump’s horrible policies being proposed right now. Right from the Putin playbook. Divide et impera.

  38. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    43:
    To be fair, the best maintained road in America is the NJT (New Jersey turnpike I95) with the highest toll per mile in the country.
    Still , tolls not the solution. We have a thing called gasoline tax that is targeted to road maintenance. Tolls are a form of double tax
    Our highways are our version of the pyramids, a massive construction project to last millenia

  39. rickeyemiller says

    Focusing on Trump = Focusing on Obama = falling for the misdirection, allowing the Illusionists and assistants freedom to move the mountains around, as if suddenly by Magic! (I am fully aware of the strength of the pull toward that focus)

  40. says

    Good. Action.

    Sign the National Petition to President Trump to Support the Arts in America.

    Following a tumultuous election, the arts community is asking what they can do. With so much change coming so quickly, arts advocates need to organize. We need to raise our collective and individual voices with precision and in a unified manner. The new Administration and Congress will swiftly pass their biggest legislative changes in the first 2 to 3 months of the new year. Please, we need to act now.

    That’s why the Arts Action Fund has developed this nationwide petition to President Trump to support the arts by taking specific pro-arts actions within his Administration. […] We are grateful to our state arts advocacy partners for helping to advance this grassroots campaign, as well as customized grasstops campaigns. […]

    http://secure.artsactionfund.org/page/s/trump-arts-petition

  41. says

    follow-up to Rorschach @45

    The US has agreed not to repeat claims the UK’s communications intelligence agency wiretapped Donald Trump in the weeks after he won the US election.

    GCHQ denied allegations made by the White House that it spied on Mr Trump as president-elect.

    No 10 has been assured the allegations would not be repeated, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said.

    He said it had been made clear to US authorities the claims were “ridiculous and should have been ignored”.

    It is unusual for GCHQ to comment directly on a report about its intelligence work, normally preferring to stick to the policy of neither confirming nor denying any activity.

    The phrase “utterly ridiculous” is also very unusual for the agency.

    But it’s a sign of just how seriously they take it. The allegations are so sensitive that the agency clearly felt they could not let them go unchallenged….

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39300191

    Cross posted from a comment by SC on the Political Madness All the Time thread.

    GCHQ can get White House press secretary Sean Spicer (and Trump?) to stop saying that Obama used GCHQ to spy on Trump Tower, but they can’t get Fox News hosts to shut up … nor InfoWars, nor Breitbart, nor any other rightwing “news” sources that seem to have a direct line into Trump’s brain.