They can’t decide whether to wear black capes or white hoods!

From POLITICO:

As they fleshed out the budget blueprint released Thursday morning by the White House, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney said officials from the administration of President Donald Trump asked themselves: Can we ask the taxpayer to pay for this?

For a dramatic uptick in military funding, Mulvaney said, the answer was yes. For a wide array of domestic programs, it turns out, the answer was no.

Original DVD cover

Trump’s budget, which Mulvaney said was assembled in part by examining excerpts from the president’s speeches and media interviews, delivers on his campaign promise to build up the military, designating an additional $54 billion in defense spending. The budget pays for that additional spending by cutting funding to nearly every other department, including 21 percent budget cuts at the departments of Labor and Agriculture, 28 percent at the State Department and 31 percent at the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be cut entirely under Trump’s budget blueprint, which also reduces spending on the Coast Guard by 14 percent and FEMA by 11 percent.

And Big Bird weeps. Or are his eyes tearing from all the new smog that is bound to hit everywhere? But let’s go on….

Asked how cuts to the State Department’s budget might affect the U.S. military and its activities around the globe, Mulvaney said “make no mistake about it, this is a hard-power budget, not a soft-power budget. That is what the president wanted and that’s what we gave him.”

And asked about cuts to educational programs, including aid to low-income students, teacher training and after-school and summer programs, Mulvaney said that they, by and large, are ineffective and cannot justify their existence.

Yeah, screw old people and little kids and veterans! Who cares if they eat or not? But I digress…

From Eugene Robinson at The Oregonian:

President Trump’s first budget is an attempt to reshape the federal government in his own image — crass, bellicose, short-sighted, unserious and ultimately hollow.

Unsurprisingly, Trump titled it “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again.” The reality is that if Congress were to accept these numbers — which it can’t possibly do — America would be made dumber, dirtier, hungrier and sicker. That may be Trump’s idea of greatness, but it’s certainly not mine.

Would we at least be safer? I doubt it. Trump wants to boost defense spending by $54 billion, or about 9 percent. But at the same time, he proposes cutting funding for the State Department by an incredible 29 percent, slashing the relatively modest hands-across-the-sea assistance and advice the United States gives to other nations. Most of the generals and admirals I know believe in projecting U.S. strength through soft power as well as hard power. Trump apparently disagrees.

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[T]he Trump budget would eliminate $445 million that goes to support public broadcasting. Never mind that the millions who listen to “All Things Considered” while driving home from work include single moms, or that the millions who loved “Downton Abbey” include coal miners. The budget also ends all funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

All told, ending governmental support for these cultural institutions saves a bit less than a billion dollars — not even a pittance in the context of nearly $4 trillion in government spending. But the point isn’t to save money, it’s to punish the fancy-dancy “elites” who define and consume high culture.

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Trump wants to eliminate more than 3,200 EPA jobs, representing more than 20 percent of the workforce. It was a Republican president, Richard Nixon, who founded the agency, and it is another Republican president who apparently wants to end the federal government’s role in protecting the environment.

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Trump wants to eliminate more than 3,200 EPA jobs, representing more than 20 percent of the workforce. It was a Republican president, Richard Nixon, who founded the agency, and it is another Republican president who apparently wants to end the federal government’s role in protecting the environment.

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Many of the programs Trump wants to slash or eliminate have support in Congress. The budget could never pass the Senate in this form, and probably not the House. But Trump will get some of what he wants, and consequently the nation will suffer. We get what we pay for — rather, what we elect.