The budget through his eyes

The nasty guy has submitted his budget to Congress. Congress usually ignores this document and the Democrats in the House will continue that tradition. Even so, it is useful to see what the nasty guy has in mind. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos has the highlights (so you can skip this 200 page tweet to his base).

Trump’s budget would wildly inflate the military, plow billions into his “Space Force,” drastically cut many domestic programs, funnel huge amounts of money into an emergency-declaration friendly slush fund, and still leave the budget wildly out of balance for decades.

And that slush fund? The nasty guy wants $175 billion without any Congressional oversight.

What’s not in the budget:

Trump’s budget has a major target for cuts—poor people. Programs to fight poverty would see huge cuts under claims that they “discourage people from returning to work.” What would encourage them? Cuts to food assistance. Cuts to public housing. Cuts to Medicaid. Because nothing gets people up and working like being starving, sick, and homeless.

Programs that are supposed to guard the public health and environment would also see massive cuts—though since the last two years have seen a reduction in the number of criminal prosecution by the EPA to a level not seen since there has been an EPA, it’s not clear that these program cuts would make much difference under Trump.

Overall, Trump’s budget would do the same thing he’s already done—steal from the poor, give to the wealthy, inflate the military, and provide even more money that he could use as he wills, no matter what Congress says. Which is why, on this proposal at least, Congress will say no.

At least Trump wouldn’t have to fret another infrastructure week, because his budget also makes draconian cuts to transportation budgets.