Trump’s Proposed 2018 Budget for K-12 Education: What It Means
Yesterday the Trump administration released what’s being called its “skinny” budget. A president’s budget proposal does NOT work like an executive order, however. It is merely a declaration of the president’s priorities, and it must be discussed and enacted by Congress, which then appropriates the money.
And this is a budget that outlines only what is called “discretionary” spending. That is the part that actually gets appropriated every year, and it is a very small part of the federal budget, which mostly goes to “mandatory” programs, another term for entitlements.
A large part of discretionary spending is for the military. And the military is definitely a priority of Donald Trump’s. Yesterday’s budget proposal adds $52 billion to the military and a 7 percent increase for the Department of Homeland Security and a 6 percent increase for Veterans Affairs.
VOX explains the nature of “non-defense” federal discretionary spending: “This is the main budget area that invests in the nation’s future productivity, supporting education, basic research, job training and infrastructure. It also supports priorities such as providing housing and child care assistance to low-and moderate-income families, protecting against infectious diseases, enforcing laws that protect workers and consumers, and caring for national parks and other public lands.” Yesterday’s budget cuts non-defense discretionary spending in order for the federal government to ask for large increases in the military and homeland security.
Here are just some of the percentage losses reported by the NY Times for departments whose programs are likely directly to affect children and families: Education, -14 percent; Health and Human Services, -16 percent; and Housing and Urban Development, -12 percent. The cuts are likely to affect public housing and subsidies for housing vouchers, may affect support for homeless shelters, and will eliminate after-school programs. Being erased altogether are the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps very poor people pay gas bills in the winter and the Legal Services Corporation. School lunch, school breakfast and summer feeding programs have been made into mandatory spending and are not covered by this budget. We’ll have to watch for a later, more detailed budget to observe these programs, and we can hope they will be spared. The Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is slightly reduced from $6.4 billion to $6.2 billion in Trump’s proposed Trump’s Proposed 2018 Budget for K-12 Education: What It Means | janresseger:
