On Monday, President Trump will officially propose his new budget plan, which calls for major cuts in domestic spending across the board, but which also seeks a large further increase in military spending, above and beyond the increases already planned.
Exact figures aren’t clear at this point, but what is clear is that the general direction of this budget is going to face major opposition within the House of Representatives, not just from the Democratic leadership, but from some Republicans as well.
It’s not just the heavily military-centric priorities that will fuel the opposition, though clearly that is part of it. The budget proposal also ditches the Republicans’ goal of a 10-year time-frame for a balanced budget.
Instead of a 10-year balancing, the new proposal envisions a 15-year time. Even that is based on projections of large economic growth that most economists say are not realistic, and potentially not even possible.
That money will be going into the US military, already the costliest military on the planet by far. The US military budget is so vast as it is, that it is larger than the next several countries combined, and it has already grown substantially in the last two years, while the other comparatively large spenders are trying to make cuts to the military to get their budgets in line.
Budget Committee Chairman Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) says that the plan is a “non-starter,” and that the House leadership has no plans to include the domestic spending cuts in their own plan, and effectively are going to disregard Trump’s proposal.