Trump team prepares dramatic cuts

>The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.

>Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years. The proposed cuts hew closely to a blueprint published last year by the conservative Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has helped staff the Trump transition. Similar proposals have in the past won support from Republicans in the House and Senate, who believe they have an opportunity to truly tackle spending after years of warnings about the rising debt. Many of the specific cuts were included in the 2017 budget adopted by the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC), a caucus that represents a majority of House Republicans. The RSC budget plan would reduce federal spending by $8.6 trillion over the next decade.

>Two members of Trump’s transition team are discussing the cuts at the White House budget office: Russ Vought, a former aide to Vice President-elect Mike Pence and the former executive director of the RSC, and John Gray, who previously worked for Pence, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) when Ryan headed the House Budget Committee. Vought and Gray, who both worked for the Heritage Foundation, are laying the groundwork for the so-called skinny budget — a 175- to 200-page document that will spell out the main priorities of the incoming Trump administration, along with summary tables. That document is expected to come out within 45 days of Trump taking office. The administration’s full budget, including appropriations language, supplementary materials and long-term analysis, is expected to be released toward the end of Trump’s first 100 days in office, or by mid- to late April.

>Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trump’s choice to head the Office of Management and Budget, has not yet weighed in on the proposed spending reforms because he is still awaiting confirmation by the Senate. Mulvaney voted for the RSC budget offered as a more conservative alternative to the main House Republican budget in 2015. The House did not vote on the RSC budget for fiscal year 2017. The preliminary proposals from the White House budget office will be shared with federal departments and agencies soon after Trump takes the oath of office Friday, and could provoke an angry backlash. Trump’s Cabinet picks have yet to be apprised of the reforms, which would reduce resources within their agencies.

>The budget offices of the various departments will have the chance to review the proposals, offer feedback and appeal for changes before the president’s budget goes to Congress. It’s not clear whether Trump’s first budget will include reforms to Social Security or Medicare, two major drivers of the federal deficit. Trump vowed during the campaign not to cut Medicare and Social Security, a pledge that Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), his pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, told lawmakers in testimony Wednesday has not changed. Yet it could be very difficult to reduce U.S. debt without tackling the entitlement programs. Conservative House budgets have repeatedly included reforms to Medicare and Social Security, arguing they are necessary to save the programs. The presidential budget is important in setting policy and laying out the administration’s agenda, though Congress would be responsible for approving a federal budget and appropriating funds.

>Moving Trump’s budget through Congress could be difficult. In 2015, with the GOP in control of the House, the RSC budget failed by a vote of 132 to 294. Moderate Republicans and Democrats on the Appropriations Committee are likely to push back at some of the cuts being considered by Trump.

>But they seem likely to have the support of Mulvaney, a conservative budget hawk who backed the RSC budget. “Mick Mulvaney and his colleagues at the Republican Study Committee when they crafted budgets over the years, they were serious,” said a former congressional aide. “Mulvaney didn’t take this OMB position to just mind the store.” “He wants to make significant, fundamental changes to the structure of the president’s budget, and I expect him to do that with Vought and Gray putting the meat on the bones,” the source added.

>The Heritage blueprint used as a basis for Trump’s proposed cuts calls for eliminating several programs that conservatives label corporate welfare programs: the Minority Business Development Agency, the Economic Development Administration, the International Trade Administration and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. The total savings from cutting these four programs would amount to nearly $900 million in 2017. At the Department of Justice, the blueprint calls for eliminating the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Violence Against Women Grants and the Legal Services Corporation and for reducing funding for its Civil Rights and its Environment and Natural Resources divisions. At the Department of Energy, it would roll back funding for nuclear physics and advanced scientific computing research to 2008 levels, eliminate the Office of Electricity, eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and scrap the Office of Fossil Energy, which focuses on technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Under the State Department’s jurisdiction, funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are candidates for elimination.

>Conservatives allied with fiscal hawks such as Pence, Paul and the Heritage Foundation say the time is long past due to get serious about cutting the federal deficit. “The Trump Administration needs to reform and cut spending dramatically, and targeting waste like the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be a good first step in showing that the Trump Administration is serious about radically reforming the federal budget,” said Brian Darling, a former aide to Paul and a former staffer at the Heritage Foundation.

>>101535
>The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized
Why do they hate public radio and TV so much? This is the only educational media we have left because it's not chasing lowest common denominator audience.
The money given is a pittance when compared to the budget, but it keeps a lot of good things on the air.

>>101540

It took Mister Rogers to save it last time. Mr. Rogers isn't around anymore.

More seriously, it's because there aren't that many people who could effectively defend it. Most of the biggest beneficiaries are the poor, specifically poor children, and we all know how much people give a shit about the needs of those people. Therefore it's an easy target to scrape up a little bit of money so you can proudly say you slashed federal spending for the good of the little guy (while actively screwing the little guy).

Also some people are blinded by this idea that private>public in all situations which doesn't help.

>>101540
Cutting PBS is the only thing I really disagree with, but Mr. Rogers is dead so good luck saving it

>>101540
To give the right wing media more power and influence to the people; especially when Fox News were the most watched in the nation.

>>101547
>>101548
The only thing of significant that will be affected is NPR.

>>101551
What a shame that PBS being forced to go suck dicks for cash to stay on the air will finally pull back the last line of defense against the pervasive right wing media bias that's ensnared every newsroom in the nation.

All those poor simps who followed PBS will now naturally be forced by law to follow Breitbart and whiny conservatives on twitter, instead of Huffington Post and whiny liberals on twitter.

It's all over now.

Good in depth story. Thanks for posting, OP.

>The Heritage blueprint used as a basis for Trump’s proposed cuts calls for eliminating several programs that conservatives label corporate welfare programs: the Minority Business Development Agency, the Economic Development Administration, the International Trade Administration and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. The total savings from cutting these four programs would amount to nearly $900 million in 2017. At the Department of Justice, the blueprint calls for eliminating the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Violence Against Women Grants and the Legal Services Corporation and for reducing funding for its Civil Rights and its Environment and Natural Resources divisions. At the Department of Energy, it would roll back funding for nuclear physics and advanced scientific computing research to 2008 levels, eliminate the Office of Electricity, eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and scrap the Office of Fossil Energy, which focuses on technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Under the State Department’s jurisdiction, funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are candidates for elimination.

Goddamn pseudo-libertarians. If this is corporate welfare then WTF are those BigOil and corn farming subsidies?

>>101540
What are you, too good to get your science and educational programming from breitbart and the rush limbaugh show? Get the fuck off your high horse, elitist scum.

Offer a $1,000 reward to government employees who identify jobs that are completely frivolous and unnecessary, those which can be easily automated or merged with an existing job, or jobs which are largely considered "time-wasting."

Watch the spending correct itself overnight.

>Biggest waste of taxpayer money is the Department of Defense
>Zero cuts suggested

Seems about right

My knowledge of government agencies is only from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior, but their budgets are extremely tight already and there are many positions that go unfilled year after year. The cumulative effect of this can be seen in the $12 billion maintenance backlog for the National Park Service which lacks the money and manpower to get it under control. There are other things at play when it comes to money too, for example the Forest Service has to use a large portion of its budget every year for wildfires because they aren't considered a natural disaster and do not qualify for FEMA money.

Part of the issue also is, due to budgetary constraints, much of the work done for either department is done by temporary hires that cannot be extended past 6 months of work. So what happens is you spend all that time mastering a specific job, but your boss has no way of converting you to a full time position for doing a good job. After your six months is up, its off to chasing the next opportunity and you take all that experience you gained with you.

With the addition of the hiring freeze and the slash and burn attitude that the new administration is taking in regards to the civil service, it's going to be a bleak few years if you're a government employee. I do hope that the freeze will not affect the seasonal workforce, the DoA and the DoI will not survive without it.

>>101609
>the DoA and the DoI will not survive without it.
I think that's the goal the incoming administration is aiming for.

>>101540
Ina media market full of bias NPR at least has some degree of requirement to be unbiased.

But then, anyone that didn't like what they say, not matter how true it is, will think it is biased.
That's why America is fucked for all time.

>>101610
I don't think people will realize what all these agencies did till they are dead and buried.

If you asked the average person who predicts the weather, for instance, they would tell you the local news station. What the actual predictions come from is the National Weather Service run by the Department of Commerce.

>>101615
You mean they read the radar and predict whats gonna happen? Radar is nice but it doesnt predict anything

>>101585
> If this is corporate welfare then WTF are those BigOil and corn farming subsidies?

What's wrong with domestic resource subsidies? Did our need for oil, ethanol, and food just vanish or what?

>>101540
the first step in laying the foundation for a fascist regime is to attack the arts and humanities

>>101673
>What's wrong with domestic resource subsidies?
Everything in addition to being the textbook definition of corporate welfare.
>Did our need for oil, ethanol, and food just vanish or what?
That has nothing to do with subsidizing farmers to produce useless corn when they could be growing something healthful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#Impact_of_fossil_fuel_subsidies

>>101676
>when they could be growing something healthful

I wasn't aware that corn was unhealthy.(Or useless.) Even so, would you rather eat something "unhealthy" or nothing at all?

>>101706
http://grist.org/food/our-crazy-farm-subsidies-explained/

>But because of the way we manage our subsidies, we end up with A LOT of corn. In 2010, U.S. farmers produced 32 percent of the world’s corn supply on 84 million acres of farmland, raking in a cool $63.9 billion.
...
>But what started out as an attempt to lessen the government’s influence on farming ended up strengthening it when prices dropped in the following years. By 2014, the U.S. was on target to spend $972.9 billion on food and farm programs over the next decade.

>And while the majority of that goes to nutritional programs (food stamps) and some of it goes to land conservation measures — a LOT of it ends up as, you guessed it, corn.
...
>Since 1995, 75 percent of federal subsidies have gone to 10 percent of farms, the same consolidated group of commodity crop growers who will continue to eat up a disproportionate share of the subsidy pie under the new system, too.

It isn't even specifically about corn, or even BigOil, that's just part of the system of governmental corporate welfare that extends everywhere from CableTV to Pharmaceuticals
.
http://www.cheatsheet.com/business/high-on-the-hog-the-top-8-corporate-welfare-recipients.html/?a=viewall

>>101619
They collect all the raw data and their meteorologists make the predictions and then that data is released to the public. The national emergency weather system is also activated from that agency giving people warnings about severe weather coming their way. The data and predictions are also shared with the FAA and the airlines so that they can prevent flying into hazardous conditions.

>>101600
This

>>101675
It's to nationalize it you class A retard.

Or do you think effective propaganda just magically appears? What about promoting and enforcing ideological standpoints in general? At gun-point isn't an effective long term strategy.

>>101675
Graduate highschool before you start offering commentary on politics.

>>102436 is correct

>>101598
>>I hate people who give back by working in government for less money than in the private sector

amerikukd.

>>102449
They do it because they're lazy. Why have the government do what the private sector could do instead?

>>101598
>Watch the spending correct itself overnight.
Even if you cut everything back to the bone the majority of the budget is unaffected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:Fy2010_spending_by_category.jpg

That's before you even get into the problems caused to the economy by putting people out of work on such a scale.

>>102520
How do you know they're lazy?

>>102523
Because the only reason you'd work for the government is if you weren't cut out for the business sector.

>>102525

>patriotism isn't a thing (includes people who believe the job to be necessary, ex. public defenders, law enforcement)
>preferring job security isn't a thing

Not to mention the government has some exclusive jobs that you can't find in the private sector (though the big one, space exploration, is slowly being taken on by the private sector) so if you really want to do some types of work you'll only find that in the public sector.

Also
>The only reason you can't make the cut is because you're lazy
Sounds a lot like
>The poor are poor because they're lazy! There can't possibly be any other factors!

>>102525
So you're retarded? Got it.