Official defends Trump budget
WASHINGTON — White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney told lawmakers on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s plans to slash social programs are designed to increase economic growth to 3 percent and put “taxpayers first.”
Mulvaney told the House Budget Committee that he went “line by line” through the federal budget and asked “Can we justify this to the folks who are actually paying for it?”
Mulvaney’s appearance was one of four slated Wednesday as Trump Cabinet officials fanned out on Capitol Hill to defend Trump’s budget, which contains jarring, politically unrealistic cuts to the social safety net and a broad swath of domestic programs.
Panel Democrats charged that Trump’s cuts would rip apart the social safety net. Rep. Pramilla Jayapal, D-Wash., told Mulvaney that cuts to food stamps, payments to the disabled and other programs are “astonishing and, frankly, immoral.”
“This budget starts by taking away health care, then food, then housing, then education, then job opportunities,” Jayapal said.
Trump’s budget keeps to his campaign pledge to leave Medicare and Social Security pension benefits alone and contains spending increases for the military and veterans, but it treats most of the rest of the government as fair game. It foresees an overhaul of the tax code, which analysts say could direct most of its benefits to upper-income earners.
