Trump’s Towering Spending
To the usual media-modulated scorn, the Trump administration released its annual budget on February 12. It’s not really a budget, of course — merely a budget proposal, most of the provisions of which will be set aside by Congress as it decides how to continue to rack up federal IOUs. The Constitution does not give the president a scintilla of authority over public funds, except insofar as he can choose to veto any bill passed by Congress, including appropriations bills. Thus the Trump “budget” ranks somewhere between a suggestion and a flight of fancy, in terms of the likelihood of any of it ever seeing the light of legislative day. But to the extent that it indicates the priorities of the Trump administration and may inform the budgetary priorities of the majority GOP, it is useful to consider.
President Trump rode to office on a wave of discontent with burgeoning public debt and out-of-control taxation, borrowing, and spending. Trump the businessman promised massive cutbacks to useless and inefficient government programs. But his budget proposal is something of a mixed bag in this regard, proffering deep cuts and outright cancellations of costly programs long abhorred by the Right, while inexplicably offering others continued sustenance.
Budget Priorities
To no one’s surprise, the Trump budget proposal makes massive priorities out of defense and border security. Hundreds of millions more are to be spent on missile defense, with 20 new missile interceptors to be deployed in Alaska, presumably to defend against the growing threat of North Korean ICBMs. In addition, the ship-based Aegis missile defense system and the vaunted Patriot anti-missile missiles would be beefed up. On the contentious border-wall proposal, the Trump budget contemplates spending $18 billion to construct the next segment of the border wall, mostly in the heavily trafficked lower Rio Grande Valley, extending the Mexico-U.S. border wall from its current level of about one-third of the entire border to roughly one-half. Additionally, the Trump budget proposes setting aside $782 million to hire 2,000 more U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, as well as 750 additional Border Patrol agents. Americans justifiably concerned with border security and with the readiness of our military to confront any threat to our homeland will surely be cheered by these proposals.
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