DALLAS -- President Trump's proposed
The proposal released Wednesday night would wipe out the $500 million expected in fiscal 2018 for the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program, eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant program funded at $3 billion in 2017, and cut $293 million from the Internal Revenue Service's operational budget.
Trump's plan would boost defense spending by $54 billion by making deep cuts to domestic spending.
"A budget that puts America first must make the safety of our people its number one priority— because without safety, there can be no prosperity," Trump said.
The cuts to domestic programs would have significant and mostly detrimental fiscal impacts on state and local government budgets, said Frank H. Shafroth, director of the Center for State and Local Government Leadership at George Mason University.
"The president's budget proposes to shift some $50 billion of domestic discretionary funding to defense, which would require exceptional cuts in programs affecting cities, towns, counties, public school districts, and states," he said.
The federal deficit and national debt would sharply increase with the proposed budget, driving interest rates up, Shafroth said.
"The cost to states, cities, counties, and schools and universities to capital finance through the issuance of municipal bonds would increase—and likely increase substantially," he said.
The so-called "skinny budget" blueprint does not include line-by-line expenditures and outlines funding for only one year, unlike those from previous presidents that typically included estimated spending and expected revenues for up to 10 years.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said a more detailed budget for fiscal 2018 would be forthcoming in May.
"This is a budget blueprint, not a complete budget," Mulvaney said. "You will not see revenue projections, you will not see larger policy statements, and, importantly, you will not see anything having to do with mandatory spending."
The budget blueprint reflects Trump's campaign promises, Mulvaney said.
"You'll see reductions exactly where you would expect it from a president who just ran on an 'America First' campaign," he said. "If he said it on the campaign, it's in the budget."
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., hailed the Trump budget proposal.
"We are determined to work with the administration to shrink the size of government, grow our economy, secure our borders, and ensure our troops have the tools necessary to complete their missions," he said.
The lack of detailed information in the budget blueprint makes it difficult to evaluate, said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
"Generally, skinny budgets include proposals in all areas and show what these proposals will mean for deficits and debt over the next decade," she said. "This budget only gives us a picture of one and a half years and proposes changes to the 30% of spending that is discretionary."
The budget plan is a failure already, said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the House Democratic whip.
"Our budgets ought to reflect the challenges we face, and this budget proposal fails spectacularly in that regard," he said. "With the same unstudied flourish we have come to expect from this administration, we have been presented a budget that stands no chance of being implemented."
In a joint statement, top executives at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, and the National League of Cities asked for a meeting with HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson in an effort to overturn the elimination of community grants before the budget request goes to Congress.
The executives said that CDBG grants are "the heart, lungs, and backbone of cities and counties" of all sizes.
"By eliminating or cutting them, the administration mortally wounds the places where the majority of Americans live, work and play," they said. "It is an attack on places the president said he wanted to help."
Trump's proposal cuts the Transportation Department's discretionary budget in 2018 by $2.4 billion, a 13% reduction, but does not reduce the $45 billion of federal highway and $12.2 billion of transit funding provided in fiscal 2018 by the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act.
Trump's proposal would eliminate TIGER grants, a stimulus-era program that is not part of the FAST Act but must be authorized each year in appropriations measures.
The Senate approved a fiscal 2017 transportation budget in May that included $525 million for TIGER, up from $500 million in fiscal 2016. The House Appropriations Committee adopted a 2017 transportation budget that cut TIGER to $450 million but it has not reached the House floor.
President Obama's 2017 budget proposal would have boosted TIGER to $1.25 billion.
In addition to the demise of the TIGER grant program, the proposal would halt expenditures from the Federal Transit Administration's New Starts capital investment grants to agencies that have not signed a full funding agreement.
