“The chances of Mr. Trump’s first budget passing Congress in its current form are slim. Many of the proposals would be nonstarters for Democrats, and some would be problematic for Republicans. The proposed $54 billion increase in military spending — a 10 percent increase — would also require a repeal of spending caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act; Democrats oppose such a move without equal spending increases for domestic programs…
The most significant cuts would be at the E.P.A., which the Trump administration has accused of overreach. The president wants to trim $2.6 billion from the agency’s budget, in part by cutting about 3,200 positions, about a fifth of the department’s work force…
.The $1.1 trillion plan is a “skinny budget,” a pared-down first draft of the line-by-line appropriations request submitted by first-term administrations during their first few months. A broader budget will be released in the spring that will include Mr. Trump’s tax proposals as well as the bulk of government spending — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs.
(Rappeport and Thrush via NYT)
