More than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid. Nearly $200 billion in cuts to food assistance. $72 billion in cuts to disability programs, including Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income. More than 250,000 fewer rental housing vouchers for families struggling to avoid homelessness. Elimination of funding to help poor neighbors heat and cool their homes.
The dangerous budget proposal released Tuesday by the Trump Administration was a harsh attack on low- and middle-income Americans – one that would set our nation back incalculably. CHN members were quick to condemn the draconian cuts and Pentagon giveaways it contained. We’re compiling statements (including CHN’s) and analyses of the Trump budget on our FY18 budget resource page, and we wanted to highlight a few of these informative and useful pieces here for you.

A fact sheet from Americans for Tax Fairness compares the huge cuts to critical benefits and services in the Trump budget to the tax breaks President Trump’s tax plan will dole out. For example, the Trump budget would cut $193 billion from SNAP/food stamps over the next decade, threatening the food security of millions of Americans. At the same time, the Trump Administration wants to abolish the estate tax, which affects couples worth $11 million or more, at a cost of $174 billion over 10 years. ATF also created shareable images illustrating some of these tradeoffs, which are available via their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has several insightful analyses out, including this one that describes how Trump’s budget proposes a path a new Gilded Age (and includes the lowlights of the budget), and this one that focuses on how the budget would shift substantial costs to states and cut food assistance for millions. CBPP’s blog, Off the Charts, also has informative pieces on how the Trump budget would cut non-defense programs to half their 2010 level and increase homelessness and hardship in every state (see how your state would be affected by proposed cuts). They also debunk the myth of the exploding safety net.

A piece from Friends Committee on National Legislation shows how Trump’s budget creates a more dangerous world by increasing Pentagon spending by $54 billion in the next year – including $1 billion in new spending on nuclear weapons, slashing by more than 31 percent diplomacy and development funding at the State Department and USAID that helps prevent violence and make our world safer, and cutting funding for refugee services (by 30 percent) and the Environmental Protection Agency (by 31 percent). Their online system allows you to urge your members of Congress to reject this budget.

The Child Welfare League of America has a very thorough analysis of how the Trump Administration’s budget affects child welfare programs, including foster care and adoption programs, the Child Care Development Block Grant, funds for child abuse prevention and treatment, and the Social Services Block Grant (which the Trump budget eliminates). They also have a useful chart showing how the President’s dollar request for nearly 40 child welfare programs compares with FY16 and FY17 funding.

In tandem with this budget news, The Arc released a video which shares the story of a Maryland family which risks losing access to critical care for one of their children due to impending cuts to federal Medicaid funding. The video features Soojung, whose 11-year old daughter Alice, has Rett Syndrome and relies on overnight nursing services, paid for by Medicaid, to be able to live at home with her family. The Trump budget proposes $610 billion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years on top of the $834 billion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years included in the House-approved American Health Care Act (AHCA).  For many families like Soojung’s, their health and lives could dramatically worsen these proposed cuts become reality. The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, the Center for American Progress and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also have pieces explaining how the Trump budget would hurt people with disabilities.

The National Women’s Law Center, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the National Employment Law Project put together a fact sheet describing how a Trump budget proposal to eliminate a civil rights enforcement office at the Department of Labor would harm working people and undermine equal employment opportunity. The office slated for elimination, among other functions, remedies instances of discrimination and works with contractors to ensure they meet higher standards of fairness and opportunity. Its elimination would weaken the government’s ability to enforce equal pay laws and ensure fair treatment of working people.

For more statements and analyses, see our FY18 budget resource page. We’ll continue to update this page with additional resources as they become available, so check back often.

And if you haven’t yet done so, sign our letter (for local, state and national organizations) or our petition (for individuals) urging Congress to pass a budget that promotes economic opportunities for all, safeguards and advances our basic living standards, and protects our environment.