Feb. 12, 2018 - The Trump
Administration released its FY19 budget
proposal to generally
unfavorable reviews. The
introduction to the document states, "The Budget makes the hard
choices needed to stop wasteful
spending, lower the national debt, and focus Government on what matters
most—protecting the
Nation."
In a
press briefing OMB Director Mick
Mulvaney explained that, "The
executive budget has always been a messaging document." Mulvaney
said the FY19 budget has two messages: "Number one, you don't have to
spend all of this money,
Congress. But if you do, here is how we would prefer to see you
spend it... And the other message is that we do not have to have
trillion-dollar
deficits forever." However, Robert L. Bixby,
executive director of The Concord Coalition, stated, "This budget is
essentially a confession of failure on dealing with the nation's fiscal
challenges." Maya MacGuineas, president of the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, stated, "The budget has too
many gimmicks, exaggerated savings, and rosy assumptions. Most
troubling, it doesn’t make the credible hard choices necessary to help
bring the debt back to more manageable levels." |