DEFENSE
Trump’s budget for 2019 shows the administration’s concern about the threat from North Korea and its missile program.
The Pentagon is proposing to spend hundreds of millions more in 2019 on missile defense.
The budget calls for increasing the number of strategic missile interceptors from 44 to 64 and boosting other elements of missile defense.
BORDER WALL
The second stage of Trump’s proposed border wall in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley would be 65 miles long, costing an average of $24.6 million a mile, according to the president’s 2019 budget.
That matches the amount requested in Trump’s 2018 budget to build or replace 74 miles in San Diego and Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings.
The proposal sets aside $782 million to hire 2,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, whose responsibilities include making deportation arrests, and 750 more Border Patrol agents toward Trump’s long-term goal of 5,000.
The administration also wants to raise capacity at its immigration detention facilities to 52,000 people.
MEDICARE
Trump’s budget proposes major changes to Medicare’s popular prescription benefit, creating winners and losers among the 42 million seniors with drug coverage.
On the plus side for seniors, the budget requires the insurance plans that deliver the prescription benefit to share with beneficiaries a substantial portion of rebates they receive from drug makers.
The budget also eliminates the 5 percent share of costs that an estimated 1 million beneficiaries with very high drug bills now must keep paying when they reach Medicare’s “catastrophic” coverage. Instead seniors would pay nothing once they reach Medicare’s catastrophic coverage level, currently $8,418 in total costs.
But on the minus side, the budget calls for changing the way Medicare accounts for certain discounts that drug makers now provide to seniors with significant drug bills.
That complex change would mean fewer seniors reach catastrophic coverage, and some will end up paying more than they do now.
EDUCATION
Fulfilling a campaign promise, Trump is proposing to put “more decision-making power in the hands of parents and families” in choosing schools for their children with a $1.5 billion investment for the coming year. The budget would expand both private and public school choice.
A new Opportunity Grants program would provide money for states to give scholarships to low-income students to attend private schools, as well as expand charter schools across the nation. Charters are financed by taxpayer dollars but usually run independently of school district requirements.
The budget also calls for increased spending to expand the number of magnet schools that offer specialized instruction usually focused on specific curricula.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Trump’s proposed 2019 budget calls for slashing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by more than one third, including ending the Climate Change Research and Partnership Programs.
The president’s budget would also make deep cuts to funding for cleaning up the nation’s most polluted sites, even as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has said that is one of his top priorities. Trump’s budget would allocate just $762 million for the Hazardous Substance Superfund Account, a reduction of more than 30 percent.
The budget also would eliminate money for the popular Energy Star program, seeking instead to raise “a modest fee” from appliance and electronics manufacturers who seek to label their products as being energy efficient.
‘OBAMACARE’
The budget assumes that Congress will repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law, although there’s little evidence that Republican leaders have the appetite for another battle over “Obamacare.”
The Obama health law would be replaced with legislation modeled after an ill-fated GOP bill whose lead authors were Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it would leave millions more uninsured.
VETERANS
The budget proposes an overall increase of $8.7 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, primarily to strengthen medical care for more than 9 million enrolled veterans. A key component is a proposed $11.9 billion to revamp the Veterans Choice program, a Trump campaign priority. The planned expansion would give veterans wider freedom to receive government-paid care from private doctors and MinuteClinics outside the VA system.
STATE
Trump’s budget includes a modest increase of $191 million for what’s known as “overseas contingency operations,” or active war zones like Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had argued in the past that the impending resolution of major global conflicts would decrease the need for U.S. spending and allow the Trump administration to significantly reduce what it spends overseas.
INTERIOR
The Interior Department’s proposed $11.7 billion budget includes $1.3 billion to address a growing backlog of projects to maintain and improve roads, bridges, park buildings and other infrastructure. The agency has an estimated $16 billion deferred maintenance backlog, including more than $11 billion for the National Park Service alone.
ENERGY
The Trump administration is seeking $30.6 billion for the Energy Department, a figure that includes an additional $1.5 billion authorized under a two-year budget deal that Congress approved last week. Much of the additional funding, $1.2 billion, goes to the Office of Science to pay for basic scientific research.The budget again proposes steep cuts to energy efficiency and renewable-energy programs and calls for eliminating DOE’s loan program and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, DOE’s innovation arm.
HOUSING
The budget proposes deep cuts to funding for rental assistance programs, eliminates community block grants and references future legislation that will implement work requirements for some tenants receiving public assistance.
Trump’s proposal reduces the budget for rental assistance programs by more than 11 percent compared with 2017.
JUSTICE
Trump’s 2019 Justice Department budget seeks more than $109 million for crime-fighting efforts, including $70 million for a partnership with state and local authorities called Project Safe Neighborhoods that targets gun offenders.
FOOD STAMPS
Trump’s budget proposes massive cuts to the program.
The budget also floats the idea of new legislation that would require able-bodied adults to work or participate in a work program in order to receive benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
The Trump administration wants NASA out of the International Space Station by 2025 and to have private businesses running the place instead.
Under Trump’s 2019 proposed budget, U.S. government funding for the space station would end by 2025.
THE ARTS
Trump’s budget calls for the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, two prominent grant programs founded in the 1960s.
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