Trump’s Budget Falls Short on the Spending Programs Driving the Federal Debt
Today, President Trump released his fiscal year (FY) 2027 budget blueprint, two months past the February statutory deadline. The administration proposes a 42 percent increase in defense spending while making paltry cuts to nondefense programs. The budget omits even mentioning, let alone spelling out, the needed reforms to the major entitlement programs driving the debt, such as Medicare and Social Security.
For the second year in a row, the president’s budget abdicates the fundamental responsibility of putting the debt on a sustainable path.
With deficits at nearly $2 trillion and publicly held federal debt set to exceed the nation’s entire economic output this year, Congress desperately needs fiscal responsibility. Congress ought to reject the president’s proposed spending boosts. Congress should use reconciliation to cut spending and reduce the deficit rather than to increase it. And to arrest the long-term growth of the debt and deficit, Congress needs to adopt meaningful budget targets and establish an empowered independent fiscal commission to address the growth of old-age retirement and health care programs.
The (2027) presidential budget is supposed to be the administration’s opportunity to explain to the American people how it would put our budget back on track. This budget entirely fails to do so. It includes no comprehensive 10-year fiscal plan to address mandatory spending and revenue, and thus no path to stabilizing the debt. The budget contains no proposals to address the looming automatic benefit cuts to Social Security and Medicare. And the budget continues the use of reconciliation to fund discretionary priorities, eroding the checks and balances that the appropriations process is supposed to provide.
https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-budget-falls-short-spending-programs-driving-federal-debt
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Crnr2Crnr ·
