Trump budget would slash many programs that help rural areas, but increase spending on veterans - Entrepreneur Generations

Spending increases and decreases in President Trump's
proposed budget. (Washington Post chart)

Though the 2020 budget President Trump unveiled on Monday has little chance of passing, it's a good indicator of his priorities. "In short, Trump wants more spending on the military and veterans and less spending on education, housing, welfare, transportation and science," Heather Long reports for The Washington Post. 

The budget slashes funding for Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare would lose $845 billion in funding over the next decade, but reductions in spending would mean a net $500 billion cut. Trump would convert most Medicaid funding to block grants, giving states more power to decide how to spend the money and saving the federal government another $241 billion over the next decade. The budget would also eliminate Medicaid expansion under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 

"The Trump administration is seeking to cut the Department of Agriculture’s discretionary budget by $3.6 billion, or 15 percent from the 2019 estimate, while also slashing by $17.4 billion the funds available to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program," Kate Rabinowitz and Kevin Uhrmacher report for the Post. "The budget would also reduce federal crop insurance subsidies, with a projected savings of $22.1 billion by 2029." The budget would set total SNAP funding at $5.8 billion and reintroduces the notion of delivering food in boxes instead of cash benefits, a proposal "widely rejected" by experts when Trump proposed it in 2018. The budget also calls for work requirements for recipients of federal food and housing aid.

"USDA’s Rural Development branch is targeted for a 12 percent cut, and the bulk of rural housing and economic development programs would be scrapped altogether," Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico's Morning Agriculture. "That includes funding for home repairs or direct home ownership loans for low-income families; initiatives to help farm workers find housing; and programs to preserve affordable housing in rural areas and help low-income residents pay rent."

The Education Department would lose $8.8 billion in funding, Rabinowitz and Uhrmacher report. Trump proposes eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that pays off student loans for people who work in certain hard-to-fill areas, Long reports. That could make it harder for some high-need rural school districts to find teachers.

The budget would eliminate 29 education programs, including one that funds after-school aid, and one that provides impact aid," Andrew Ujifusa reports for Education Week. Impact aid helps school districts that have lost property tax revenue because of tax-exempt federal property, or who have experienced increased expenditures because they have to teach children who live on federal land such as Indian reservations or military bases that don't pay local property taxes.

The budget would cut $12.5 billion from the Interior Department, eliminating grants to help communities recover from mining operations on public lands and providing under $300 million for the National Park Service to deal with a $12 billion maintenance backlog. 

The Department of Veteran Affairs would receive a 7.5 percent funding increase. "This includes an increase of close to 10 percent for medical care for veterans, much of it to implement a law Congress passed last year to consolidate private-care programs outside VA and make private doctors easier for veterans to access," Rabinowitz and Uhrmacher report. "Other new spending would continue the agency’s massive modernization of its electronic health records, add mental-health services for suicide prevention and expand medical services to female veterans."

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2NWV7X0 Trump budget would slash many programs that help rural areas, but increase spending on veterans - Entrepreneur Generations

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