To the editor:
The federal deficit in February was the highest one-month deficit in history. Deficits are out of control due to the Trump tax cut which, according to CNBC, 83 percent of which went to the top 1 percent.
Trump could admit that the tax cuts are bankrupting the country and suggest they be rescinded. Instead, he is proposing to cut programs for the most vulnerable.
For example, over the next 10 years, Trump’s 2020 budget proposal aims to spend $1.5 trillion less on Medicaid, $25 billion less on Social Security and $845 billion less on Medicare. So much for Trump’s campaign promise not to cut these programs. He wants to slice $220 billion in food stamps over 10 years and $207 billion to the student loan program. The Trump budget would cut $84 billion in programs for people with disabilities, including more than $10 billion from the Social Security Disability Insurance program.
Over 10 years, the Trump budget cuts $5.8 billion from nutrition assistance for low-income pregnant women, infants and children (WIC) under the age of 5.
The Trump budget would cut Head Start by $7.6 billion over the decade. The Trump budget also eliminates the Low Income Heating Assistance program for the poor as well as the Housing Trust Fund, which is designed to build rental housing for extremely low-income households and the homeless. Trump is seeking cuts to federal funding for Meals on Wheels.
He wants to cut the Department of Education’s budget by 13 percent, or $9 billion overall, which would result in significant cuts to the Hellen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults, American Printing House for the Blind, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and Gallaudet University, a school for students with hearing loss.
He also has supported a lawsuit nullifying Obamacare, including protections for those with preexisting conditions.
Pay for massive tax cuts to the rich by cutting benefits for pregnant women, the poor, blind, deaf, sick, old, disabled, hungry and homeless. I guess for Trump, cruelty is a preexisting condition.
You can check the figures for yourself at the following websites:
mtv.com/news/3118761/trump-administration-2020-budget-cuts
citylab.com/equity/2019/03/trumps-2020-budget-cuts-social-security-medicare-food-stamps/584440
Denny Kubal, Brown County
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