TRUMP'S NEW BUDGET HAS BIG HIKE FOR MILITARY SPENDING

Trump releases new federal budget with big hike for military spending

By Dave Boyer - The Washington Times - Monday, February 12, 2018

President Trump released his proposed budget for fiscal 2019 on Monday, a plan that calls for big increases in military spending and border security after years of budget caps hampering national defense.

The administration is requesting $716 billion for the Defense Department, a 13-percent increase over 2017 levels. The fiscal 2018 budget, which still has not passed Congress, would contain $80 billion more funding for the military, for a total increase of $165 billion in Pentagon spending over two years.

The White House said the increase is necessary to confront “an era of increased global disorder, with a security environment more complex and volatile than any our country has faced in recent memory.”

“As a nation, we face difficult times – challenged by a crumbling infrastructure, growing deficits, rogue nations, and irresponsible Washington spending,” said Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney. “Through this budget proposal, it is clear that the president and this administration are determined to reverse these trends, and ensure greater prosperity for the hard-working American taxpayer.

The proposed hike in national security spending is a victory for Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, who said the U.S. military needed to be freed from budget caps under the sequestration deal that hampered Pentagon planning and military readiness. Although the Defense Department comprises about 15 percent of the federal budget, it absorbed half of the cuts required by the Budget Control Act.

Non-defense spending would increase by $63 billion in fiscal 2018 and by $68 billion next year.

This year’s budget proposal comes under the usual circumstance that Senate negotiators already agreed last week on higher levels for military and non-military spending in the current and upcoming fiscal years. The White House and Congress have hailed the agreement for providing needed certainty in military planning.

The budget also proposes more than $23 billion for border security and immigration enforcement programs, including $18 billion over fiscal years 2018 and 2019 to build the southern border wall. It requests $782 million to hire 2,750 additional law enforcement officers

and agents at U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The spending plan also calls for $2.7 billion to pay for an average daily detention capacity of 52,000 illegal aliens at ICE, the agency’s highest-ever detention level.

The budget $200 billion in federal money over 10 years for an overall $1.5 trillion infrastucture rebuilding proposal. The federal dollars would leverage bigger investments by state and local governments, with Washington’s share of the spending offset with cuts elsewhere in the president’s fiscal 2019 budget.

The administration is requesting $85.5 billion in discretionary spending for the Department of Veterans Affairs, up from $77.7 billion in fiscal 2017, for medical care, counseling, homelessness programs and other services. The VA’s current overall budget is about $186 billion.

A big concern with the Senate budget deal struck last week is the significant amount of red ink it contains. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the two-year Senate budget deal includes $320 billion in deficit spending, and many budget analysts are saying it will bring back $1 trillion annual deficits as soon as next year.

An OMB fact sheet asserts that Mr. Trump’s new budget “urbs wasteful Washington spending.​”

“The budget imposes a fiscal discipline on Washington spending that many in today’s political climate reject, yet which remains more

important than ever,” OMB said. “It includes an aggressive set of spending reforms that cut deficits by $3 trillion over 10 years, reducing debt as a percentage of GDP and improving our long-term fiscal sustainability.”

Deficit hawks are blasting the budget deal as a reckless boost in borrowing.

“Over the next two years, it would raise the Budget Control Act caps by $296 billion with only a third of that being paid for,” writes Justin Bogie, a senior policy analyst in Heritage’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies. “It would guarantee that about a trillion dollars is added to the debt this year and is an affront to any remaining hope of fiscal responsibility.”

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/12/trump-releases-new-federal-budget-with-big-hike-fo/?

My comments: It may be, that for America to Survive in a Hostile World, this Budget is necessary. But that does not mean that America's Debt may not Sink the Ship in the End. It is God Almighty that protect this Nation. But America has abandoned God and His Word--It is therefore in a precarious situation. The American LEFT is at War with God an His Word, and this could Damn America to Destruction if it persists.