Although President Trump’s newly released budget proposal envisions far lower safety net spending, the White House claims that no one who needs social benefits would lose them.
“We’re not kicking anyone off of any program who really needs it,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said at a press briefing Tuesday. “We have plenty of money in this country to take care of the people who need help. And will do that.”
Instead, Mulvaney argued, Trump’s budget will reduce benefits for people who don’t need them and move other people off benefits through job creation.
Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget, which is a request to Congress and a statement of priorities, envisions far lower spending in the years ahead on Medicaid, welfare programs and Social Security disability insurance.
In the case of Medicaid, Trump’s budget would save $610 billion over 10 years through changes to save money, in addition to the $800 billion-plus in future spending reductions that would take place as part of the Obamacare replacement bill backed by the White House.
That would not be a cut, but rather smaller future spending increases, Mulvaney said. He also said that the reforms would make the program better able to deliver services to beneficiaries.
The White House budget also calls for saving money on welfare programs by increasing work requirements, for a total of $272 billion in savings over 10 years, including $190 billion less on food stamps. It would take other steps to save money, such as tightening the eligibility requirements for low-income tax credits so that illegal immigrants would not be able to receive them.
Those measures would be justified on the basis that it would not be compassionate to ask working families to pay the taxes to fund those expenditures, Mulvaney argued.
Asked whether seeking $72 billion in savings from Social Security disability payments would violate Trump’s campaign pledge not to touch Social Security, Mulvaney responded that the program is not what most people would think of as Social Security, which also comprises retirement insurance. People who are able to work and should not be receiving disability benefits should be removed from the program, he argued.
