Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer slammed President Trump’s decision to boost defense spending in his first budget by $54 billion while cutting foreign aid and spending levels by a corresponding amount across the board at most non-security agencies.
Reacting to news about the non-defense spending cuts, Schumer said Trump’s budget priorities take a “meat ax” to programs that benefit the middle-class, which he said amounted to a broken promise to working families who voted for him.
“It is clear from his budget blueprint that President Trump fully intends to break his promises to working families by taking a meat ax to programs that benefit the middle-class,” Schumer said Monday in a statement.
The New York Democrat also cast the non-defense cuts as “steep” and said they would amount to cuts to agencies that protect consumers from “Wall Street excess” and “protect clean air and water.”
“Most Americans didn’t vote to ease up on polluters, or to give Wall Street the green light to rip them off,” he said. “They certainly didn’t vote to make all these cuts so that President Trump can hand out a tax break to the wealthiest Americans.”
He then broadened his criticism to say that the budget proposal reflects “exactly who this president is and what today’s Republican Party believes in: helping the wealthy and special interests while putting further burdens on the middle class and those struggling to get there.”
An Office of Management and Budget official told reporters earlier Monday that the budget would increase defense and national security spending by 10 percent, which would be offset by cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also rejected Trump’s plan as one that would only hurt the middle class.
“President Trump’s budget blueprint is a prescription for America’s decline,” she said. “Ransacking America’s investments in jobs and working families will make our nation weaker, not stronger. A $54 billion cut will do far-reaching and long-lasting damage to our ability to meet the needs of the American people and win the jobs of the future.”
