The political Left struggled on Tuesday to find terminology sufficiently jarring to express their rage and disdain for President Trump’s just-released budget. That’s the price we pay for living in an age of political hyperbole.
Liberal journalists, activists and politicians denoucned the president’s proposed cuts as “brutal!” “huge!” “shocking!” and “gutting the public sector!” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi inventively suggested Trump was “assaulting the food we eat,” which, conjuring up a mental image of the Cookie Monster, is a new way of looking at the 45th president.
What’s actually remarkable about Trump’s budget is that its cuts are modest and, in many cases, are not cuts at all, merely smaller increases than some people desired or expected.
The loudest complaint, about safety net programs, is completely inappropriate for, if you truly believe it is either terrible or impossible to return welfare programs to pre-recession levels, you’ve essentially given up on governing. If federal and state governments are to maintain a welfare system that can help people most in need, it’s unacceptable to demand that recession-era DEFCON-1 levels of government dependency become the new normal.
Trump’s budget anticipates a reduction in food stamp enrollment, for an average of $19 billion in annual savings. That seems reasonable, considering that enrollment is now more than 50 percent higher than it was when the recession began in 2007. That’s 42 million people on food stamps, up from 26 million. It’s not heartless to reform the program to get the numbers back down to a sustainable level. It is, rather, a completely appropriate, rehumanizing demand that people able to support themselves do so.
White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is discussing entirely sensible ideas to accompany this cut: more stringent work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults and an obligation on states to match some of the federal funds they receive. This latter innovation would give state legislatures an incentive to reform their food aid programs rather than shrugging and handing the tab to Uncle Sam, which is to say, federal taxpayers. This is sensible.
Something similar can be said of other programs. There is much low-hanging fruit to be grabbed. Medicaid should be reformed, on the one hand to give states more flexibility and, on the other, to prevent states gaming their federal reimbursement, as often happens now.
The Disability Insurance program of the Social Security Administration experienced an abrupt 26 percent increase in enrollment during the recession. It was, in other words, abused by people fraudulently claiming an inability to work. This needs to be fixed, not least for the sake of people who are genuinely unable to work, for whom the program is intended. Others should be obliged to rejoin the workforce. The program’s trust fund is already on life support and expected to last only another five years before its next crisis.
Given the historically short shelf life of every presidential budget projection, it is a given that Trump’s will not live up to its own expectations. Many have criticized the document’s optimistic projection of a return to 3 percent annual economic growth, which could fall victim to the low and slow expectations that became normal throughout the last eight years. But 3 percent growth is attainable with the right policies in place, and suggesting it is impossible is defeatism.
The fact that it will be difficult to achieve makes it more vital — not less — that the federal government not be allowed constantly to grow and never to shrink. Once again, Congress should ignore the dire predictions and get on with putting policies in place that make optimism possible again.
