President Donald Trump wants to push through major cuts to the federal budget, but Republican lawmakers are already raising objections to the rumored plan.
Trump’s ambitious reported plan to cut $10.5 trillion from the budget over the next ten years will face major obstacles, especially if the president avoids Medicaid and Social Security reform, Republican senators claim. (RELATED: Report: Trump Plans To Cut $10.5 Trillion From Federal Budget Over Next Decade)
“Any effort to balance the budget by cutting discretionary spending is not a straightforward approach,” Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander told The Hill.
Alexander, senior member of the Appropriations Committee and chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, noted that part of the budget that Congress sets every year, known as discretionary spending, isn’t the big driver of deficit spending.
“The part of the budget that is creating the debt is the entitlement part of the budget,” he said.
Much of Trump’s plan follows the Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) 2017 Blueprint for a Balanced Budget, which itself proposes only $8.6 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years.
Trump wants to keep both Medicaid and Social Security, and campaigned on a platform of keeping both entitlements without a tax increase. (RELATED: Bernie Sanders Says Donald Trump Is A Liar If He Cuts Medicare, Social Security)
Ben Carson wants to abolish Medicare – I want to save it and Social Security.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 26, 2015
Other likely targets of Trump’s budget cuts that will face Republican opposition include ending the Legal Services Corporation, which is intended to provide free, legal assistance in non-criminal cases. The RSC says the program should be cut since many of the services are also provided by states.
“I think that would be hard thing to do,” Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah told The Hill about cutting the Legal Services Corporation, something former President Ronald Reagan also tried to do. “Even if you wanted to do that, you couldn’t get it through the Senate.”
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