With months left before U.S. elections, President Donald Trump unveiled a Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought speaks during a television interview at the White House, Feb.10, 2020 in Washington.Cutting critical lifelines Russell Vought, Trump’s acting budget director, said Monday the proposal will include over $740 billion for defense spending, including a 20% increase for nuclear modernization.And the massive $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, mostly benefitting the wealthiest, will be extended beyond 2025.Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lambasted the proposal.”The budget is a statement of values and once again the president is showing just how little he values the good health, financial security and wellbeing of hardworking American families,” she said in a statement.”Year after year, President Trump’s budgets have sought to inflict devastating cuts to critical lifelines that millions of Americans rely on.”But Vought defended the plan and called on Democrats to approve the required spending cuts.”This is a budget reflection built upon the pro growth economic policies of this president, which have unleashed one of the most powerful economies in American history,” he told reporters as he presented the spending and revenue plan.But he said it is necessary to restrain non-defense spending and “time to rethink” aid, which is why Trump calls for a 21% reduction for foreign aid.He also defended the 3.0% growth targets saying in an interview with CNBC that the estimates are “entirely possible to be able to hit in the next 10 years.”Trump’s plan calls for $2 billion in homeland security spending for the U.S.-Mexico border wall, boosts spending for NASA by 12% while slashing the Environmental Protection Agency by more than 26%.Budget expert MacGuineas said the proposal includes some important policy reforms to put deficits on a downward path.”But when you peel away the rosy growth assumptions, the assumed reversal of spending increases the President has already signed into law, and the exaggerated and unspecified savings, we are still left with a mountain of debt.”
 
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