Posted on 05/06/2025 7:34:37 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
President Donald Trump is proposing staggering spending cuts.
In his budget request for fiscal year 2026, the president demands that Congress slash an eye-popping 20% of spending which lawmakers allocate each year.
"You're going to see $150 billion (in cuts) passed in the House and the Senate. That is real money," said Budget Director Russ Vought on Fox News. "I think for the first time, this budget is not dead on arrival."
To be clear, the budget which Mr. Trump sent to Capitol Hill is aspirational. All presidential budgets are. It’s what a president proposes that lawmakers – and his administration – aim to spend for the upcoming fiscal year. Congress is still charged with voting on the 12 annual spending bills which fund the government. The 20% cut proposed by President Trump deals with that area of spending.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
$150 billion cut is staggering? Ya gotta be kidding me....
Maybe they’re too busy renaming the gulf of Mexico.
Good point. That ain’t even “real money” yet, as someone once said.
Just go get your own numbers.
Of the $7T spending totals of this year, Mandatory spending is going to be 60%. That’s stuff like Medicare and Soc Sec. It’s not subject to authorization. It already has authorization.
Strangely, interest on the national debt is not in that category, though it is probably the most mandatory of all spending. Add that in and you have $5.3T and that leaves 1.7T discretionary.
$890B is DoD. Leaves about $800B available for cuts.
That’s how the claim of 20% cut is defined. 150/800 is about 20%.
An additional ton of stuff has been declared off limits, even from the discretionary category. Dept of Transportation, Veteran Affairs and NASA are listed in the article as off limits.
HUD, Dept of Labor and Dept of Interior will all be slashed.
The sprint for the microphones to declare it a Good Start is underway, but this is absurd. After this ballyhooed “cut”, the overall budget will run an **increased** deficit. Meaning, we will be cutting our way to more debt.
$150B is simply nothing. It’s 0.5% of the $31T public debt, that has 3.4% interest on it. Interest swallows that $150B without even a glass of water.
Last years budget was 6.8 trillion.
20 percent of that would be 1.36 trillion, not 150 billion.
Are they referring to one of the twelve sub categories of the total budget?
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Very good.
Yes.
See the post I put up just after yours with more numerical detail.
What a joke!
Add a zero, then I’ll know you are serious about the deficit and sparing our children from becoming even bigger debt-slaves.
Agree, we're in deep doo doo if we don't get some serious politicians to take this seriously.
yes
they use different rulers for cuts and increases
It's time for a machete.
No one in Congress is going to vote to cut Soc Sec or Medicare. No one dependent on Soc Sec and Medicare are going to vote for anyone to enter Congress who says he will cut them.
There are negotiations underway for Soc Sec. Given the 2 year re-election cycle, neither side is going to want to see legislation from those negotiations hit the floor.
Things discussed:
1) Raise the payroll tax, mostly by raising the salary threshold where that tax stops. This will raise money, but nowhere near enough — because there just aren’t that many people making that much in salary.
2) Further adjust the age for Soc Sec — via Full Retirement Age or via reducing the rewards of waiting past FRA.
3) Cut benefits — and this NEVER EVER EVER makes it into the lexicon unless it carefully talks about only applying to new applicants 10 yrs from now. But of course the Dems will instruct the media to keep that condition out of the discussion, and to be sure it is understood the GOP negotiators proposed it.
Odds. Odds are all 3 options will happen at some point. To further cushion item #3, it will be made clear it is a cut only for Soc Sec recipients whose monthly SS check is top 10% or something.
Benefit cuts are absolutely necessary. But they don’t have to apply evenly across the check size spectrum.
Maybe someone out there can clear something up for me. How does this budget proposal relate to the current reconciliation bill being negotiated? If agreed to, would these recommendations be part of that bill, or another bill to come later in the year?
fighting over awards for basket ball players? (or was it hockey?)
perhaps a unconstitutional vote from home bill since they are lazy?
surly what ever they are up to has nothing to do with the trump agenda.
It’s a step in the right direction, a very small step.
You’re going to see $150 billion (in cuts)
And with Elon’s work the cuts keep growing good deal.
MAGA
Do it or lose your job next November.
Screw the GOP party.
Good question
Your #1 is confusing. Federal income tax rates are not capped.
Nor are Medicare taxes. Only Social Security.
As to #2, not a good idea. Full benefits are already 72 years.
Any change to the SS system is a waste of time. We were forced to pay our entire life. Not paying back is theft.
The payroll tax . . . the 6.x% tax on salary paid to Soc Sec . . . that ends at some number I think about $140K/yr. That’s what I meant by capped. No one pays more than 6.x% of 140K (the numbers are approx that, didn’t get the exact amount).
Full Retirement Age has a specific definition. For various dates of birth it is 66 and X months, or 66 and X+Y months up to max 67. At this age there is no reduction from the FRA payout. At 62 there is a reduction on a sliding scale up to 67.
If you wait to 70, you get 8%/yr increase over the FRA payout for every year past FRA. But at age 70 the 8% increases end. You get the (1.08 X FRA x years count past FRA).
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