US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has announced plans to cut all government funding from community projects like Meals on Wheels and housing assistance to help pay for the Mexican border wall if his $1.15 trillion budget blueprint is passed by politicians.
His budget plans were revealed just hours after a second federal judge in the US blocked parts of his revised travel ban.
The move follows a nationwide block on the executive order by a judge in Hawaii, hours before it was due to take effect.
The president’s budget proposals include the complete elimination of the $3 billion (£2.4bn) Community Development Block Grant programme, which funds a range of community assistance efforts.
He also hopes to slash funds for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prioritise his promised wall along the US-Mexico border, which will receive an immediate $1.5bn (£1.2bn) cash injection, followed by another $2.6bn (£2.1bn) if his spending plans for the 2018 budget year are approved by the House of Representatives.
Throughout his campaign for presidency Trump repeatedly said that Mexico would pay for the wall, bit it now appears that initially US taxpayers will foot the bill.
Yesterday’s $1.15 trillion (£1tr) budget – titled America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again – will also benefit the military, which will receive its largest windfall since the Reagan administration.
The 10 per cent Pentagon boost – intended to improve troop readiness, fight Daesh and buy new weapons – is financed by $54bn (£44bn) of cuts to foreign aid and domestic agencies that had been protected by previous President Barack Obama.
Trump said: “A budget that puts America first must make the safety of our people its number one priority — because without safety, there can be no prosperity.”
The financial blueprint goes after the frequent targets of the party’s staunchest conservatives, eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, legal aid for the poor and low-income heating assistance.
Twelve of the government’s 15 cabinet agencies would absorb cuts under the president’s proposal. The biggest loser is arguably the EPA, which would reportedly see its funding slashed to $2.5bn (£2bn) from the current $8.2bn (£6.7bn).
Agriculture, Labour, Housing and State departments would also see funding pulled, along with Transportation programmes like Amtrak.
The $3bn (£2.4bn) Community Development programme – which funds popular programmes such as housing assistance and Meals on Wheels, which delivers food to the elderly and disabled – would be completely dismantled.
More than 3,000 EPA workers would lose their jobs and programmes such as Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which tightens regulations on emissions from power plants seen as contributing to global warming, would be eliminated.
Politicians will have the final say on Trump’s budget proposal and many of the cuts will be deemed dead on arrival.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney acknowledged passing them could be an uphill struggle.
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