The graphic below shows clearly where Trump’s priorities are and where they are not. A big boost to the military and border security. Deep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, Labor, Interior, Agriculture, Justice, Housing, Energy, Education, Transportation, and everything else that has to do with social/human/non-military needs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I refer the gentlewomen and gentlemen to my previous remarks on the matter.
To reiterate my point, one cannot be outraged at these proposed cuts and misplaced priorities and also be intellectually honest when writing, calling or meeting with members of Congress to oppose them without linking them with proposed increases in military spending.
As a former advocate, the general way we advised other advocates to respond to the question that they all get, “If you are supporting more funding for this, then what do you propose be cut?” The generic answer was something to the effect of, “That’s why you were elected, to make those kind of decisions,” which effectively passes the buck and gives them an out. This no longer applies. The implicit message must be, “if you don’t dramatically cut defense spending priorities, we will work hard to make you pay a political price; just as hard as we are working to secure funding for the priorities we support.” Look at it from the other side: “In order to increase defense spending, we are proposing cuts in almost every other department or agency.” The linkage is made there. Therefore, the linkage must be made if we want increases in funding.
When conservative Democrats or reactionary Republicans say, “We can’t afford healthcare for all or free education for everyone in their respective fields,” we must respond with, “Yes we can, if we change budgetary priorities.” To simplify, we can have guns and butter. Guns or butter is a false narrative.
The proof in the pudding, so to speak, is in the second largest circle in the graphic above, VA spending. Much of that increase is for the VA health system, which, as I have said and written over and over and over again, IS single payer health care, IS the most socialist program in the US government, DOES have the ability to dictate spending for procedures, DOES have the lowest administrative overhead (because private health insurers are [currently] prohibited from providing VA health insurance, and DOES allow its administrators to negotiate drug prices, something Medicare and Medicaid are not allowed to do because the pharma lobby has won that political fight. And the reactionary regime of Individual-1 wants to give them MORE money to be more efficient in fulfilling their socialist mandate.
So, step one for all people outraged by these proposed cuts is to link them explicitly and unconditionally to defense spending. If you do one without the other, you are not serious and you create no mechanisms of accountability.
Congrats to the maker of this infographic for Politico. I think this should go to everyone in Congress and running for office. It is an expression of the Trump Party values.
See this:
Trump’s FY2020 Budget Request Bloats Militarized Spending—and Slashes Actual Human Needs
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/blog/2019/03/11/trumps-fy2020-budget-request/
That’s the way it works. Billionaires continue with their tax windfall. Anything for humans or their welfare gets slashed. After all, who is going to pay for the massive tax breaks? Overall, it is a massive loss to working families, poor and elderly. Trump and company want America to continue to carry a big stick, even if the military does not need more money. https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison
I’m not at all surprised! Exactly what his base wants!
Diane, Could you please provide a link to the source of this graphic? I’ve looked all over and can’t find it. TIA.
I believe this is from Politico Pro, behind a paywall.
The diagram of the budget appeared in Politico Pro. I’m not a subscriber (last time I asked, it cost $3,500 a year).
This has been the GOP dream since forever. To gut, slice, dice and exterminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the social safety net, etc. This is so disgusting, beyond words.
Truly, 45 is: Making America GRATE. He’s just a bully with a mega horn, his mouth.
I can’t even look at him or listen to him. He’s totally disgusting. Can you imagine being in the same room as him?
What is truly revealing is his self-loathing and how “he projects all the hate he has for himself” onto others.
Psychologists and mental health providers should be having a field day studying that lunatic.
MAGA: Moscow’s Agent Governing America
I’ve been reading about this since Trump’s budget request was made public. I doubt that the House of Representatives will agree to this budget so we’ll probably be without one again and end up with extensions that will not give Trump what he demands. That doesn’t matter because Trump has been moving money out of federal agencies anyway and into the ones he favors without approval from Congress.
I think the reason Trump is doing this is that in his deranged, twisted malignant narcissistic, psycho mind, he thinks the military supports him and he will need their support to become Dear Leader for Life followed by the Trump Dynasty and Ivanka becoming the first woman president after Dear Leader Trump dies.
All of his life, he has won by bullying people or bribing them. This budget is intended as a bribe to the military.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that Trump said this last week: “It’s so terrible what’s happening. You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher. Okay? I can tell you, I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad. But the left plays it cuter and tougher.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/14/trump-again-nods-toward-violence-by-his-supporters-maybe-something-bigger/?utm_term=.5212cc93af54
Since Trump almost exclusively gets his talking and thinking points through Fox news and other hoax sites, he probably doesn’t know that the majority of the military does not support him, and from what I’ve been reading, he doesn’t have full support from the country’s police departments either — and most of the military or police support he does have will not include coming to Trump’s rescue if Mueller’s report or any of the investigation by the Houe of Representatives or the Southern District of New York finds him guilty of anything that could evict him from the White House and send him to prison.
Everything Trump has done through his lack of appointments to government agencies, the people he has fired, the few appointments he has made leaving many positions open, even the ones that the Senate has never approved, and his comments like the one above indicate he is planning to take over the government and install himself as America’s first dictator to avoid being found guilty of anything.
I do not think Trump will get what he wants if he goes through with those alleged schemes.
I agree with you that Trump is a dictator-in-waiting. It is hard to put this idea with the equally strong one that he doesn’t want to work. He spends 60% of his time in ‘executive time’ and goes golfing at taxpayer expense. Many of his worst ideas come from Steve Miller or Pence, neither of which has a brain in his head.
Take a chill pill Lloyd. If he decided to stay in office this poll shows he is likely to have a stinger missile up the wazoo. And the officer corp was even more unfavorable. Only in the Marines is he above water.
He comes close in the Navy as well but still, there are more unfavorable and undecided than favorable.
Democrats are about as pathetic as you can get. That remark alone warrants impeachment.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/10/15/support-for-trump-is-fading-among-active-duty-troops-new-poll-shows/
No chill pill because that’s what I said. That he doesn’t have the support of the military even though he thinks he does because probably Hannity told him so.
I read about Trump’s un-majority support from the military in the Military Times months ago, and I’ve read that support has dropped since then. More than a year ago, 70 percent of the officers did not support him and less than 50 percent of enlisted men did.
My bad I stopped reading after the link. No pills needed.
I do that sometimes. We can’t help it with the super information overload that floods our e-mail box throughout the day. We wake up to a flood and hours later after we’ve emptied that bucket, it fills up again with more stuff that is mostly crap.
The president is doing exactly what he intended to do. Do not be surprised. When Nancy Pelosi’s democratic house gets their mitts on this budget, you will not recognize it. That is why we have a division of powers.
How long has it been since we have had a budget? While you are certainly correct in saying this is an opening bid, exaggerated for political purposes, it raises the specter of yet another budget fight with no solution.
My own evaluation is that the country has moved so far to the right that compromise now becomes a win for the right. Democrats who are on the left are now defined by policies that were center during the New Deal. Meanwhile, the right continues to sail toward the edge of their flat earth, soon to fall off into the oblivion of their own making. The right now believes that any governmental activity short of bowing when private enterprise suggests a solution to a societal problem is evil. The left can suggest mild governmental activity (the conservative management of a National Wildlife Area, eg) and the right is apoplectic. Until we have a democrat who can explain the left to rural Americans in a way that will show them that government is not evil, we will be forced to live in this divide.
I have been thinking about how many women and how many teachers or retired teachers ran for the various offices during the mid-term election last November. Picture this…435 teachers or retired teachers fill the House; 100 teachers or retired teachers fill the Senate; teachers or retired teachers fill many slots in the Cabinet….then think what kind of budget would be passed and the legislation that would come out of Congress…..
In case Donnie needs a new speech writer: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/16/trump-rally/
You get the job. They wouldn’t notice the difference. The worst genes.
Resolute Reads
REAL NEWS PRESIDENT TRUMP DOESN’T WANT YOU TO MISS
10:31 AM (12 hours ago)
Spending Addiction Threatens American Economic Resurgence
-Fox News
“The president’s budget was written with the everyday American taxpayer in mind. All across the country, hardworking taxpayers have to balance their household budgets, finding ways to do more with less and save for the future. Our federal agencies and departments should be held to the same level of responsibility and accountability,” Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought writes.
Resolute Reads
REAL NEWS PRESIDENT TRUMP DOESN’T WANT YOU TO MISS
President Trump’s Trade Policies Make Great Strides
-USA Today
“The U.S. trade deficit for goods hit a record high in 2018, but critics wrongly blame this on a failure of President Donald Trump’s trade policies,” White House Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro writes. “Gross domestic product growth of 3 percent in 2018, coupled with a rapid rise in real wages and the lowest unemployment in 50 years, boosted import demand even as slower growth in markets like Europe suppressed U.S. exports. The robust Trump economy is one of the deficit’s biggest drivers.”
It is unbelievable how many people support Trump. I blame Fox, Sinclair, Rush L, Alex Jones and Breitbart for indoctrination a whole mass of people. Lies, if told often enough become facts.
Does my brother really want my Medicare insurance to be cut? [He continuously complains about how much better private insurance is even though he gets his care through the VA.] Our mother spent months in a nursing home since she was unable to care for herself. She got help through Medicaid, otherwise my brother would have had to take care of her. Why doesn’t this matter? [I was working overseas at the time.]
I believe Trump has created a cult, and one filled with people who don’t think. How else can worship of this disaster of a person be explained.
………………………….
Trump keeps tight grip on GOP
BY SCOTT WONG – 03/18/19 06:00 AM EDT
…According to an Economist/YouGov poll last week, nearly 70 percent of likely Republican voters had a very favorable opinion of Trump, while nearly 90 percent of GOP voters had a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of him.
“Trump has a lockhold on 35 percent of voters, pure conservatives who are sick and tired of how things are done” in Washington, said one grassroots conservative activist who is planning to run for Congress next year as a “Trump candidate.”
“That 35 percent 一 he’s already got their votes, so if any Republican plans to run for reelection, they know they cannot alienate that 35 percent.”…
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/434336-trump-keeps-tight-grip-on-gop
This seems to be Trump’s way of acting. Cover up and deny. Don’t let anyone know it ever happened. Deny, deny, deny and deny. Anything repeated often enough becomes a fact, especially on Fox. This is a crime against humanity. Should we expect anything better from Pompeo, the CIA or Trump?
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ACLU: The U.S. Is Acting Like an Authoritarian Regime by Barring ICC Officials Probing War Crimes
STORYMARCH 19, 2019
The Trump administration has barred International Criminal Court investigators from entering the United States. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday that the U.S. will start denying visas to members of the ICC who may be investigating alleged war crimes by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. In September, national security adviser John Bolton threatened U.S. sanctions against ICC judges if they continued to investigate alleged war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. A 2016 ICC report accused the U.S. military of torturing at least 61 prisoners in Afghanistan during the ongoing war. The report also accused the CIA of subjecting at least 27 prisoners to torture, including rape, at CIA prison sites in Afghanistan, Poland, Romania and Lithuania. We speak with Jamil Dakwar, director of the Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/19/aclu_the_us_is_acting_like