Pelosi slams Trump administration’s proposed budget
WASHINGTON – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed President Donald Trump’s budget proposal.
“I can’t see how this budget can survive the light of day,” Pelosi said in response to a question at a news conference on Thursday.
The Trump administration’s proposed FY 2018 budget was released on Thursday and would hike military spending by $54 billion while making drastic cuts to almost 20 federal agencies.
Funding for the National Institutes of Health would decrease by nearly $6 billion in the next fiscal year. The Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the National Endowment for the Arts are among other agencies and programs that also would receive substantial cuts.
Pelosi said the proposed cuts to NIH are especially egregious.
“I say there’s a moral responsibility when we see scientific opportunity to honor the biblical power to cure that the National Institutes of Health has,” she said.
Pelosi said the proposed budget represents “the deconstruction of the federal government” and that “they (the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers) are “deconstructionists.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Thursday attempted to dodge a question inquiring as to whether he is concerned about the proposed 28 percent cut to the State Department.
“I haven’t looked at the budget functions, that’s function 150, I haven’t looked closely at what they’re proposing in function 150, but this is the beginning of the budget process,” the Speaker said.
Ryan told reporters that he supports reducing the size of the federal budget but that it was too early to provide specifics as to where cuts should be made.
“Do I think we can cut spending and get waste out of government? Absolutely. Where and how and what numbers-that’s something we’ll be figuring out as time goes on,” he explained. “This is just the very beginning of that process.”
This article was republished with permission from Talk Media News
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