WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will unveil his second budget on Monday - seeking to make good on his promise to bolster military spending and requesting funds for infrastructure, construction of a wall along the border with Mexico and opioid treatment programs.

The budget plan, which is viewed largely as suggestions by Congress, which has the constitutional authority to decide spending levels, will likely draw criticism from conservatives who worry that Republicans are embracing deficit spending.

The proposal will include $200 billion for infrastructure spending and more than $23 billion for border security and immigration enforcement, Mick Mulvaney, who heads the administration’s budget office, said in a statement on Sunday night.

It will also provide “for a robust and rebuilt national defense,” he said.

But the statement added that the proposal would recommend cuts that would lower the deficit by $3 trillion over 10 years.

“The budget does bend the trajectory down,” Mulvaney told the “Fox News Sunday” program earlier on Sunday. “It does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits.”

The budget request will be delivered to Congress only days after Trump signed off on a bipartisan spending agreement hammered out by lawmakers that will increase domestic spending by $300 billion over two years - including $165 billion in defense spending and $131 billion in non-military domestic spending.

The White House plans to amend its request to take into account the higher spending levels in the agreement that passed on Friday, a senior official in the Office of Management and Budget said.

Mulvaney said on Sunday all that money did not need to be spent.

“These are spending caps,” Mulvaney said. “They are not spending floors. You don’t have to spend all that.”

The spending deal will add to the annual budget deficit, which will now exceed $1 trillion in 2019, said the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget watchdog group.

Trump’s previous budget was criticized for recommending cuts to spending to achieve deficit reduction that ultimately even members of his own Republican Party thought were untenable.

“I hope the budget that we see is workable and recognizes the landscape we’re in,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican member of the Appropriations Committee. “A lot of times, what you have is a budget that even the Cabinet secretaries can’t defend.”

“The president’s budget is always a list of pretty good suggestions. It’s not ‘the’ budget,” said Senate Budget Chairman Mike Enzi.

This year’s budget is likely to stoke debates about deficits that began when Congress passed a tax overhaul in December. The tax cuts in the legislation contained no corresponding reductions in spending and instead relied on arguments that the lower rates would stoke economic growth.

Trump’s budget will include a number of economic forecasts and is expected to rely on estimates that the economy will keep growing at a rapid pace for the foreseeable future.

Such forecasts could obscure the level of deficit spending, said Robert Greenstein, president of the progressive Center for Budget Policy and Priorities. “It’ll essentially be another budget gimmick, alongside rosy economic assumptions, to make the deficit smaller than it will actually be,” Greenstein said.

The budget proposal will include two key elements - $18 billion over two years for Trump’s long-promised border wall and $200 billion in federal funds to spur $1.5 trillion in infrastructure investments over the next 10 years with state, local and private partners, Mulvaney’s statement said.

Trump promised during the 2016 campaign that Mexico would pay for the border wall, which the Mexican government has insisted it will not do.

Democrats oppose the wall, which Trump has said is aimed at keeping out illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.

The budget will also seek some $13 billion in new funding over the next two years to combat the opioid epidemic.

In addition, it will request $85.5 billion for veterans’ health, the administration said.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump unveiled a $4.4 trillion budget for next year that heralds an era of $1 trillion-plus federal deficits and—unlike the plan he released last year—never comes close to promising a balanced ledger even after 10 years.

The growing deficits reflect, in great part, the impact of last year's tax overhaul, which is projected to cause federal tax revenue to drop. And Monday's budget submission does not yet reflect last week's two-year bipartisan $300 billion pact that wholly rejects Trump's plans to slash domestic agencies.

Tax revenue would plummet by $3.7 trillion over the 2018-27 decade relative to last year's "baseline" estimates, the budget projects. Trump is requesting a record $686 billion for the Pentagon, a 13 percent increase from the 2017 budget enacted last May.

The spending spree, along with last year's tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington. Trump's plan sees a 2019 deficit of $984 billion, though $1.2 trillion is more plausible after last week's budget pact and $90 billion worth of disaster aid is tacked on. That's more than double the 2019 deficit the administration promised last year.

All told, the new budget sees accumulating deficits of $7.2 trillion over the coming decade; Trump's plan last year projected a 10-year shortfall of $3.2 trillion.

"In one year of working together, we have laid the foundation for a new era of American greatness," Trump said in the budget message accompanying his spending document. "America is back to winning again. A great spirit of optimism continues to sweep across our nation."

The 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year's proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.

"A lot of presidents' budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored," said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama. "In fact, Congress passed a law last week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted."

In a preview of Monday's release, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump's $1.5 trillion plan for the nation's crumbling infrastructure. He also is asking for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery. A request for $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.

Trump would again spare Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare as he promised during the 2016 campaign. And while his plan would reprise last year's attempt to scuttle the "Obamacare" health law and sharply cut back the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled, Trump's allies on Capitol Hill have signaled there's no interest in tackling hot-button health issues during an election year.

The budget also endorses a plan by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., to replace the Obama-era health law with $1.6 trillion in subsidies to states over the coming decade.

The plan also reprises proposals from last year's Trump budget to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies, reduce pension benefits for federal workers and cut food stamps, among other proposals.

Mick Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that Trump's new budget, if implemented, would tame the deficit over time.

"The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits," Mulvaney said on "Fox News Sunday."

"Just because this deal was signed does not mean the future is written in stone. We do have a chance still to change the trajectory. And that is what the budget will show tomorrow," he said.

Last year, Trump's budget projected a slight surplus after a decade, but critics said it relied on an enormous accounting gimmick — double counting a 10-year, $2 trillion surge in revenues from the economic benefits of "tax reform." Now that tax reform has passed, the math trick can't be used, and the Trump plan doesn't come close to balancing.

Trump plan also promises 3 percent growth, continuing low inflation, and low interest yields on U.S. Treasury bills despite a flood of new borrowing, underestimates the mounting cost of financing the government's $20 trillion-plus debt. Many economists are likely to find the prospects for such a rosy scenario implausible.

The White House is putting focus this year on Trump's long-overdue plan to boost spending on the nation's crumbling infrastructure. The plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years to leverage $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

Critics contend the infrastructure plan will fail to reach its goals without more federal support. Proposals to streamline the permitting process as a way to reduce the cost of projects have already generated opposition from environmental groups.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump unveiled a $4.4 trillion budget plan Monday that envisions steep cuts to America's social safety net but mounting spending on the military, formally retreating from last year's promises to balance the federal budget.

The president's spending outline for the first time acknowledges that the Republican tax overhaul passed last year would add billions to the deficit and not "pay for itself" as Trump and his Republican allies asserted. If enacted as proposed, though no presidential budget ever is, the plan would establish an era of $1 trillion-plus yearly deficits.

The open embrace of red ink is a remarkable public reversal for Trump and his party, which spent years objecting to President Barack Obama's increased spending during the depths of the Great Recession. Rhetoric aside, however, Trump's pattern is in line with past Republican presidents who have overseen spikes in deficits as they simultaneously increased military spending and cut taxes.

"We're going to have the strongest military we've ever had, by far," Trump said in an Oval Office appearance Monday. "In this budget we took care of the military like it's never been taken care of before."

Trump's budget revived his calls for big cuts to domestic programs that benefit the poor and middle class, such as food stamps, housing subsidies and student loans. Retirement benefits would remain mostly untouched by Trump's plan, as he has pledged, though Medicare providers would absorb about $500 billion in cuts — a nearly 6 percent reduction. Some beneficiaries in Social Security's disability program would have to re-enter the workforce under proposed changes to eligibility rules.

While all presidents' budgets are essentially dead on arrival — Congress writes and enacts its own spending legislation — Trump's plan was dead before it landed. It came just three days after the president signed a bipartisan agreement that set broad parameters for spending over the next two years. That deal, which includes large increases for domestic programs, rendered Monday's Trump plan for 10-year, $1.7 trillion cuts to domestic agencies such as the departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development even more unrealistic.

The White House used Monday's event to promote its long-awaited plan to increase funding for infrastructure. The plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years in hopes of leveraging a total of $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

But after his aides talked up that plan over the weekend, Trump suggested that his infrastructure proposal wasn't a big deal for him.

"If for any reason, they don't want to support to it, hey, that's going to be up to them," he said of the Republican-controlled Congress. "What was very important to me was the military; what was very important to me was the tax cuts."

Trump also is proposing work requirements for several federal programs, including housing subsidies, food stamps and Medicaid. Such ideas have backing from powerful figures in Congress including Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who promises action on a "workforce development" agenda this year.

There was immediate opposition from Democrats.

"The Trump budget proposal makes clear his desire to enact massive cuts to health care, anti-poverty programs and investments in economic growth to blunt the deficit-exploding impact of his tax cuts for millionaires and corporations," said Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

Some Republicans, on the other hand, said spending was much too high.

"This budget continues too much of Washington's wasteful spending — it does not balance in ten years, and it creates a deficit of over a trillion dollars next year," said Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. "We cannot steal from America's future to pay for spending today

Trump's plan aims at other familiar targets. It would eliminate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The administration wants NASA out of the International Space Station by 2025 and private businesses running the place instead.

But the domestic cuts would be far from enough to make up for the plummeting tax revenue projected in the budget.

Trump's plan sees a 2019 deficit of $984 billion, though White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney admits $1.2 trillion is more plausible after last week's congressional budget pact and $90 billion worth of disaster aid is tacked on. That would be more than double the 2019 deficit the administration promised last year.

All told, the new budget sees accumulating deficits of $7.2 trillion over the coming decade; Trump's plan last year projected a 10-year shortfall of $3.2 trillion. And that's assuming Trump's rosy economic predictions come true and Congress follows through — in an election year — with politically toxic cuts to social programs, farm subsidies and Medicare providers.

Last year Trump's budget promised such ideas could generate a small budget surplus by 2027; now, his best-case scenario is for a $450 billion deficit that year, more than $300 billion of which can be traced to his December tax cut.

In stark numbers, the budget rewrites the administration's talking points for last year's tax plan, which administration figures such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin promised would more than pay for itself.

"Not only will this tax plan pay for itself, but it will pay down debt," Mnuchin declared in September.

Instead, Trump's budget projects that tax revenues will plummet by $3.7 trillion over the 2018-27 decade relative to last year's "baseline" estimates.

The budget also includes $1.6 billion for the second stage of Trump's proposed border wall, a 65-mile segment in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. Trump's request last year for 74 miles of wall in San Diego and the Rio Grande Valley is pending before lawmakers right now.

Once again, there's no mention of how Mexico would have to pay for it, as Trump repeatedly promised during the presidential campaign and after his victory.

The plan reprises proposals to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies and reduce pension benefits for federal workers. They went nowhere last year.

Trump's plan promises 3 percent growth for the nation's economy, continuing low inflation and low interest yields on U.S. Treasury bills despite a flood of new borrowing. That likely underestimates the mounting cost of financing the government's $20 trillion-plus debt, many economists say.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said a surge in stimulus from higher government spending and tax cuts would boost growth but for only for a short time.

"This will meaningfully raise the odds that after juiced-up growth in 2018 and 2019, we will get a much weaker economy, possibly a recession in the next decade," Zandi said. "In good times, budget policy should be working to get the deficits down because bad times are sure to come."

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Welcome to Mic’s daily read on Donald Trump’s America. Want to receive this as a daily email in your inbox? Subscribe here.

Legislators in Washington, D.C., will review several policy proposals, beginning Monday, that will kick off weeks of debate about the federal budget, infrastructure, immigration and more. This comes off Friday’s move by lawmakers to increase federal spending by $300 billion over the next two years — and fund the government through March 23.

The budget: On Sunday evening, President Donald Trump introduced his budget for 2019. The proposal would cut $3 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade. The White House was not specific about which programs would be slashed to accomplish those cuts. More details are expected to be released Monday morning.

Much of the budget Trump introduced in 2017 didn’t come to pass, as Congress preserved funding for dozens of federal programs the administration wanted to slash. The budget could prove even more irrelevant to Congress this year, given the passage of a two-year budget plan on Friday. Still, Trump is likely to use this budget to rally his base by saying he’s investing heavily in border security and the military while cutting “wasteful Washington spending.” Democrats will slam the White House for again calling for cuts to programs that help the poor, research disease or feed the elderly.

Of note: This plan will drop the traditional GOP vision of balancing the federal budget within ten years.

Infrastructure: Monday will also bring the introduction of Trump’s infrastructure plan. The proposal will be sold as a $1.5 trillion investment over the next 10 years into America’s bridges, roads and airports. In reality, the legislation would spend $200 billion in federal dollars to attract $1.3 trillion in local, state and private investment. The administration says it will focus on cutting “red tape” to greatly reduce how long it takes to approve construction, and draw the $200 billion from thus far unspecified cuts to existing programs.

The American Society for Civil Engineers says the U.S. needs to spend $4.59 trillion on repairing the country’s infrastructure by 2025. That makes the federal investment in this plan a drop in the bucket, and the total promised investment wholly insufficient. Still, this will be the first time Congress seriously considers a major infrastructure bill since Democrats passed the stimulus package under former President Barack Obama, which spent $80 billion on infrastructure. Trump’s package would be a 250% increase over Obama’s.

Immigration: The Senate will kick off its promised open debate on immigration this week, with a conservative bill that resembles the legislation outlined by Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised Democrats that if they agreed to continue funding the government, he would support open debate on an immigration bill — a rare and uncalculated move for the senator. Congress has until March 5 to pass legislation that protects Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients whose status has already expired, and preserve the program permanently.

It’s unclear if this process will work. Trump has been clear that in exchange for a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million people brought to the United States as minors, he wants to see reforms that drastically reduce who can come to the U.S., and who can come with them. That aspect is going nowhere with Democrats, at least nine of whom must support the proposal in the Senate for the legislation to move forward. And whatever clears the Senate will face immediate problems in the House, where Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) must work carefully to not lose a majority of his caucus in supporting a Senate-passed immigration bill.

Other policy advances: Vice President Mike Pence told the Washington Post during his trip home from the Olympics that the U.S. is ready to talk with North Korea. The South Koreans will take the lead in near-term negotiations, Pence said, potentially followed shortly thereafter by the U.S.

Unlike Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt, Scott Gottlieb has found a way to protect public health while pleasing the health industry where he worked as a practicing doctor and academic at New York University, the New York Times reported. The Food and Drug Administration commissioner has won praise from former critics, who were initially wary of his industry ties but approve of his approach after a year.

The Trump administration wants to make the International Space Station commercially run by 2024, the Washington Post reported.

Today’s question: Which of these policy proposals will you watch the closest?

Please email us at trumpsamerica@mic.com with your thoughts.

Coalitions in Congress could quickly form or collapse on immigration. Lawmakers made clear after the State of the Union and throughout last week that reaching 60 votes in the Senate on an immigration bill will be extremely difficult. So this may go nowhere.

Acknowledging that reality, White House officials have begun floating a plan that would maintain current immigration levels — a dramatic shift from the initial Trump proposal, which critics say could cut immigration by up to 40%.

Are you watching this? From Politico: “Progressive insurgents are launching challenges to Democratic members of Congress in some of the country’s bluest districts, sparked by deep frustration with the party establishment and anti-Trump anger.”

In that vein: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stood for eight hours on Thursday to demand the House vote to protect DACA recipients. But after the House passed a budget bill she voted against, Pelosi praised the legislation.

Pelosi has walked a fine line to stay in power as progressives and moderates alike take issue with her approach. Can she survive until the midterms?

ICYMI: Rachel Brand, the No. 3 official at the Department of Justice, announce d Friday she will resign. She would have inherited oversight of the Trump-Russia investigation if the president fired Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

John Kelly: Top officials say Trump continues to have confidence in White House chief of staff John Kelly, who reportedly considered resigning Friday over his handling of domestic abuse allegations against staff secretary Rob Porter.

Over the weekend, Trump appeared to tweet a defense of Porter by saying “a mere allegation” can ruin someone’s life. Porter’s ex-wives provided photographic evidence of his alleged abuse. One of them took out a protective order against Porter.

Mic’s Jack Smith IV introduces us to the right’s billionaire megadonor family, the Mercers — known climate change deniers and bankrolllers for far-right ideologies.

Click or tap below to watch.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is proposing a $4 trillion-plus budget for next year that projects a $1 trillion or so federal deficit and — unlike the plan he released last year — never comes close to promising a balanced federal ledger even after 10 years.

And that’s before last week’s $300 billion budget pact is added this year and next, showering both the Pentagon and domestic agencies with big increases.

The spending spree, along with last year’s tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington.

The original plan was for Trump’s new budget to slash domestic agencies even further than last year’s proposal, but instead it will land in Congress three days after he signed a two-year spending agreement that wholly rewrites both last year’s budget and the one to be released Monday.

The 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year’s proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.

“A lot of presidents’ budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored,” said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama. “In fact, Congress passed a law week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted.”

In a preview of the 2019 budget, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump’s $1.5 trillion plan for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. He also will ask for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery. A request of $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.

Trump would again spare Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare as he promised during the 2016 campaign. And while his plan would reprise last year’s attempt to scuttle the “Obamacare” health law and sharply cut back the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have signaled there’s no interest in tackling hot-button health issues during an election year.

Instead, the new budget deal and last year’s tax cuts herald the return of trillion dollar-plus deficits. Last year, Trump’s budget predicted a $526 billion budget deficit for the 2019 fiscal year starting Oct. 1; instead, it’s set to easily exceed $1 trillion once the cost of the new spending pact and the tax cuts are added to Congressional Budget Office projections.

Mick Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that Trump’s new budget, if implemented, would tame the deficit over time.

“The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits,” Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Just because this deal was signed does not mean the future is written in stone. We do have a chance still to change the trajectory. And that is what the budget will show tomorrow,” he said.

Last year, Trump’s budget projected a slight surplus after a decade, but critics said it relied on an enormous accounting gimmick — double counting a 10-year, $2 trillion surge in revenues from the economic benefits of “tax reform.” Now that tax reform has passed, the math trick can’t be used, and the Trump plan doesn’t come close to balancing.

But critics are likely to say this year’s Trump plan, which promises 3 percent growth, continuing low inflation, and low interest yields on U.S. Treasury bills despite a flood of new borrowing, underestimates the mounting cost of financing the government’s $20 trillion-plus debt.

The White House is putting focus this year on Trump’s long-overdue plan to boost spending on the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years to leverage $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

Critics contend the infrastructure plan will fail to reach its goals without more federal support. Proposals to streamline the permitting process as a way to reduce the cost of projects have already generated opposition from environmental groups.

Presidential budgets tend to reprise many of the same elements year after year. While details aren’t out yet, Trump’s budget is likely to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies, reduce pension benefits for federal workers and cut food stamps, among other proposals.</s>WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump unveiled a $4.4 trillion budget for next year that heralds an era of $1 trillion-plus federal deficits and — unlike the plan he released last year — never comes close to promising a balanced ledger even after 10 years.

The growing deficits reflect, in great part, the impact of last year’s tax overhaul, which is projected to cause federal tax revenue to drop.

And Monday’s budget submission does not yet reflect last week’s two-year bipartisan $300 billion pact that wholly rejects Trump’s plans to slash domestic agencies.

Tax revenue would plummet by $3.7 trillion over the 2018-27 decade relative to last year’s “baseline” estimates, the budget projects.

Trump is requesting a record $686 billion for the Pentagon, a 13 percent increase from the 2017 budget enacted last May.

The spending spree, along with last year’s tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington.

Trump’s plan sees a 2019 deficit of $984 billion, though $1.2 trillion is more plausible after last week’s budget pact and $90 billion worth of disaster aid is tacked on.

That’s more than double the 2019 deficit the administration promised last year.

All told, the new budget sees accumulating deficits of $7.2 trillion over the coming decade; Trump’s plan last year projected a 10-year shortfall of $3.2 trillion.

“In one year of working together, we have laid the foundation for a new era of American greatness,” Trump said in the budget message accompanying his spending document.

“America is back to winning again. A great spirit of optimism continues to sweep across our nation.”

The 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year’s proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.

“A lot of presidents’ budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored,” said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama.

“In fact, Congress passed a law last week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted.”

In a preview of Monday’s release, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump’s $1.5 trillion plan for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

He also is asking for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery.

A request for $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.

Trump would again spare Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare as he promised during the 2016 campaign.

And while his plan would reprise last year’s attempt to scuttle the “Obamacare” health law and sharply cut back the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have signaled there’s no interest in tackling hot-button health issues during an election year.

The budget also endorses a plan by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., to replace the Obama-era health law with $1.6 trillion in subsidies to states over the coming decade.

The plan also reprises proposals from last year’s Trump budget to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies, reduce pension benefits for federal workers and cut food stamps, among other proposals.

Mick Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that Trump’s new budget, if implemented, would tame the deficit over time.

“The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits,” Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Just because this deal was signed does not mean the future is written in stone. We do have a chance still to change the trajectory. And that is what the budget will show tomorrow,” he said.

Last year, Trump’s budget projected a slight surplus after a decade, but critics said it relied on an enormous accounting gimmick — double counting a 10-year, $2 trillion surge in revenues from the economic benefits of “tax reform.”

Now that tax reform has passed, the math trick can’t be used, and the Trump plan doesn’t come close to balancing.

Trump plan also promises 3 percent growth, continuing low inflation, and low interest yields on U.S. Treasury bills despite a flood of new borrowing, underestimates the mounting cost of financing the government’s $20 trillion-plus debt.

Many economists are likely to find the prospects for such a rosy scenario implausible.

The White House is putting focus this year on Trump’s long-overdue plan to boost spending on the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

The plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years to leverage $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

Critics contend the infrastructure plan will fail to reach its goals without more federal support.

Proposals to streamline the permitting process as a way to reduce the cost of projects have already generated opposition from environmental groups.</s>WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump unveiled a $4.4 trillion budget for next year that heralds an era of $1 trillion-plus federal deficits and — unlike the plan he released last year — never comes close to promising a balanced ledger even after 10 years.

The budget submitted Monday shows the growing deficits despite major cuts for domestic programs, largely because of last year’s tax overhaul, which is projected to cause federal tax revenue to drop. This budget does not yet reflect last week’s two-year bipartisan $300 billion pact that wholly rejects Trump’s plans to slash domestic agencies.

The president’s budget proposes dramatic cuts to a wide range of domestic agencies from the Departments of Labor and Interior to the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation. Unlike last year’s submission, the 2019 Trump plan would cut Medicare by $554 billion over the next 10 years, a 6 percent reduction from projected spending, including cuts in Medicare payments going to hospitals and rehabilitation centers.

Presidential budgets are often declared dead-on-arrival in Congress where lawmakers have their own ideas about spending priorities. But the documents do represent the most detailed elaboration of an administration’s priorities.

Tax revenue would plummet by $3.7 trillion over the 2018-27 decade relative to last year’s “baseline” estimates, the budget projects. Trump is requesting a record $686 billion for the Pentagon, a 13 percent increase from the 2017 budget enacted last May.

In remarks Monday, Trump focused on the spending increases he favors rather than the deficits he and other Republicans have pledged to reduce.

“We’re going to have the strongest military we’ve ever had, by far,” Trump said. “In this budget we took care of the military like it’s never been taken care of before.”

Also getting a boost would be border security. Trump’s budget includes money to start building 65 miles of border wall in south Texas as well as money to bring immigration jails up to a capacity of 47,000 and add 2,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees and 750 Border Patrol agents.

The spending spree, along with last year’s tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington. Trump’s plan sees a 2019 deficit of $984 billion, though $1.2 trillion is more plausible after last week’s budget pact and $90 billion worth of disaster aid is tacked on. That’s more than double the 2019 deficit the administration promised last year.

All told, the new budget sees accumulating deficits of $7.2 trillion over the coming decade; Trump’s plan last year projected a 10-year shortfall of $3.2 trillion.

“In one year of working together, we have laid the foundation for a new era of American greatness,” Trump said in the budget message accompanying his spending document. “America is back to winning again. A great spirit of optimism continues to sweep across our nation.”

The 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year’s proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.

“A lot of presidents’ budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored,” said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama. “In fact, Congress passed a law last week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted.”

In a preview of Monday’s release, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump’s $1.5 trillion plan for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. He also is asking for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery. A request for $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.

Trump would again spare Social Security retirement benefits as he promised during the 2016 campaign, though his plan would reprise last year’s attempt to scuttle the “Obamacare” health law and sharply cut back the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled.

The plan also reprises proposals from last year’s Trump budget to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies, reduce pension benefits for federal workers and cut food stamps, among other proposals.

Mick Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that Trump’s new budget, if implemented, would tame the deficit over time.

“The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back toward balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits,” Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Last year, Trump’s budget projected a slight surplus after a decade, but critics said it relied on an enormous accounting gimmick — double counting a 10-year, $2 trillion surge in revenues from the economic benefits of “tax reform.” Now that tax reform has passed, the math trick can’t be used, and the Trump plan doesn’t come close to balancing.

Trump plan also promises 3 percent growth, continuing low inflation, and low interest yields on U.S. Treasury bills despite a flood of new borrowing, underestimates the mounting cost of financing the government’s $20 trillion-plus debt. Many economists are likely to find the prospects for such a rosy scenario implausible.

The White House is putting focus this year on Trump’s long-overdue plan to boost spending on the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years to leverage $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

Critics contend the infrastructure plan will fail to reach its goals without more federal support. Proposals to streamline the permitting process as a way to reduce the cost of projects have already generated opposition from environmental groups.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) - In a twist on Washington’s truism about presidential budgets being D.O.A., President Donald Trump’s 2019 fiscal plan due Monday is dead even before arrival.

The original plan was for Trump’s new budget to slash domestic agencies even further than last year’s proposal, but instead it will land in Congress three days after he signed a two-year spending agreement that wholly rewrites both last year’s budget and the one to be released Monday.

In a preview of the 2019 budget, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump’s $1.5 trillion plan for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. He also will ask for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery. A request of $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.

Trump’s latest submission was completed before the budget pact delivered the nearly $300 billion increase above prior “caps” on spending. The $4 trillion-plus 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year’s proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.

“A lot of presidents’ budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored,” said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama. “In fact, Congress passed a law week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted.”

Trump would again spare Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare as he promised during the 2016 campaign. And while his plan would reprise last year’s attempt to scuttle the “Obamacare” health law and sharply cut back the Medicaid program for the elderly, poor and disabled, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have signaled there’s no interest in tackling hot-button health issues during an election year.

Instead, the new budget deal and last year’s tax cuts herald the return of trillion dollar-plus deficits. Last year, Trump’s budget predicted a $526 billion budget deficit for the 2019 fiscal year starting Oct. 1; instead, it’s set to exceed $1 trillion once the cost of the new spending pact and the tax cuts are added to Congressional Budget Office projections.

Mick Mulvaney, the former tea party congressman who runs the White House budget office, said Sunday that Trump’s new budget, if implemented, would tame the deficit over time, though unlike last year’s submission, it wouldn’t promise to balance the federal ledger eventually.

“The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits,” Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday.” ”Just because this deal was signed does not mean the future is written in stone. We do have a chance still to change the trajectory. And that is what the budget will show tomorrow.”

Last year, Trump’s budget projected a slight surplus after a decade, but critics said it relied on an enormous accounting gimmick - double counting a 10-year, $2 trillion surge in revenues from the economic benefits of “tax reform.” Now that tax reform has passed, the math trick can’t be used, and the Trump plan doesn’t come close to balancing.

Trump’s infrastructure plan would put up $200 billion in federal money over the next 10 years to leverage $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, relying on state and local governments and the private sector to contribute the bulk of the funding.

Critics contend the infrastructure plan will fail to reach its goals without more federal support. Proposals to streamline the permitting process as a way to reduce the cost of projects have already generated opposition from environmental groups.

The budget’s call for increased border security funding would probably depend on Congress passing legislation to deal with young immigrants brought to the country illegally. The Senate was set Monday to begin debate on immigration policy, the fate of the so-called Dreamers a central question.

The White House budget office said Friday that Monday’s submission would reflect stringent limits on appropriated spending - that’s the more than $1 trillion spent each year for agency operations - that were the hangover from a failed 2011 budget deal. Last year, Trump promised a $54 billion, 10 percent increase for the Pentagon, financed by an equal cut to foreign aid and domestic agencies.

What Congress instead delivered on Friday was a budget law would instead increase defense by $80 billion this year and boost nondefense appropriations by $63 billion. For the 2019 budget year submitted on Monday - and Trump’s plan as originally devised would adhere to the old limits - Congress has already shattered the spending cap by $153 billion.

“Our leadership caved. The swamp won. And the American taxpayer lost,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”

Presidential budgets tend to reprise many of the same elements year after year. While details aren’t out yet, Trump’s budget is likely to curb crop insurance costs, cut student loan subsidies, reduce pension benefits for federal workers and cut food stamps, among other proposals.

Such cuts went nowhere in Congress last year as Republicans focused on trying to repeal and replace Obama’s Affordable Care Act and, after that failed, turned their sights to a successful rewrite of the tax code.

But the election in December of Alabama Democrat Doug Jones to the Senate seat cut the GOP’s margin of control to 51-49. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says the chamber won’t tackle politically toxic cuts to so-called mandatory programs.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) - A budget proposal President Trump sent to Congress Monday would allow $1.2 trillion in discretionary spending in 2019, including $23 billion for border security and immigration enforcement, $21 billion for infrastructure, and $17 billion to combat the opioid epidemic.

But while the budget proposal fully funds Trump's own priorities, his budget proposes spending $57 billion less in domestic spending than Congress authorized just three days ago.

The budget plan is the first step toward filling in the details of a two-year budget framework passed by Congress last week, which increased caps on both military and domestic spending. That compromise — specifically designed to win the support of Senate Democrats and avoid a filibuster — ended an 8-hour partial government shutdown Friday and signaled a budget truce for at least the next 19 months.

Trump's proposal includes down payments on some of his biggest priorities, including:

- Infrastructure: The 2019 budget provides $21 billion next year toward an infrastructure spending plan worth $200 billion over 10 years — and which the White House says will help spur $1.5 trillion in spending when combined with state, local and private funds.

"This will be a big week for Infrastructure. After so stupidly spending $7 trillion in the Middle East, it is now time to start investing in OUR Country!" Trump tweeted Monday morning.

- Border security: The $23 billion figure includes $18 billion toward the border wall along the Mexican border. $2.7 billion to detain up to 52,000 undocumented immigrants and $782 million to hire 2,750 more customs and immigration agents.

- Veterans Health. Trump will request $85.5 billion for medical care for veterans, the White House said.</s>The assumptions in Monday’s release are also significantly more optimistic than the Trump administration itself used in its budget calculations last year.

Most notably, the administration projected annualized economic growth of 3.1 percent over the next three years. In December, the Federal Reserve projected annualized growth of 2.2 percent over that period. The Survey of Professional Forecasters estimated the annualized growth rate to be about 2.4 percent.

The centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s budget is a plan to devote $200 billion over the next decade in new spending to improve the country’s crumbling infrastructure, starting with $44.6 billion in 2019. The president says the plan will generate as much as $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion in new investments in building roads, bridges and other major projects over the next 10 years, in large part relying on states, cities and private companies to fund them. But the proposal faces steep challenges in Congress, where many lawmakers believe $200 billion is far too little to create a sustainable stream of federal infrastructure money for the future.

“We will build, we will maintain, and the vast majority of Americans wants to see us take care of our infrastructure,” Mr. Trump said Monday at the White House as he released an outline of the plan and discussed it with cabinet officials, governors and local leaders. “Washington will no longer be a roadblock to progress; Washington will now be your partner.”

Still, the budget compensates for the new infusion of infrastructure spending in part by slashing existing transportation programs, which would be cut by $178 billion over a decade, according to a detailed budget breakdown the Trump administration sent Monday to Capitol Hill. Grants to Amtrak would be halved, from $1.2 trillion to $538 billion, while the Army Corps of Engineers, which manages vast amounts of public infrastructure projects, would see a more than 20 percent cut.

Lawmakers in both parties, who essentially went around Mr. Trump to strike their own budget compromise, made it clear they had no intention of embracing Mr. Trump’s plan.
U.S. President Donald Trump sends his US$4.4 trillion 2019 budget proposal to Congress.