Donald Trump budget proposal to force millions off food stamps

Millions of people will be driven off food stamps as part of the spending cuts being planned for Donald Trump’s first budget.

The President’s proposals would cut up to $1.7trillion over the next ten years, with saving coming from cuts to programmes such as Medicaid, federal employee pensions, welfare benefits and farm subsidies.

The Washington Post said Mr Trump would cut $800bn alone from Medicaid, the state-federal programme that provides health care to low-income citizens. Up to 10m people could lose out over the next decade.

The Associated Press said such is the concern about the depths of Mr Trump’s planned cuts, that they have received criticism from politicians in both major parties.

The cuts include up to $193bn from food stamps over the coming decade, a reduction of around 25 per cent. The programme presently serves about 42m people, many of whom would have voted for Trump. The AP said the food stamp cut was several times bigger than one one attempted by House Republicans a few years back.

The budget also contains $1.6bn in funding for the President’s much vaunted wall along the US-Mexico border as part of a larger $2.6bn spending hike for border security programmes. A promise to build such a wall was a major component of Mr Trump’s election campaign.

The proposals that have been highlighted ahead of Tuesday’s budget launch, have received considerable criticism.

“We think it’s wrongheaded,” said Republican congressman Mike Conaway, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, when asked about looming cuts to farm programmes.

“Production agriculture is in the worst slump since the depression - 50 per cent drop in the net income for producers. They need this safety net.”

Mr Trump’s budget plan promises to balance the federal books by the end of a 10-year window.

But to achieve such a balance, the plan by White House budget director Mick Mulvaney relies on optimistic estimates of economic growth, and the surge in revenues that would result, while abandoning Mr Trump’s promise of a “massive tax cut”.

Instead, the Mr Trump tax plan promises an overhaul that would cut tax rates but rely on erasing tax breaks and economic growth to end up as “revenue neutral”. It would create three tax brackets - 10 per cent, 25 per cent and 35 per cent - as opposed to the seven that currently exist.