Trump wants to cut $54 billion in spending from domestic agencies — that's enough to wipe several of them out

pulse

February 27, 2017 10:42 PM

The budgets for civilian agencies outside Social Security and health programs actually aren't that big.

trump defense increase vs civilian agencies

On Monday, administration officials told various news outlets that President Donald Trump's forthcoming budget proposal would include a $54 billion increase in defense spending. To pay for it, the Trump administration plans to cut the budgets of domestic agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department, and various foreign-aid programs.

But as Business Insider's Linette Lopez pointed out, it's actually really hard to pay for increases in defense spending by targeting only domestic agencies outside major entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Indeed, according to the Fiscal Year 2017 US federal budget, the total estimated outlays for FY 2016 from the EPA, the State Department, and International Assistance Programs add up to about $55 billion, meaning Trump's budget would just about need to eliminate those agencies entirely to pay for the proposed defense increase.

It is worth noting that the president's budget proposals are only a starting point for the overall process of figuring out what the government will spend and how they will pay for it, and we still haven't even seen the full details of the White House's proposals.

But if the final proposal does include this defense increase, Trump will most likely need to find other ways to pay for it.

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