Trump pushes big spending in 2019 budget proposal

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration released its fiscal year 2019 budget Monday, a 160-page document that calls for $4.4 trillion in spending. As expected, the plan reflects President Donald Trump’s desire to boost border security spending and invest in infrastructure. With last year’s budget proposal, the Trump administration attempted to balance the federal budget within 10 years, but not this time. Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, still claimed the new proposal takes a step toward fiscal responsibility. “The budget does bend the trajectory down, it does move us back towards balance,” he said on Fox News Sunday. Trump’s budget asks for large cuts to entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. All told, the proposed cuts to domestic programs would amount to $3 trillion in savings over the next decade. Still, the budget predicts a 2019 deficit of $984 billion, nearly twice the number the White House promised a year ago. The president’s plan reflects last week’s budget deal in Congress to increase military spending and also accounts for a $1.5 trillion decrease in tax revenue under the GOP tax law signed in December. The budget request likely won’t get much traction on Capitol Hill but details the president’s priorities for the upcoming year.