Apr.06

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Budget Proposal for 2027 Has Massive Increase for Defense, Cuts for Domestic Projects

Donald Trump (actually, OMB Director Russell Vought) has released the White House's proposed 2027 federal budget that will be sent to Congress for its rubber stamp. Here are some of the key changes from 2026:

• Privatizing TSA: TSA is one of the least popular government agencies, so Trump wants to get rid of it and have private contractors do airport screening. A few airports already have private companies doing the screening, including SFO. What Trump has forgotten is that 9/11 happened when private contractors were doing the screening and there was a huge uproar because people felt the screeners were mostly interested in making as much money as possible (by cutting corners), so there was a demand that the government take over. People have short memories.
  
  
• ICE and DoD Get Raises: Trump wants to give the DoD a massive budget increase to $1.5 trillion. This is a 44% raise over 2026. It is also the largest DoD budget in modern history. Of that, $350 billion is for munitions. The Navy gets $66 billion for 34 new ships, including the Trump-class battleships, despite misgivings from some naval warfare experts about whether the new technologies (like railguns) will actually work under combat conditions. Still, it's party time for defense contractors. In addition, ICE, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service will get billions more.
  
  
• Golden Dome: Trump wants to build a "Golden Dome," a system for shooting down incoming missiles, whether launched from the earth or from space. The chance that something like this could work well is very low. First of all, an enemy is not going to advertise the characteristics of its missiles or the launch locations, meaning the detection hardware and software may not be looking for the right thing. Nevertheless, it is known that the Russian Zircon missile travels at Mach 9, three times the muzzle velocity of the famed .30-06 Springfield cartridge. Like Superman, the Zircon is faster than a speeding bullet. It is not so easy to shoot a speeding bullet out of the sky. It's even harder if you don't know what the bullet looks like, or where it is coming from.
  
  Second, an enemy could flood the zone with a few missiles with a nuclear payload and many cheap decoys of the same weight filled with lead instead of a bomb.
  
  Third, enemy missiles could have (unknown) methods to fool the interceptors, including trying to detect and evade missiles aimed at them, ejecting burning chaff to distract heat-seeking missiles, and other (unknown) technologies. Defense is always harder than offense because a successful offense requires only one actual missile getting through whereas a successful defense requires destroying all the incoming missiles. In addition, the software for this will be incredibly complex and can't be properly tested in advance. But Trump's buddies in the defense industry don't care whether it works or not. They just care about getting the contracts.
  
  
• NASA: One science winner is NASA, which will get 23% more money in 2027 than in 2026. One of the goals is building a permanent base on the moon. However, 40 other NASA science programs will be killed, including one to dig up a bit of dirt on Mars and return it. Trump said that a human mission to Mars could do that. Only a human mission would be a vastly more expensive trip to Mars, one that would probably take 2-3 years. Keeping a handful of people alive, healthy, and mentally functioning in a fairly small capsule for that time would be a gigantic undertaking, and would require a huge amount of redundancy. In contrast, a robot mission would be vastly cheaper because it would not need any life support facilities and losing one due to malfunction would just waste money, not lives.
  
  
• "Beautifying" D.C.: There would be a program to make D.C. "safe, clean, and beautiful again." No doubt many gold-colored monuments to Trump would be required for beautification. Note also that Trump has claimed, many times, that thanks to his deployment of troops, D.C. is already safe, clean and beautiful again.
  
  
• Huge Cuts Elsewhere: To pay for the massive increases to the DoD and ICE, the SBA, NSF, NIH, EPA, FEMA, Department of Labor, National Endowment for Democracy, and all other agencies suspected of being woke will be gutted. Who needs to fight diseases when there are anti-missile missiles to be built, even if they are very unlikely to work? The goal is to cut 10% off all nondefense spending. Why did we need DOGEys, when Vought can do a better job in an afternoon just using Excel on his computer?
  
  
• Cuts to Social Programs: Trump and Vought hate programs that help people directly, like assistance to K-12 schools, housing programs for people with AIDS and Native Americans, clean energy, and anything that smacks of helping poor people. The one exception is more money for Pell grants for poor college students. How did this slip through? Maybe Vought just had a bad day.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: The budget would also aim to increase U.S. energy dominance, produce more critical minerals domestically, and strengthen nuclear security. The White House is part office building, part apartment for the royal presidential family. The apartment is not fancy enough for Donald Trump's taste, so he wants Congress to spend over half a billion dollars fixing it up a bit. Oh, and Trump wants $152 million to turn Alcatraz back into a prison. It is currently part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

It may not be smooth sailing for the budget in Congress, though, given the Republicans' tiny margin in the House. To avoid a Senate filibuster, the budget reconciliation process will be used, but even then, four defections could kill it. The huge increase for defense could be a big problem for those Republicans who don't like forever wars. It could also be a problem for moderates who don't want to have to defend slashing popular domestic programs to give the military a huge raise and also give ICE billions more. The Democrats' ads are already beginning, including one attacking Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) over his support for the war in Iran while voting to cut benefits for veterans.

Won't the massive increase in defense spending—far more than the cuts in social spending—blow a gigantic hole in the budget and increase the deficit—something the deficit hawks hate? Nope. Trump thought of that. He simply projects that tariff revenues will hit $500 billion by 2029. Problem solved. The minor detail that the Supreme Court said the president didn't have the authority to impose tariffs the way he did isn't mentioned anywhere in the budget.

Democrats are going to hit it with everything they have got. Yesterday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Meet the Press: "I have a hard time seeing that size of an increase as being justified." Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee Patty Murray (D-WA) said: "President Trump wants to slash medical research to fund costly foreign wars," just as a starter. There will be a lot more of these statements, and they could resonate with Republicans who are against more forever wars. Democrats don't have the votes in Congress to block the budget, but if they can convince the public that it is a terrible budget, that could pay dividends in November.

Trump's response was: "It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country." His vision of the federal government is to eliminate all social programs going back to the 1960s. Maybe next year he will gun for programs going back to the 1930s.

Getting through the House won't be the only problem. Even with reconciliation, Trump will need 50 of the 53 Republican senators to support the budget. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who is in the race of her life in Novmber, is already starting to peep. She said there were unwarranted cuts to biomedical research, and the termination of programs that help low-income people heat their houses in the winter (and it gets cold in Northern Maine in the winter). She also opposes cuts to other programs such as the Job Corps and a program to support low-income first-generation college students. Additionally, she is against cutting funds that subsidize commercial flights to rural areas.

She may not be the only senator who has misgivings. Now that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) is not running for reelection, he is a free agent, and might well object to cuts that hit North Carolina. If he is interested in getting revenge on Trump for forcing him out of the Senate, this is his chance. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) represents a rural state that will be hit by many of the cuts. She hates Trump as well, and could come with a list of demands. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) doesn't take orders well. The budget is far from a done deal. (V)