President Donald Trump's first budget is likely to face resistance from lawmakers, but the White House budget chief argued that the proposal is in line with the president's campaign promises.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney suggested that the budget plan was crafted in part by examining excerpts from Trump's speeches and media interviews.
"You'll see reductions exactly where you would expect it from a president who just ran on an 'America First' campaign," Mulvaney told reporters. "If he said it on the campaign, it's in the budget."
Trump's budget proposal includes increases in spending on defense and homeland security as well as a down payment for construction of a wall on the southern border.
The plan calls for a $54 billion or 10 percent jump in defense spending as well as a 7 percent increase in spending for the Department of Homeland Security.
In order to prevent a widening of the federal budget deficit, the increases would be offset by deep cuts to spending by most other departments.
Trump's proposal would slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department by 31 percent and 28 percent, respectively.
The blueprint would also eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Interagency Council on Homelessness, the National Endowment for the Arts and a number of other agencies.
"When you start looking at places that we reduce spending, one of the questions we asked was can we really continue to ask a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit to pay for these programs? The answer was no," Mulvaney said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
He added, "We can ask them to pay for defense, and we will, but we can't ask them to continue to pay for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."
However, the budget outline drew swift condemnation from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who claimed the proposal shows Trump does not value the future of children and working families.
"President Trump is not making anyone more secure with a budget that hollows out our economy and endangers working families," Pelosi said in a statement.
She added, "Throwing billions at defense while ransacking America's investments in jobs, education, clean energy and lifesaving medical research will leave our nation weakened."
The release of the White House budget proposal is an early step in what is expected to be a prolonged fight over government spending.
(Photo: Gage Skidmore)
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