The political Left struggled on Tuesday to find terminology sufficiently jarring to express their rage and disdain for President Trump's just-released budget. That's the price we pay for living in an age of political hyperbole.
Liberal journalists, activists and politicians denoucned the president's proposed cuts as "brutal!" "huge!" "shocking!" and "gutting the public sector!" House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi inventively suggested Trump was "assaulting the food we eat," which, conjuring up a mental image of the Cookie Monster, is a new way of looking at the 45th president.
What's actually remarkable about Trump's budget is that its cuts are modest and, in many cases, are not cuts at all, merely smaller increases than some people desired or expected.
The loudest complaint, about safety net programs, is completely inappropriate for, if you truly believe it is either terrible or impossible to return welfare programs to pre-recession levels, you've essentially given up on governing. If federal and state governments are to maintain a welfare system that can help people most in need, it's unacceptable to demand that recession-era DEFCON-1 levels of government dependency become the new normal.
Trump's budget anticipates a reduction in food stamp enrollment, for an average of $19 billion in annual savings. That seems reasonable, considering that enrollment is now more than 50 percent higher than it was when the recession began in 2007. That's 42 million people on food stamps, up from 26 million. It's not heartless to reform the program to get the numbers back down to a sustainable level. It is, rather, a completely appropriate, rehumanizing demand that people able to support themselves do so.
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01.17.2025