Trump Official Incompetently Defends Administrations Competence
Earlier this week, the Trump administration released a federal budget that contradicted itself. This wasn’t terribly surprising. After all, the president spent his entire campaign vowing to realize a long list of mutually exclusive policy goals: large increases in funding for the military and border defense; the maintenance of Medicare and Social Security at their current benefit levels; a $1 trillion infrastructure package; enormous tax cuts for both the wealthy and middle class; and a balanced budget within ten years.
The most gifted fiscal-policy thinkers in the world would struggle to produce a document that complied with such commitments. And the Trump White House does not boast a world-class team of economic advisers — or, really, any “team” of economic advisers, at all.
And so, on Tuesday, Mick Mulvaney unveiled a budget that:
1) Included cuts to federal agencies and anti-poverty programs so draconian, multiple Republicans declared them dead on arrival.
2) Pretended that Trump’s infrastructure pledge did not exist, Social Security disability benefits aren’t really Social Security, and the estate tax will still provide the government revenue even after it’s abolished.
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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/mick-mulvaney-tried-to-explain-math-error-in-trump-budget.html
