Trump’s budget – slashes foreign aid, but $billions more for nuclear weapons

The 2 most controversial national security items in Trump’s new budget

Trump wants to gut foreign aid and beef up America’s nuclear force. Vox, By Alex Ward @AlexWardVox alex.ward@vox.com Feb 10, 2020 President Donald Trump is about to propose a budget that leans much more heavily on military might — including new spending on modernized nuclear weapons — than diplomatic prowess, funding a muscular foreign policy some worry could lack the necessary finesse to deal effectively with global crises.

The White House’s FY 2021 budget — standing at a whopping $4.8 trillion — is already making waves for deep cuts to social safety net programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Since Congress has to sign off on government spending, the full request is likely dead on arrival due to Democrats’ control of the House. And with no agreed-upon budget, there is no agreed-upon spending. It’s almost guaranteed, then, that the next few months will be filled with partisan fighting and wrangling over how to use taxpayer funds.

Which means the White House’s budget document really serves more as a statement of principles and priorities — the budget, as some say, is policy. When it comes to defense and foreign policy, Trump has once again shown a preference for a stronger military partly at the expense of a weaker diplomatic and development tools.

The two main national security takeaways from the budget’s expected toplines:

Foreign aid will be slashed by 21 percent.
Modernizing the nuclear arsenal gets $28.9 billion, and the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees America’s nukes, gets $19.8 billion — a 20 percent increase………..

The problem, however, is that this foreign aid funding isn’t just charity: Taking nearly $12 billion out of the foreign aid budget would severely harm US diplomatic efforts. For one, giving nations money they need to keep volatile situations stable enhances global security, and could actually prove cost-effective to the US if the money helps prevent catastrophe at home or abroad down the line………..

In years past, Republicans and Democrats have pushed back against these draconian slashes to foreign aid, and they are likely to do so again. But the president’s insistence on tearing down America’s assistance programs to bare bones — even though they hover at only around 1 percent of the federal budget — shows how misguided he is about their outsize impact.

Trump’s decision to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal is costly

The United States has the second-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, behind Russia, but with many of these systems dating back to the Cold War, keeping warheads, bombs, and delivery systems up to date is extremely expensive.

In 2017, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that modernizing the nuclear arsenal would cost $1.2 trillion over 30 years. That would require a herculean effort on behalf of multiple, subsequent administrations — not to mention the continued patience of taxpayers — to ensure it was completed. Trump’s proposed billions, championed by Republicans and criticized by Democrats, is one step in that direction…….

Kingston Reif of the Arms Control Association, says “The administration’s nuclear weapons spending plans are unnecessary and unsustainable,” he told me. “The costs and opportunity costs of the plans are real and growing, and the biggest nuclear modernization bills are just beginning to hit.”

Reif offered an alternative: “Scaling back the plans for new delivery systems, warheads, and infrastructure would make the modernization effort easier to execute and reduce the threat to other defense programs while still leaving a devastating deterrent.”

It’s worth noting that Trump has pulled the US out of a massive arms control treaty with Russia, and it may not extend another vital one next year. Some experts worry that could lead to an arms race, causing the US to spend even more on nuclear systems down the line. …………https://www.vox.com/2020/2/10/21131273/trump-budget-fy2021-foreign-aid-nuclear

February 11, 2020 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA, weapons and war

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