Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today released the following statement on President Trump’s budget request:

“The federal budget released today by President Trump slashes programs that American workers and families rely on and adds billions of dollars to our national debt thanks to the Republican tax cuts for the rich. We can do better.

“After shutting down the government for 35 days over border wall funding, the president has doubled down on that mistake, requesting $8.6 billion this year for his ineffectual border wall. That’s in addition to the funds he’s trying to divert using his emergency declaration.

“The president’s budget fails to invest in modernizing our infrastructure, does nothing to combat the catastrophic danger of climate change and guts social safety net programs that protect America’s most vulnerable. Instead, the president uses budget gimmicks to hide a dramatic increase in defense spending while continuing to pursue draconian budget cuts to domestic programs.

“Both parties in Congress rejected the president’s budget the past two years, and there’s no reason to think this proposed budget will be treated differently. I look forward to working with congressional leaders to draft a more responsible budget that puts America’s real priorities first.”

President’s budget proposals:

• Cuts Medicaid by $1.5 trillion and Medicare by $845 billion and converts Medicaid to a block grant program, weakening the social safety net for America’s most vulnerable.
  
  
• Eliminates funding for Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and includes many controversial provisions of the failed 2017 Republican health care bill.
  
  
• Cuts $220 billion from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as food stamps, and creates significant barriers for families to access the food assistance program.
  
  
• Cuts 88 percent from the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s opioid and other drug prevention programs and moves lifesaving programs into other agencies.
  
  
• Cuts more than $1 billion from the Capital Investment Grants program that supports new construction and upgrades to transit, commuter rail, light rail and bus projects. This 41 percent cut comes at a time when funding is badly needed to improve our infrastructure.
  
  
• Cuts $5.5 billion from the National Institutes of Health, hindering important research on potentially life-saving cures and treatments.
  
  
• Moves the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms from the Justice Department to the Treasury Department, weakening the law enforcement agency’s ability to protect our communities from gun violence.
  
  
• Eliminates funding for affordable housing including the Community Development Block Grant and the HOME Investment Partnerships Program.
  
  
• Cuts funding for research and development for clean energy programs that are critical to combatting climate change by nearly two-thirds, including elimination of the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-e).
  
  
• Cuts federal employee retirement and health benefits by $102 billion, hurting 170,000 federal workers living in California.
  
  
• Eliminates important programs that incentivize and support economic development and job creation in distressed communities, including the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, Economic Development Administration and Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
  
  
• Cuts funding for water infrastructure, including $2.2 billion (31 percent) from the Army Corps and $445 million (28 percent) from the Bureau of Reclamation.

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