Trump's $4.8 trillion budget likely to get thumbs-down from Congress

The White House unveiled a $4.8 trillion budget plan on Monday (February 10), a blueprint for priorities that raises spending on defense and slashes it for social safety programs.

The proposed 2021 fiscal budget includes $2 billion to fund construction on a border wall with Mexico, and cuts funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by more than a quarter of current levels.

And it would add almost a trillion dollars to the deficit.

The budget is largely a political document meant to serve as a starting point for spending negotiations between the White House and Congressional Democrats.

And Democratic lawmakers said the Administration's proposed cuts flew in the face of Trump's State of the Union promise to "always protect" Social Security and Medicare.

Trump's budget would halve Social Security's disability program by tightening eligibility requirements and cut $292 billion from food stamps and the Medicaid health care program for the poor by enacting work requirements.

In a statement, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, "the budget is a statement of values and once again the President is showing just how little he values the good health, financial security and well-being of hard-working American families."

And while it forecasts cutting the deficit by more than four-and-a-half trillion dollars over the next ten years, it relies on an annual economic growth rate of three percent for years to come.

Real GDP increased 2.3 percent in the last year, down from 2.9 percent growth in 2018.

The Congressional Budget Office last week forecast GDP growth of 2.2 pct in the current fiscal year, falling to 1.9 pct in 2021, and dropping further in the next two years.

Even sticking with the White House's optimistic projections, the budget would rack up $5 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.