White House Says Its Assistance-Slashing Budget Is the 'Definition of Compassionate'

Here’s all the shit we couldn’t cover today:

• Donald Trump released his budget proposal, a heartless document laughingly called, “A New Foundation for American Greatness.” The 2018 budget proposal slashes spending at roughly $3.6 trillion over a decade. The cuts come largely from social programs that currently cover millions of Americans, including major cuts to Medicaid, student loan programs, Social Security Disability Insurance, and the federal food stamp program. According to the White House, the programs targeted for budget reduction or elimination either waste money or create a culture of dependency. There are additional cuts to the foreign aid grant program as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but, miraculously, the construction of the border wall along the border with Mexico was allocated $1.6 billion. The White House claims that the budget reductions will lead to a sustained 3 percent growth in the economy but critics, of which there are many, say the cuts are too deep and would affect a large proportion of Americans (the Post estimates a fifth of Americans would be impacted). [Politico/Washington Post]
• Mick Mulvaney, White House Office of Management and Budget Director, defended the proposal (what he called the “Taxpayer First Budget”), saying that the social programs targeted for budget reduction are simply too liberal with other people’s money. Mulvaney added that the government should show “compassion” for the poor but that Trump’s budget proposal is the “definition of compassionate: a compassion that is balanced between the people who get the benefits and the people who pay them.” Thank goodness someone in Washington is finally willing to represent the underrepresented rich people of America. [White House Press Briefing]
• The budget also cuts funding for Planned Parenthood. According to the White House, the budget “follows through on a campaign promise and prohibits any funding in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill for certain entities that provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood.” The funding ban includes Medicaid. [Huffington Post]
• Senator Lindsey Graham says that Trump’s budget cuts to the State Department would require the United States to “retreat from the world and put a lot of people at risk.” There would be, Graham added, “a lot of Benghazis in the making.” [Washington Post]
• Jared Kushner is a slumlord. [New York Times]
• A handful of experts tracked the changes in Trump’s unscripted interviews from “decades ago” to the present day and saw evidence of “deterioration.” [Stat News]
• In an address to the American Federation for Children’s National Policy Summit, Betsy DeVos compared her detractors to “flat-earthers.” [Talking Points Memo]
• Here’s some good background on Ivanka Trump’s meeting to end human trafficking. [Pacific Standard]
• In more Ivanka news, it looks like her new paid leave plan is pretty bad. [ThinkProgress]

Here are some tweets the president was allowed to publish:

This has been Barf Bag.