Budget director Mick Mulvaney sat before members of the House budget committee as they fired questions at him, including freshman Coungressmember Salud Carbajal of Santa Barbara. "There seems to be a hypocrisy," Carbajal said, "to look for waste in domestic programs … but we gloss over 'em when it comes to increasing Department of Defense spending." Mulvaney played defense, explaining the finer points of taking $72 billion from the Social Security disability insurance program and $1.3 trillion from Medicaid over the next 10 years. The drastic cuts — to programs Trump had campaigned on never cutting — all go to add $54 billion for the Pentagon. In Santa Barbara County, the losses to education, the arts, and the poor would affect thousands. The Budget Committee meeting on Tuesday was just the first of many in Congress, which is also dealing with the Russia investigations before cameras and Trumpcare behind the scenes.
Poverty program cuts would have an immediate effect in Santa Barbara County, said Fran Forman, head of the Community Action Commission (CAC). The elimination of community block grants means $500,000 lost toward 2-1-1 information services, and senior and youth services. Seniors living in poverty or who are disabled will have to choose between eating and buying medications, she said, with the loss of CAC's Senior Lunch program. Head Start programs, which serve 1,300 children and their families in the county, are cut by 17 percent. "Being poor is tough," Forman said. "It will get tougher."
Among the bleeding are, as expected, climate-related satellite programs and scientific funding . The National Science Foundation, which the budget document acknowledges funds 24 percent of research at American colleges and universities, is targeted to lose 10.7 percent in 2018. Five earth science satellite programs are gone. The budget takes $6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, despite bipartisan support for the agency. The departments of State and Agriculture are the biggest losers after the much-targeted Environmental Protection Agency — down 31 percent for 2018. State and Ag will lose 29 and 20 percent of their budgets, respectively. The budget's "2-Penny" approach advocates continuing to reduce all non-defense discretionary spending 2 percent each year until 2027 in an attempt to change the deficit to a surplus.