Trump Proposes to Eliminatee 19 Agencies

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African Development Foundation
Appalachian Regional Commission
Chemical Safety Board
Corporation for National and Community Service
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Delta Regional Authority
Denali Commission
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Inter-American Foundation
U.S. Trade and Development Agency
Legal Services Corporation
National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
Northern Border Regional Commission
Overseas Private Investment Corporation
U.S. Institute of Peace
U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

And lower the funding for many
washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-presidential-budget-2018-proposal/img/budget-change-600.jpg?c=54

Story here
washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-presidential-budget-2018-proposal/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_b-graphic-mobile-newsletter:homepage/story
 
Interesting. Hard for me to argue with any of the cuts, though I would like to see cuts in crop price supports. After all, meat production isn’t subsidized and manages to survive, so what is the compelling reason why wheat should be supported.

The truth is, there are millions of acres on which nothing can be grown but wheat. Are the farmers going to let them earn nothing at all? Among other things, those farmers profit from grazing the young wheat before it puts on grain. In some places, like here, the most profitable thing to do is raise winter wheat, then soybeans after the wheat harvest. If they did nothing but cut the young wheat for hay, they would still come out.

I would also like to see sale of a great deal of government land that was obtained by previous administrations. Somebody will buy it, even if it’s desert or mountains. But a lot of it is useable.

I’m a little ambivalent about cuts to Rural Housing, because that’s very big here. But those loans are always more than 100% of the value of the homes, so maybe building up a stock of bad loans is not such a good thing. The same is true of FhA loans. Those are always under water and government guaranteed to the lenders.

Speaking of bad loans, I would like to see the government get out of the direct student loan business.
 
I don’t know what all those are for.

Sometimes I get mail and phone calls asking for money for various agencies I never even heard of.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Interesting. Hard for me to argue with any of the cuts, though I would like to see cuts in crop price supports. After all, meat production isn’t subsidized and manages to survive, so what is the compelling reason why wheat should be supported.

The truth is, there are millions of acres on which nothing can be grown but wheat. Are the farmers going to let them earn nothing at all? Among other things, those farmers profit from grazing the young wheat before it puts on grain. In some places, like here, the most profitable thing to do is raise winter wheat, then soybeans after the wheat harvest. If they did nothing but cut the young wheat for hay, they would still come out.

I would also like to see sale of a great deal of government land that was obtained by previous administrations. Somebody will buy it, even if it’s desert or mountains. But a lot of it is useable.

I’m a little ambivalent about cuts to Rural Housing, because that’s very big here. But those loans are always more than 100% of the value of the homes, so maybe building up a stock of bad loans is not such a good thing. The same is true of FhA loans. Those are always under water and government guaranteed to the lenders.

Speaking of bad loans, I would like to see the government get out of the direct student loan business.
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Love to read your take on things. Especially agree with the last issue… why should govt be involved in loaning money? Can’t the banks do that?
 
petra22 said:
Love to read your take on things. Especially agree with the last issue… why should govt be involved in loaning money? Can’t the banks do that?
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Banks can certainly do it, and did for a long time before the government took it over under Obama. But there were two kinds of bank loans. Some were guaranteed by the government, so those loans were no-brainers. Some were not guaranteed other than by individuals. Those weren’t so easy to get.

The difference now is that it takes a lot more money for the government to make the loans than to just guarantee them. So it’s a bigger chunk of the budget than it was before.

Frankly, I would like to see student loans go back to banks and be a lot less generous than they are now. Years ago, the loans were capped at a fairly low amount, and the schools got by on it. Now they are often huge; beyond peoples’ ability to repay, and the schools get fat on it.

One thing that keeps sticking in my mind is this. I attended a private college and a private university for grad school. Since then, both have added “gold plating” you wouldn’t believe, and the student bodies aren’t much larger now than they were then. Back then, one could at least earn one’s room and board during the summer. Now, almost nobody can do that. My graduate school occupied a number of bare classrooms in a building shared by other things. Now, after building one lavish building and leaving it, it has built another, even more lavish building in what has to be one of the most expensive locations in a major city. And, of course, it has all kinds of expensive tech stuff, a luxurious lounge for students and another for professors.

Not all courses can be taught in a bare classroom with a chalk board and desks, but most can be. And no school really needs hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars bronze statuary and modern art and fountains all over the place, either.
 
I’ve never even heard of any of these agencies before.
 
After reading the article, I agree with most of the cuts. There are a few I’m not too keen on, but overall, I’m good.

The underlining theme I see with the cuts, which the Washington Post did not mention, is that it seems clear to me that if the states or private sector can handle, it was cut.

For example: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting – Sesame Street is now partnered with HBO. And many of the successful programs receive funding from corporate sponsors. By cutting funding to many of these organization, it will most likely cause an increase in corporate sponsorship and private donations. Corporate sponsorship, and donations should be where non-profits receive their money anyway.

Education training for teachers - this is something that the states and school districts should be more heavily involved with. etc.

One thing I disagree with with is cutting transit funding. I think the Federal Govt should help more with the creation new rail transit, because I don’t think it’s possible to move public transit back to private sector unless the govt (federal and states) take over the maintenance of the physical rail road tracks.
 
Skimming through the specific cuts it’s not a surprise. They are targeting the poor, climate change initiatives, peace keeping, and public school teachers. I’m not sure I have the heart to keep reading. These guys simply don’t care about anything that’s not money or war.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Banks can certainly do it, and did for a long time before the government took it over under Obama. But there were two kinds of bank loans. Some were guaranteed by the government, so those loans were no-brainers. Some were not guaranteed other than by individuals. Those weren’t so easy to get.

The difference now is that it takes a lot more money for the government to make the loans than to just guarantee them. So it’s a bigger chunk of the budget than it was before.

Frankly, I would like to see student loans go back to banks and be a lot less generous than they are now. Years ago, the loans were capped at a fairly low amount, and the schools got by on it. Now they are often huge; beyond peoples’ ability to repay, and the schools get fat on it.

One thing that keeps sticking in my mind is this. I attended a private college and a private university for grad school. Since then, both have added “gold plating” you wouldn’t believe, and the student bodies aren’t much larger now than they were then. Back then, one could at least earn one’s room and board during the summer. Now, almost nobody can do that. My graduate school occupied a number of bare classrooms in a building shared by other things. Now, after building one lavish building and leaving it, it has built another, even more lavish building in what has to be one of the most expensive locations in a major city. And, of course, it has all kinds of expensive tech stuff, a luxurious lounge for students and another for professors.

Not all courses can be taught in a bare classroom with a chalk board and desks, but most can be. And no school really needs hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars bronze statuary and modern art and fountains all over the place, either.
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Especially one whose med school just got put on probation by an accreditation agency.:o
 
J_Peterson said:
Skimming through the specific cuts it’s not a surprise. They are targeting the poor, climate change initiatives, peace keeping, and public school teachers. I’m not sure I have the heart to keep reading. These guys simply don’t care about anything that’s not money or war.
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A lot of these things shouldn’t be under the realm of the federal government. I can’t see where most of these agencies have had much success. Throwing more federal money away on them is a waste. Public schools are a disaster. The federal government is bullying public schools by threatening to withhold funds from those who don’t adopt the fed’s progressive agenda.

Endowment for the Arts is a joke.
 
J_Peterson said:
Skimming through the specific cuts it’s not a surprise. They are targeting the poor, climate change initiatives, peace keeping, and public school teachers. I’m not sure I have the heart to keep reading. These guys simply don’t care about anything that’s not money or war.
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We are twenty TRILLION dollars in debt. We HAVE to cut spending, or we are doomed.

Where would YOU cut spending?

I agree with all of this (some anxiety about the cuts to national parks, but again, cuts are painful), and I care a great deal about things other than “money or war.”
 
Boatswain2PA said:
We are twenty TRILLION dollars in debt. We HAVE to cut spending, or we are doomed.

Where would YOU cut spending?

I agree with all of this (some anxiety about the cuts to national parks, but again, cuts are painful), and I care a great deal about things other than “money or war.”
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I would start with Medicare and social security. That is where the real money is. If we exempt defense and welfare programs like these two from cuts, we are never going to balance the budget.
 
Ridgerunner said:
One thing that keeps sticking in my mind is this. I attended a private college and a private university for grad school. Since then, both have added “gold plating” you wouldn’t believe, and the student bodies aren’t much larger now than they were then. Back then, one could at least earn one’s room and board during the summer. Now, almost nobody can do that.
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This “gold-plating” is pretty much entirely driven by market forces. Most colleges and universities are in stiff competition for students; amenities help, a lot.
 
Boatswain2PA said:
We are twenty TRILLION dollars in debt. We HAVE to cut spending, or we are doomed.

Where would YOU cut spending?

I agree with all of this (some anxiety about the cuts to national parks, but again, cuts are painful), and I care a great deal about things other than “money or war.”
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I’d cut the military budget and border enforcement to start.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
I would start with Medicare and social security. That is where the real money is. If we exempt defense and welfare programs like these two from cuts, we are never going to balance the budget.
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I both agree and disagree with this. I think social security is bound to fail, and that the government really shouldn’t be involved in retirement savings to begin with. The same is true of healthcare.

With that said, so many people rely on those programs right now that removing them would be very harmful, especially to low income areas…

Quite frankly, I think one of the best way to cut back on government spending is in the entitlement programs. If you failed out of or dropped out of the free education our nation provides for you, you lose eligibility for welfare programs. My wife has so many students at her high school who skip class, don’t do any work, sleep through classes, or just seem to exist to cause disruptions. They never do their work, and they fail all of their classes with grades well below the failure line. These people should be ineligible to receive free money from the government… especially since more than one of them have said that they just intend to live off welfare when they grow up, so there’s no point in studying or doing any work.

We can make exceptions for people who have to drop out to support their families, but other than that, why should we have to prop up people who refuse to put forth any effort?
 
Boatswain2PA said:
We are twenty TRILLION dollars in debt. We HAVE to cut spending, or we are doomed.

Where would YOU cut spending?
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This proposal doesn’t cut the deficit at all. It just takes money from a variety of agencies the Trump administration doesn’t like and gives it to the military. Spending remains basically the same and the national debt will continue to rise.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
Quite frankly, I think one of the best way to cut back on government spending is in the entitlement programs. If you failed out of or dropped out of the free education our nation provides for you, you lose eligibility for welfare programs. My wife has so many students at her high school who skip class, don’t do any work, sleep through classes, or just seem to exist to cause disruptions. They never do their work, and they fail all of their classes with grades well below the failure line. These people should be ineligible to receive free money from the government… especially since more than one of them have said that they just intend to live off welfare when they grow up, so there’s no point in studying or doing any work.

We can make exceptions for people who have to drop out to support their families, but other than that, why should we have to prop up people who refuse to put forth any effort?
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Because they’re fellow Americans and part of Making America Great Again is working together to care for fellow Americans. Proposing that we should punish people for bad decisions they made as children for their entire lives is frankly shocking.
 
Arizona_Fat_Gir said:
I don’t know what all those are for.

Sometimes I get mail and phone calls asking for money for various agencies I never even heard of.
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I tell them to send me some literature to let me know what they do and I will study it and decide if I want to give or not. Never have heard from any of them again.
 
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