Even before President Trump was sworn in, Washington was abuzz with leaks about his coming budget. According to some reports, he would propose as much as $10.5 trillion in cuts over the next ten years. Among the cuts would be programs that have long been examples of wasteful, unnecessary, or counterproductive spending, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Legal Services Corporation. The budgets for agencies such as the Departments of Energy and Commerce would be slashed. Conservatives would swoon.



Yet, at the same time, Trump and his cabinet nominees reiterated their intention to do nothing about reforming the major entitlement programs, particularly Social Security and Medicare, which are the real drivers of the nation’s exploding debt.
Reince Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, told Face the Nation that the new president would not “meddle” with Social Security and Medicare. The incoming secretary of health and human services, Tom Price, said at his confirmation hearing that Trump remains opposed to making any changes to the programs. And Trump’s pick for treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, admitted to senators that he had no idea about Medicare’s finances or how to reform them. All of this was, as President Trump might put it, not good.