A Democratic congressman who sits on the House Budget Committee slammed President Trump’s proposed 2020 budget, calling it a “Christmas wish list,” rather than a “set of priorities.”
President Trump on Monday released a new budget, calling for sharps cuts to domestic spending, while also proposing increased military spending and an additional $8.6 billion for the southern border wall.
Democrats, including Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), promptly rebuked Trump’s blueprint and the bill has been deemed essentially dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled House.
“He’s now institutionalized trillion dollar deficits annually every year, even in good times,” Peters told Hill.TV on Tuesday.
“That’s not a setting of priorities, that’s just saying everything you want — that’s a Christmas wish list, not a set of priorities,” he continued.
The California Democrat also called Trump’s push to boost the military budget “irresponsible,” and dismissed Trump’s demands for increased wall funding as a “non-starter.”
“A lot of the budget around defense, which I’ve typically been supportive of, is now in overseas contingency operations, which means they’re taking it out of the base budget and putting it into sort of a fuzzy accounts for war activities that’s not subject to budget caps,” he told Hill.TV. “So it’s pretty irresponsible in addition to containing the wall again, which is really a non-starter.”
Top Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), issued a joint statement following the release of Trump’s budget criticizing the president’s renewed demands for wall funding.
The statement said in part that Congress refused to fund Trump’s wall and he was “forced to admit defeat and reopen the government.” The two lawmakers said they hoped the president has “learned his lesson,” and warned that the same thing will happen if Trump tries it again.
The House Budget Committee, meanwhile, is set to meet Tuesday to further discuss Trump’s budget proposal.
—Tess Bonn
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