WASHINGTON — The incoming Trump administration is looking to cut $10.5 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, an enormous sum that would drastically reduce the size of government, according to a new report.
Details of the plan are still being hammered out by incoming White House staff, The Hill newspaper said Thursday.
The plan so far calls for the ax to be taken to the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized under the plan.
The Department of Commerce and the Department of Energy would see sharply reduced budgets.
Modeling for the spending plan comes from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, according to The Hill.
Already, the Trump transition team is claiming some fiscal success.
In a surprise appearance at a press briefing Thursday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence announced the transition team, which he led, spent less than its budget.
“Wrapping up this transition on schedule and under budget,” Pence bragged, stating the transition team would return 20 percent of the taxpayer-funded budget to the federal government.
Pence claimed the transition had made great strides — and would be ready on “day one” to govern.
The urgency to reduce federal spending comes after eight years of massive debt increases under President Obama.
Under Obama’s watch, the federal debt nearly doubled — racking up over $9 trillion in US national debt in his two terms alone.
Currently the national debt is $19.9 trillion.
Trump’s spending plan would be certain to have backers in Congress, which is controlled by Republicans who have made fiscal soundness a political issue for years.
Yet the incoming president is soon to run into obstacles, as he frequently pledged on the campaign trail not to cut Medicare and Social Security entitlements, the biggest drivers of the national debt.
Talk of the new plan shows a seriousness to tackling spending — the likes of which have not been seen in Washington in recent years.
“The Trump Administration needs to reform and cut spending dramatically, and targeting waste like the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be a good first step in showing that the Trump Administration is serious about radically reforming the federal budget,” said former Capitol Hill staffer Brian Darling to The Hill
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