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President Trumps America First budget released Thursday that calls for steep cuts to the State Department and Environmental Protection Agency in order to increase defense spending was called by some Republicans as a pie-in-the-sky wish list that will never pass Congress in tact.

It is not uncommon for a presidents initial skinny budget to face an uphill fight with congressmen who control the governments purse strings. But the early resistance is notable since Republicans control both the House and Senate. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan appeared to hedge his optimism on the plan that he called a blueprint.

For better or worse, Trumps budget appears to make good on some of his key campaign promises. He calls for an increase in defense spending by $54 billion, which The Associated Press points out is the largest increase since President Reagans military buildup of the 1980s. The defense increase will be paid for by cuts to the EPA, State Department and federal funding for the arts.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who often finds himself at odds with Trump, said plainly, It is clear that this budget proposed today cannot pass the Senate.

Trump said in a statement that to keep Americans safe, we have made the tough choices that have been put off for too long.

Republicans leaders spread out across the country have found items in the budget that would likely not still well with their voters.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, spoke out against the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., called out the budget cut on the Appalachian Regional commission, which assists communities in his region. He called Trumps budget cuts draconian, careless and counterproductive.

I just want to make sure that rural America, who was very supportive to Trump, doesnt have to take a disproportionately high cut, Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., told the AP.

Republicans praised the president for beefing up the Pentagon, but they were far less enthusiastic about accepting Trump's recipe for doing so without adding to the nation's $20 trillion debt.

"While we support more funding for our military and defense, we must maintain support for our farmers and ranchers," said North Dakota Republican John Hoeven, blasting a 21 percent cut to the Agriculture Department's budget.

KRAUTHAMMER: TRUMP'S BUDGET PROPOSAL IS 'DEAD ON ARRIVAL'

Democrats have spoken out against the budget they say would devastate the work done by agencies like the EPA. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted, Democrats in Congress will emphatically oppose these cuts & urge our Republican colleagues to reject them as well.

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said this is not a take-it-or-leave-it budget. He told The Washington Post that the message were sending to the Hill is, we want more money for the things the president talked about, defense being the top one, national security. And we dont want to add to the budget deficit. If Congress has another way to do that, were happy to talk to them about it.

Edmund DeMarche is a news editor for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @EDeMarche.

See the original post:
Trump's first budget faces early Republican resistance - Fox News

Be careful what you wish for. We're less than a month into total Republican control of the presidency and both House and Senate, and certain, totally predictable things are evident.

Where money is involved, Republicans are doing exactly what Republicans do: catering to the wealthy, banks, Wall Street and preparing to make budget cuts that take away from those who are already mired in poverty. Cut Medicare? Who cares. Recipients aren't donors anyway.

The middle class has been hanging on by a thread, and Republican policy will completely destroy it. Admittedly, Obamacare is failing and Republicans have a golden opportunity to create a better plan. What has been proposed so far would massively increase the number of uninsured people, and the poorest of those would lose their doctor and resume going to the ER instead, placing enormous strain on hospitals and increasing overall costs to those who are insured.

Yes, Republicans won the election, but victory is getting what you want. Now we must face the reality: Do we want what we got?

George Warfield St. Charles

See more here:
Republican policy takes aim at the middle class - STLtoday.com

The American Health Care Act falls far short of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, but there are some big potential changes. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)

If part of the Republican strategy for replacing the Affordable Care Act (or, as your friends call it, Obamacare) was to develop and pass a bill quickly, before vocal opposition could be organized, that strategy has failed. It has failed for a number of reasons, including that the proposal has already faced significant, vocal opposition. It has also failed because the net effect of the proposal has been to solidify support for the policy it hoped to replace while earning less support than the Affordable Care Act had shortly before its own passage in 2010.

A new national poll from Fox News lays out the grim math for Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. Only about a third of Americans overall support the American Health Care Act (as the Republican bill is known) strongly or somewhat. While many Americans havent yet formed an opinion, more than half oppose the legislation including 40 percent of the country that strongly opposes it.

As with President Trumps approval ratings, opinions of the legislation are dragged down by particularly strong opposition from Democrats. But even among independents, fewer than a third support the bill.

Compare that to favorability numbers on Obamacare from the same poll. Half the country views the existing legislation positively, including more than 4 in 10 independents.

Support for Obamacare among Democrats is far higher than support for the Republican replacement bill is among Republicans.

There are a lot of asterisks that apply here, including that the Republican bill is still evolving and not yet well known. But its worth comparing where it stands to how people viewed Obamacare shortly before its passage. In Gallup polling taken in March 2010, more people wanted their members of Congress to vote against the bill than for it but narrowly, by a 45 to 48 percent margin. In that case, too, opposition from the opposing party outweighed support from the party hoping to pass the legislation. Independents, though, were split.

On Wednesday night, Trump seemed to express some frustration with the fact that health care was still working its way through Congress (though its been moving at a much faster clip than Obamacare, which took about a year to pass). Weve got to get the health care done, he said at a rally in Nashville. He added, Then we get on to tax reduction.

According to the Fox News poll, Americans are more interested in the latter than the former. Asked to prioritize what Trump works on, replacing Obamacare was ranked fifth overall in terms of the issue people thought was most pressing. Even among Republicans, it was tied for fourth on the priority list with cutting taxes.

The bill is viewed poorly, is viewed less favorably than Obamacare and is not viewed as a priority by the American public. One question that looms over the process now is whether significant changes to the bill will make it more palatable to the public, or whether attitudes about any replacement for Obamacare will fall along similar lines. If so, the Republicans have an even steeper uphill fight than they may have expected.

Continued here:
Obamacare is much more popular than the Republican bill to replace it - Washington Post

NPR

Trump Friend Argues Against Republican Health Care Plan NPR March 17, 20174:49 AM ET. Heard on Morning Edition. Steve Inskeep talks with Christopher Ruddy, CEO of the conservative Newsmax network and a friend of Trump. He wrote an article arguing for President Trump to ditch the Republican health care plan.

Go here to read the rest:
Trump Friend Argues Against Republican Health Care Plan - NPR

House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Ranking Democrat Adam Schiff (Calif.) expressed doubt, March 15, about President Trump's claim of a 2016 wire tap at Trump Tower. (Reuters)

On Wednesday, President Trump lost one of his most ardent apologists, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The Post reported:

Nunes had beena member of his own transition team, after all, and he seemed to go out of his way to defend Trump in a way few others did,frankly.

That may no longer be the case.

Nunes delivered a reasonably strong rebuke of Trump on Wednesday for his tweet that President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower, saying that if the tweet were to be taken literally, clearly the president was wrong (meaning Trump).

Perhaps Nunes saw some of Trumps rotten polling numbers. Maybe he realized his own credibility was too precious to fritter away defending Trumps nonsense. Perhaps he knew FBI Director James B. Comey would say the same thing next week and wanted to get out his statement first. Whatever the reason, this is as close as any Republican has come to calling Trump out for making stuff up.

Now imagine if all the Republicans started doing that.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) could say, Actually, Mr. President, you arent exempt from conflicts of interest. There is a rule right there in the Constitution, the emoluments clause.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) might say, Mr. President, you are wrong about sanctuary cities. They actually dont have more crime. And immigrants, even those here illegally, are less likely to be criminals than native-born Americans.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan could point out: Mr. President, you really did say youd cover everyone.

You get the point. Trump is so used to making things up and Republicans are so used to defending him that when one Republican finally tells the truth, which is readily apparent to everyone else, it becomes, literally, front-page news.

You do wonder what all these Republicans are so afraid of. Is Trump going to campaign against or threaten the guy in charge of intelligence investigations in the House? That would be very foolish. And if he did vow to start campaigning against incumbent Republicans, its not clear they would mind all that much. Trumps approval is at historic lows for a president at this stage in his first term.

Moreover, once a few Republicans started speaking up, Trump might actually stop saying patently untrue things. Until now, its the Republicans indifference to his lies or even rationalizations for them that allows him to gaslight the rest of the country.

Once Republicans inside the Beltway start telling Trump he is talking nonsense, truth-telling might spread like wildfire! Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) might fess up that the Medicaid cuts would be devastating to Floridas budget. GOP mayors could tell Trump his notions about sanctuary cities are all wrong. Border-state governors would tell him flat out that the wall is going to cost a fortune and wont work.

If we have learned anything from Trumps my-travel-ban-can-never-be-invalidated attitude, and my-health-care-will-cover-everyone posturing, it is that when the truth comes out, it makes all Republicans look foolish and prevents them from achieving desired political ends. His lies become attached to their policies and become a political weight around their own necks.

Nunes is right. The president was wrong in this case. Hes wrong about most things, and Republicans should start saying so.

Original post:
What if every Republican started telling Trump that he is wrong? - Washington Post (blog)