Aired on February 12, 2020 on My Faith Radio, Bill English talks with Carmen Leberge about President Trump's budget.



Here are the show notes:



Trump Budget Proposal for FY 2021



Trump’s budget calls for ~ $1T deficits for the FY 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.



As of today, America owes a total of $23,256,356,117,175.05



Intragovernmental debt – what agencies owe to each other, including social security, military retirement funds, Medicare and other retirement funds: 26% of Federal debt, or $6T



Public Debt – Foreign govt’s and international investors = $7T



Japan, China, United Kingdom, Brazil and Ireland are the top five foreign govt’s holding combined $3.1T (Japan and China each ~ $1.1T)



Trump cuts real spending for the following departments:



Department% CutProposed Dept Budget (in billions)Agriculture8%21.8Commerce48%7.9Education7.8%66.6Energy8.1%35.4Health and Human Services10%94.5Housing and Urban Development15.2%47.9Interior16%12.7Justice2.3%31.7Labor10.5%11.1State22%40.8Transportation (discretionary)13%21.6Army Corp of Engineers22%6.0Environmental Protection Agency26%6.7SBA25%739M



Here are the proposed increases:



Department% IncreaseDept Budget (in billions)NASA12%25.2Veterans Affairs14%105Treasury2.2%13.3Transportation (Mandated)8%66.2Homeland Security3.2%52.1Defense.01705.4



Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid + other mandatory programs: $3T  ($2.4T for the first three, $600B for “other”)



Out of the total $4.829T budget, social security, medicare and Medicaid spending will account for 50% of our Federal spending.



By Comparison:



10 years ago:



Federal Budget was $3.6T or 25% less



Federal Debt was $14.082T or 39.5% less



Federal Deficit in 2011 was $1.3T



Discussion:



The borrower is servant to the lender (proverbs 22.7)Total debt is just below $70K/person in the USHow important should the debt be relative to other issues?AbortionReligious FreedomSocial programsOther?My take – it is approaching the same status of importanceIf a war were to break out like WWII, we would not be able to borrow enough $$$ to finance fighting two wars simultaneouslyIf interest rates were to rise 5% – prime goes from ~3% to 8%, the interest we would need to pay would rise significantly – certainly over $500B/yearWhat can we do?Stay out of debtGet involved in both parties and make this a priorityGet involved in non-partisan groups like the Concord CoalitionDon’t accept “learned helplessness”Pray, pray, pray