Social Security, Medicare are next budget targets

How in the world can President Trump's proposed FY 2019 budget begin to address our fiscal, domestic and international problems?

Between the recent tax cuts and this budget proposal, we will be running annual deficits of $1 trillion or more as far as the eye can see.

That is on top of the $1.5 trillion that will be added to the debt over the next decade due to the cuts. Where are fiscal hawks when we need them?

Then look at the priorities. Besides defense, Homeland Security and VA, only commerce gets an increase. And what gets the biggest percentage cut (almost 30 percent) - state and international. So, we want to prepare for war, at home or abroad, without having the adequate resources to engage in diplomacy.

From reviewing the data, we can see how Obama and others have gutted the military.

As of 2016, we had slipped to spending more on defense than only the combined total of the next eight countries - including China and Russia. That is so we can station nearly 200,000 troops in 177 countries (with about 115,000 stationed in Germany, Japan, South Korea and Italy).

And look at the proposed cuts to education, transportation and health. To remain competitive, the last place we should cut is education, infrastructure and health services and research.

We can hold Trump and the Republicans responsible for the massive tax cut, the transfer of income and wealth to the top 1 percent and this obscene budget proposal, with its severely distorted priorities.

In order to address large deficits, the next shoe to drop will be an assault on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The hope apparently will be to shred the social compact and the nation's economic safety net - a goal of the ultra-right since FDR's and LBJ's times.

Lynn Jensen

Arlington Heights