This week, President Trump rolled out a 2018 budget plan that calls for $3.6 trillion in cuts over the next decade to various social-welfare programs—including more than $1 trillion in cuts to safety-net programs—while increasing military spending by tens of billions, cutting trillions in taxes for the rich, and calling for spending $1.6 billion on his long-cherished border wall with Mexico.
Titled “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” the budget, which awaits congressional approval, will include $600 billion in cuts to Medicaid, an insurance program that helps millions of poor and disabled Americans, as well as a $191 billion cut in food stamps.
Late Show host Stephen Colbert was none too pleased with the plan.
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“That foundation of America’s greatness, what he’s building that on?” asked Colbert. “It turns out he’s building that foundation out of the ground-up bones of poor people, because this budget cuts things like the food stamp program, SNAP, and the children’s health-insurance program CHIP. So he’s cutting SNAP and CHIP, to which America’s children replied, ‘STOP!’ and ‘HELP!’”
“I know this is an unpopular position these days, but I believe children should go to the doctor and eat,” Colbert added.
The comedian isn’t the only one who took issue with Trump’s proposed budget. Congressional Democrats have also decried it, while Hillary Clinton said it “shows an unimaginable level of cruelty and lack of imagination and disdain for the struggles of millions of Americans, including millions of children.”
And who stands to be hurt the most by Trump’s budget? Trump voters.
According to Politico, this New Foundation for American Greatness relies on “cutting taxes on the wealthy, boosting defense spending, and taking a hatchet to programs for the poor and disabled—potentially hurting many of the rural and low-income Americans who voted him into office.”
The irony wasn’t lost on Colbert. “The whole thing is particularly cruel to one minority group: Trump’s voters,” he said. “Because the president’s budget hits his own voters the hardest, taking aim at the social safety net on which many of them rely. It’s all there on Trump’s new hat: Make the Poor Live on Squirrel Meat Again.”
“This budget is filled with brutal, senseless cuts to medial research—like $14 billion in cuts from Health and Human Services, including an unbelievable cut of 19 percent from the National Cancer Institute’s budget.”
Then the kicker: “No, listen: Trump said we’d be sick of winning and he is ready to deliver on the first half of that sentence.”
