The Conservative Vision of Government and Spending

President President Trump's proposed 2020 budget collapses domestic spending and significantly increases defense spending. [washingtonpost.com] The budget has no chance of passing congress, but instead throws down the conservative-populist gauntlet and people need to choose to accept or reject it by their votes in the 2020 elections.

The budget proposes cutting (1) Medicare by $84.5 billion/year over 10 years, (2) Medicaid by $24.1 billion/year over 10 years, and (3) by $22 billion/year over 10 years Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps). It adds more than $33 billion to Defense, which totals $718 billion for 2020. At that level, defense spending amounts to 57% of the proposed federal discretionary budget.

US defense spending dwarfs that of other countries.

The conservative-populist vision of governance could not be clearer. Conservatism has finally become very public about how that ideology sees the federal government and spending priorities.

That Trump promised not to touch Medicare and Medicaid in the 2016 election is not relevant or important to Trump, conservatives or pro-Trump populists. Conservatism apparently feels that now is the time to make an open run at the vision of America it has been working toward for at least the last 30 years.

The 2020 elections will be interesting, to say the least. We can only hope it won't be violent.