Don't call it a budget. It's really a hit list—a contract for a wave of program assassinations. As such it is as much a political provocation as an actual policy proposal. Their deficiencies aside, Trump & Co. are good at provocations. Critics will be encouraged to react in outraged defense of this or that specific program. The outrage is part of the plan. It's the Administration's way of entertaining its base. Your tears are their balm.
The document released last Wednesday by the White House bears no resemblance to most budget documents of days gone by. It's more like the last minute delivery of a late term paper by some sleep-deprived undergraduate. The text has been scanned into a PDF file, rather than printed to a file, so you can't search it. It is only sixty-two pages; complete Federal budgets run to thousands of pages. There is gaping white space, blank pages, and oversized margins, devices remembered by every college student to inflate the apparent length of a submitted assignment.
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