Tag: 2020 federal budget
GOP Pastor In Congress Would Eliminate Peace Corps, International Assistance

GOP Pastor In Congress Would Eliminate Peace Corps, International Assistance

Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) is seeking to eliminate all funding for the Peace Corps and other international programs. On Wednesday, Walker introduced an amendment to a spending bill that would eliminate $19 billion in international assistance and reallocate all the funding.

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, took to the floor to oppose the draconian measure.

Walker’s measure would entirely eliminate federal funding “to 14.7 million people receiving life-saving HIV treatment, including 700,000 children, 70 million children learning to read with U.S. assistance, 6.5 million refugees displaced by conflicts or natural disasters, and 7,200 Peace Corps volunteers serving as excellent representatives of the United States,” Lowey said.

“How are these cuts in our national interest?” Lowey asked before recommending all her colleagues vote against the measure.

The Peace Corps was established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as an opportunity for volunteers to bring assistance throughout the developing world. Since it began, more than 220,000 Americans have served, working on issues such as reducing malaria, fighting the spread of HIV, and reducing global hunger by improving agricultural outputs.

The National Peace Corps Association (NCPA), a group formed to advocate for the program, raised the alarm about Walker’s amendment on their Facebook page, troubled at the prospect of seeing the program lose all federal funding.

Walker, a Southern Baptist pastor who chairs the Republican Study Committee, is not alone among Republicans who seek to cut back on the Peace Corps. In Trump’s 2018 budget, he recommended cutting its budget by $12 million. Trump’s plan was “the largest proposed cut to the Peace Corps by a president in over 40 years,” according to the NCPA.

Trump and Republicans are not strangers to slashing the budgets of wildly popular programs. Earlier in 2019, Trump proposed — and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos defended — massive cuts to the Special Olympics program.

After sustained public outcry, Trump eventually relented on proposed cuts.

Members of the House are scheduled to vote on Tuesday, June 18, on Walker’s Peace Corps amendment.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

At Mar-a-Lago, Trump Disowns His Budget’s Removal Of Special Olympics

At Mar-a-Lago, Trump Disowns His Budget’s Removal Of Special Olympics

Trump gave a bizarre, rambling, and nonsensical press conference, all while sitting relaxed on a couch at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday afternoon.

The event was supposed to be centered around announcing that Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon would be leaving the administration to work at a pro-Trump super PAC, but it quickly went off the rails.

Trump bounced from topic to topic, hitting some of the familiar refrains that have been his obsession over the past week. In some instances, he merely rehashed the material from his rambling campaign rally in Michigan, though this time he did not discuss how deep any lakes are.

Trump tried to once again talk his way out of his own budget’s plan to eliminate funding for Special Olympics.

“For many years it hasn’t been approved, and then at some point it gets negotiated out by Congress,” Trump said, conveniently concealing his role in cutting funds with a lie about Congress’ role.

He then, of course, gave himself credit for keeping the funding in place.

What really happened is that in his own budget — proposed over two weeks ago — Trump proposed removing funding for Special Olympics, a departure from previous presidents. Then his Education Secretary Betsy DeVos testified under oath to Congress and defended the action.

Congress had nothing to do with it, despite what Trump said.

But after enormous public blowback and heavy coverage on television, Trump decided to come out against his own document.

His budget was already dead on arrival, with Democrats immediately dismissing it as nonsensical and cruel. It has no chance of passing Congress and will never be enacted.

Nonetheless, Trump sat on his couch and tried to take credit for restoring money he himself proposed to take away.


Trump’s couch conference also featured him lavishing praise on McMahon, the former CEO of WWE, who once was key in having him headline a match at Wrestlemania. (Trump is in the WWE hall of fame, by the way.)

And of course, Trump also discussed his intention to close the U.S.-Mexico border, while falsely asserting that to do so would be a profitable enterprise for America. In fact, the country would lose out on over $40 billion per month from the decision.

Trump also lavished a similar amount of praise on North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un while explaining his incoherent approach to sanctions on that nation.

The entire event was strange and bizarre, even more so with Trump’s resort as the backdrop. Membership in the club has been connected to sketchy campaign donation issues, as well as an ongoing Congressional investigation. And it also lines Trump’s pockets to this day.

For a brief moment, Trump and his couch had a starring role in the ongoing mix of corruption, incompetence, and incoherence that surrounds his entire presidency.

Published with permission of The American Independent.