White House to offer balanced budget plan
by mid-May: Mulvaney
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[March 20, 2017]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A detailed
version of President Donald Trump's budget to be released in May will
lay out plans to eventually erase U.S. deficits, White House budget
director Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday.
"We're getting into that now. By May, I think it's mid-May we're
shooting for right now, we'll have that larger budget..." Mulvaney said
on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.
Mulvaney acknowledged that the budget would not be balanced in the
upcoming 2018 fiscal year but said the administration wants to put the
country on a path toward eventually wiping out annual deficits.
"We won't be able to balance the budget this year, but we're working on
trying to get it to balance within the 10-year budget window, which is
what Republicans in the House and the Senate have traditionally done in
the last couple of years," Mulvaney said.
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"It is a very complicated budget process when your entitlements, your
mandatory spending is driving most of your budget deficit," he said. "So
over the course of the next decade, we'll have to look at the mandatory
spending side in order to figure out a way to make changes to the way we
spend money."
The full budget to be rolled out in May will put "more flesh on the
bones" of Trump's preliminary budget plan that was released last week,
said Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and
Budget.
Trump's initial budget outline prompted criticism from both Democrats
and some Republicans for its proposals for steep cuts in domestic
programs such as education and environmental enforcement programs as
well as foreign aid.
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![](../images/032017pics/news_x41.jpg)
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney
speaks about of U.S. President Donald Trump's budget in the briefing
room of the White House in Washington, U.S., March 16, 2017.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
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As a presidential candidate, Trump campaigned on a pledge to quickly
balance the budget, and eliminate federal debt during his
presidency.
Mulvaney said Trump's proposals to boost U.S. infrastructure could
be ready to be issued around "summer or early fall."
He said some money had been taken out of the budget blueprint "with
the intention of putting it back into the infrastructure bill."
(Reporting By Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Caren Bohan and Sandra
Maler)
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