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No Surprise: Trump Budget Fails to Invest in Young People

Washington, D.C. — Earlier today, President Donald Trump released his Fiscal Year 2020 budget outline, which broadly details the Trump Administration’s priorities for the coming year. In response to today’s budget, Reid Setzer, Director of Public Policy for Young Invincibles, released the following statement:

“Time and time again, President Trump has failed to invest in the programs that bolster the financial health of young adults and this budget is no different. This budget enforces blanket budget cuts across the board that have been rejected by both parties. Instead of prioritizing investments in making higher education and health care more affordable, the President requests billions of dollars in cuts across programs and agencies that young people rely on, to pay for an unpopular wall and other equally short-sighted, divisive policies.

We’re disappointed — but not surprised — that once again, the Trump Administration has failed to invest in young people and the future of our country.”

In higher education, the President’s proposal:

  • Cuts $2 billion from the rainy day fund that ensures the sustainability of the Pell Grant program
  • Cuts the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program by $35 million
  • Ends Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)
  • Eliminates subsidized loans, saddling student borrowers with an additional $207 billion in federal loan debt over the next ten years as the country faces the most significant student debt crisis in history
  • Offers one income-based plan that is less generous than some current plans, which will mean longer forgiveness time periods for graduate loans and higher monthly payments for most undergraduate borrowers
  • Proposes a vague plan to hold poor-performing colleges accountable and expand Pell to short-term certificate programs, which contradicts the DeVos’ Department of Education’s attempt to weaken consumer protections for current student loan borrowers
  • Undermines the budget’s proposal to prioritize Pell recipients in Federal Work Study programs and to improve the program’s efficacy overall, by proposing a 50 percent funding cut to the program
  • Eliminates Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, which are used to help the lowest-income students in our country stay enrolled in higher education
  • Invests less in apprenticeships than in previous years, while creating an industry-recognized apprenticeship system without specifics on how programs will be vetted for quality outcomes

In health care, the President’s proposal:

  • Cuts $777 billion in funding cuts over ten years to the ACA and Medicaid
  • Eliminates Medicaid expansion, jeopardizing the current health coverage of nearly 13 million low-income adults
  • Replaces Medicaid expansion and ACA subsidies with block grant funding, which would decrease funding to Medicaid due to how block grants calculate program costs
  • Replace traditional Medicaid funding with per-capita caps
  • Doubles down on work requirements for several poverty relief programs, including Medicaid and TANF
  • Drastically cuts programs that low-income and elderly Americans rely on including Medicare