Trump administration sending Congress $4.1 trillion budget

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is sending Congress a $4.1 trillion spending plan that relies on faster economic growth and steep cuts in a range of support programs for low-income individuals to balance the government's books over the next decade.

The government hasn't run a surplus since the late 1990s when a budget deal between Democrat Bill Clinton and congressional Republicans combined with the longest U.S. economic recovery in history produced four years of black ink from 1998 to 2001.

According to budget tables released by the administration, Trump's plan cuts almost $3.6 trillion from an array of benefit programs, domestic agencies and war spending over the coming decade — an almost 8 percent cut — including repealing and replacing Obama's health law, cutting Medicaid, eliminating student loan subsidies, sharply slashing food stamps, and cutting $95 billion in highway formula funding for the states.

Trump would keep campaign pledges to leave core Medicare and Social Security benefits for the elderly alone but that translated into even deeper cuts in programs for the poor such as Medicaid and food stamps.

Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor and many disabled Americans, would be cut by more than $600 billion over 10 years by capping payments to states and giving governors more flexibility to manage their rosters of Medicaid recipients.

The new budget plan builds on Trump's March proposals, adding details to his goal of boosting defense spending by $54 billion, a 10 percent increase, for this year, with that boost financed by an equal cut to nondefense programs.