How to instantly add $54 billion to Trump budget revenues and end every cut to every department

It’s as easy as: one, two, three!

The 2018 Donald Trump Federal Budget can be balanced, even when including nearly $54 billion in increased Defense Department spending, and not one federal department would require any cuts in spending.

These are the proposed $54 billion in department cuts that would not have to take effect under my 123 Plan:

Agriculture 2018 Budget

• Eliminates $500 million Water and Wastewater loan/grant program
• Eliminates $200 million McGovern-Dole International Food for Education program
• Cuts Women, Infants and Children nutrition assistance from $6.4 billion to $6.2 billion
• Unspecified staff reductions at USDA service center agencies
• Cuts $95 million from Rural Business and Cooperative Service

Commerce 2018 Budget

• Cuts $250 million from coastal research programs that ready for rising seas and worsening storms
• Eliminates $73 million Sea Grant program, which operates in universities in 33 states
• Eliminates Economic Development Administration, which issues grants in poor communities
• Cuts federal funding to Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Education 2018 Budget

• Cuts billions in grants for teacher training, after-school and summer programs
• Reduces aid programs to first-generation and low-income students
• Reduces federal work-study aid to college students
• Increases charter school funding by $168 million

Energy 2018 Budget

• Cuts $900 million from Office of Science
• Eliminates Energy Star, Weatherization Assistance Program, ARPA-E, Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, and Title 17 loan guarantees

Health & Human Services 2018 Budget

• Decreases funding for National Institutes of Health and programs to train health professionals
• Ends Fogarty International Center partnerships between U.S. and foreign health research institutions

Homeland Security 2018 Budget

• Cuts $667 million from grant programs to state and local agencies, including before disaster mitigation grants and counter terrorism funding
• Raises the TSA Passenger Security Fee, currently $5.60 for a passenger flying out of a U.S. airport

Housing and Urban Development 2018 budget

• Eliminates $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program
• Ends the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, the Choice Neighborhoods program and the Self-help Home ownership Opportunity Program
• Eliminates the $35 million of funding for Section 4 Community Development and Affordable Housing

Interior 2018 Budget

• Eliminates funding for the 49 National Heritage Areas
• Decreases funding for land acquisition by $120 million

Justice 2018 Budget

• Cuts funding to reimburse state and local governments for costs of incarcerating certain undocumented immigrants
• Cuts almost $1 billion of funding for federal prison construction

Labor 2018 Budget

• Eliminates Senior Community Service Employment Program to help low-income seniors find work
• Closes poor-performing centers for Job Corps, a job-training program for poor youth
• Eliminates grants that help nonprofit groups and public agencies pay for safety and health training

State 2018 Budget

• Eliminates climate-change prevention programs, including payments to U.N. climate-change programs
• Reduces funding for U.N. peacekeeping
• Reduces funding for development banks such as the World Bank
• Reduces most cultural-exchange programs, except the Fulbright Program

Transportation 2018 Budget

• Shifts air traffic control outside the government
• Eliminates funding for some new transit projects and ends support for long-distance Amtrak trains
• Eliminates $175 million in subsidies for commercial flights to rural airports
• Cuts $499 million from the TIGER grant program, which has funded dozens of road, transit and other projects

Treasury 2018 Budget

• Reduces funding for the Internal Revenue Service by $239 million
• Eliminates grants for Community Development Financial Institutions, which provide financial services in poor neighborhoods

Environmental Protection Agency 2018 Budget

• Eliminates more than 50 programs and 3,200 jobs
• Discontinues funding for international climate-change programs
• Cuts funding for Office of Research and Development in half
• Cuts funding for Superfund cleanup program and Office of Enforcement and Compliance

NASA 2018 Budget

• Cuts $102 million of funding from Earth science, terminating four missions aimed at understanding climate-change
• Eliminates the $115 million Office of Education
• Cuts $88 million from the Robotic Refueling Mission, which develops techniques to repair satellites

Small Business Administration 2018 Budget

• Ends PRIME technical-assistance grants, Growth Accelerators and Regional Innovation Clusters
• Cuts $1 million of $46 million of loan guarantees currently available to small business owners

Arts and Culture 2018 Budget

• Eliminates entire $148 million for the National Endowment for the Arts and all $148 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities
• Eliminates the $230 million Institute of Museum and Library Services
• Eliminates the $445 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports public television and radio, including PBS and NPR

It is reasonable to assume that these cuts to federal programs will in some way affect all 325,817,696 Americans (as of 1:26 DST today).

One solution – not mine – is to share the burden of eliminating these cuts by asking each of the some 81.4 million U.S. families for a one time donation of $713. To be more fair, we might eliminate the 31 million working poor families , who receive earned income tax credit and other assistance, leaving us with 50.4 million families each donating $1,151.

Or…

We can adopt the 123 Plan and ask for a donation from only three men. Our request would be only for the amount of wealth they accumulated last year.

For example, after all your bills last year, you added only $500 to your savings account, that would be your increased wealth for 2017, and that’s all we are asking for in our plan.

In the past year the fortune of Jeff Bezos has grown $27.6 billion.

The fortune of Warren Buffett has grown $14.8 billion in the same period.

And the fortune of Bill Gates has grown $11.6 billion in one year.

Total gain in wealth for the three in only one year is $53.4 billion, just enough to balance the 2018 federal budget without making any cuts in services.

Jeff, Warren, Bill…it’s time to stand up and be counted. Donate just one year’s increase in your wealth and help keep America happy.

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Next week: why influential Americans overjoyed over no inheritance tax