Trump’s Proposed 2020 Budget Includes School Safety, Paid Family Leave

March 11, 2019

The Trump Administration’s proposed 2020 budget includes $2.7 trillion in spending cuts. As part of these cuts, nondefense program spending is reduced by 5 percent. At the same time, the budget includes $750 billion for national defense.

The budget identifies several other priorities:

Infrastructure:

President Trump has called upon Congress to pass legislation that generates at least $1 trillion in infrastructure investment. The budget commits to working with the Congress on a long-term surface transportation reauthorization bill. The current authorization, the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015, expires at the end of 2020. The budget says that any reauthorization should address the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund, focus on nationally and regionally “significant projects” and support emerging technologies. It includes $200 billion for other infrastructure priorities, citing water infrastructure, federal investment in buildings and other property, and in technologies including 5G wireless communications, rural broadband, advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence.

Opioid Epidemic:

The budget includes $4.8 billion in the Department of Health and Human Services to sustain investments in surveillance, prevention, treatment, recovery support services, and research. This includes $1.5 billion for state opioid response grants and more than $1 billion in the National Institutes of Health for opioid and pain research.

School Safety:

The proposed budget calls for $700 million in funding for programs that support school safety across the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice – a nearly $200 million increase for these programs compared to 2019 funding levels. This funding is meant to help states and school districts implement recommendations for preventing violence, protecting students and mitigating the effects of violence, and responding to and recovering from violence.

Paid Family Leave and Child Care:

The budget includes a proposal to provide at least six weeks of paid family leave to new mothers and fathers. It also provides for a one-time, mandatory investment of $1 billion for a competitive fund aimed at supporting underserved populations and stimulating employer investments in child care for working families. Also, the budget proposes a federal tax credit of up to $5 billion annually for donations to scholarship programs for families of elementary and secondary students that families could use on after-school tutoring, private school tuition or special education services.

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