Thread by @JStein_WaPo

New: Trump’s OMB director, proving influential in GOP debt talks, wants to avoid Medicare/SS but is pushing to pulverize programs for the poor

His budget calls for:
- $2T cuts to Medicaid
- $600B cuts to ACA
- $400B food stamps cut
- Halve head start

washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023…

If you want to balance the budget, rule out tax hikes, mostly keep the defense budget, and avoid Medicare/SS, your only option is to eviscerate the relatively small portion of the budget devoted to anti-poverty

Vought calls this ending “woke and weaponized” government

One challenge for Vought is that the debt exploded under his tenure as director of the budget — Trump repeatedly overruled the deficit hawks in his administration to cut deals with Democrats

Whether Trump really agrees with Vought’s vision on spending is … murky at best

One striking example of what Vought wants: To eliminate the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, created to encourage graduates to pursue public service

Vought writes this is taxpayer $ for “the woke bureaucracy”

A problem for someone like Vought is some GOP lawmakers believe in various parts of the federal government

The response seems to be to try to cast it as “woke” to polarize the GOP against it

So here Vought pushes cutting the DOJ budget bc it serves a “woke religion”

The Department of Health and Human Services? Also “woke,” Vought says

Vought budget —>

NASA = woke, must be cut
HUD = woke, must be cut
Economic Development Administration = “hyperwoke,” must be cut
VA = “replete with woke ideology”

The word woke is used 77 times in his 104-page document