If President Donald Trump’s budget is formally approved by Congress, then children will die because of it, according to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
De Blasio spoke Tuesday at a news conference during a tour of the Bronx, Politico reported. The mayor detailed the damaging effects he thinks Trump’s budget, which proposes more than $2 trillion worth of cuts to social and other government programs, could have on New Yorkers.
In fact, according to the New York Daily News, de Blasio believes that if Trump’s budget proposal is passed, its effects would be more damaging to New Yorkers than if a terrorist struck the city.
According to the Daily News, budget changes that would affect New Yorkers include cuts to food stamps, public housing funds, health insurance and anti-terror program grants that the city relies on to keep it safe.
"It is not an overstatement to say that some children will die because of this,” de Blasio said, explaining that Trump’s cuts to the Children’s Health Insurance Program will cause 125,000 children in NYC to have their health coverage cut back or stripped away completely.
"Five hundred thousand kids in [Trump's] hometown will have less food to eat because of this proposal,” de Blasio said.
The hard-left mayor also said it was "tragic irony” that Trump’s proposed budget would cut $190 million from NYC’s anti-terror grants following Monday's terrorist attack in Manchester, England. The anti-terror grants help the New York Police Department train and upgrade technology to keep the city safe from potential terrorists.
De Blasio also criticized the plan as one that helps only the wealthiest Americans.
"A plan written by billionaires and millionaires for billionaires and millionaires — that's what this is,” de Blasio explained, according to the Daily News. "It's transparent. The money is going to come off the backs of working people, and in many cases children."
While Trump was in Israel on Tuesday, his administration back in Washington, D.C., unveiled its budget proposal for fiscal year 2018.
The plan, titled "A New Foundation for American Greatness,” seeks to cut $1.5 trillion in non-defense discretionary spending over the next 10 years while also cutting $1.4 trillion from Medicaid. The plan claims it will erase the national deficit in just 10 years, but many economists disagree and believe the plan will add trillions to the national debt, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The budget, however, will likely be gutted by Congress as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have already expressed displeasure with the proposal.
