President Donald Trump’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget proposal for the Social Security Administration was recently released and there was nothing surprising about it.
Fiscal Year 2019 (FY 2019), which begins Oct. 1, 2018, looks very much like the FY 2018 budget. The FY 2019 proposal is flat, meaning it does not increase spending for operating costs. Considering inflation increases, a flat budget proposal would not keep up with increased staffing costs, which could result in less Social Security employees. In fact, one estimate shows a decrease of 1.2 percent of the Social Security staff. Here is a brief description of what the president’s Social Security budget entails.
“The FY 2019 President’s Budget of $12.393 billion focuses on implementing organizational reforms that make us more efficient and effective; investing in modern technology and business processes that will help us serve the public better at a lower cost; and addressing our key backlogs. In addition, we will continue safeguarding taxpayer dollars by investing in efforts to reduce improper payments and combat fraud.”
Earlier this month, after facing the possibility of another government shutdown, Trump signed a budget deal passed by Congress. This budget deal thankfully supersedes Trump’s own budget and actually will increase spending for civilian agencies. Every president releases a budget proposal, but nearly every budget proposal is ignored because it does not resemble the actual budget that is passed. Unfortunately, Trump’s FY 2019 budget is an indication that his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, is in favor of slashing the budgets of many government agencies, which includes Social Security. As long as Mulvaney is around, expect to see every Trump budget proposal in the future to include less funding for many government agencies, including Social Security, so that threat will remain.
