By Jaedeok Hong ‘19President Trump told the nation’s governors on Monday and spoke in front of the Navy on Gerald R. Ford, the would-be largest and most powerful carrier, on Thursday to introduce his plan to increase military spending for next year. The proposal accumulates to a total of $52 billion, or a 9.4% hike from the previous years’ defense budget.During his entire campaign, expanding the military was one of Mr. Trump’s core promises. Now that he has the presidency, it was only a matter of time for such a proposal to come to fruition. According to the White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, the first proposed budget would contain $603 billion in defense discretionary spending for fiscal year 2018, an $52 billion increase from the $551 billion defense budget of fiscal year 2017. Specifically, the expansion will be directed to the base defense budget, which does not include war funding. In the words of the President at the National Governors Association, “this budget will be a public safety and national security budget, very much based on those two with plenty of other things but very strong. And it will include a historic increase in defense spending to rebuild the depleted military of the United States of America at a time we most need it.”Onboard the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, Mr. Trump asserted that the Navy is now the smallest it has been since World War I, with 275 ships as of September 2016, and pledged to build 70 new warships. However, many are voicing opposition, as skeptics do not regard numbers as important. The fleet includes state-of-the-art aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, amphibious assault ships, submarines, and rebut that they are far superior to the 6,000 fleet of World War II. In comparison with the spending of other countries, the $52 billion increase is comparable to the entire annual military budget of the United Kingdom, the fifth-largest military spending country, and more than 80 percent of Russia’s entire 2015 military budget. Statistically speaking, the $603 billion budget would account for nearly 40 percent of global military spending next year, outspending Russia by a margin of 9 to 1.Naturally, in order to implement the new budget, it must come at the sacrifice of other government budgets. Mr. Trump proposes budget cuts to most federal agencies, and the Environmental Protection Agency and foreign aid programs were most notably targeted. Although the amount of foreign aid reduction was unmentioned, officials claim that there would be “large reductions” in spending. Regarding reductions in the EPA budget, E&E news had reported that the plan included a $2 billion cut from its current $8.1 billion budget, and a 20% staff decrease, or about 3,000 employees. This caused concern in many of the officials, and the formal EPA chief assailed the administration, saying “this budget is a fantasy if the administration believes it will preserve EPA’s mission to protect public health”.The Democratic party was particularly loud in opposition, congregating concerns that important domestic programs such as environmental protection, education, and social safety net programs would be subject to reduction and could seriously restrict the activity of each program. However, the President’s budget proposal does not become law immediately. The White House and Congress must undergo negotiations before the budget becomes realized, which means many months of waiting. However, the Republicans currently control Washington, so it is likely that the actual budget would not be much different than the proposal. The Democratic party is expected to resist vehemently and take advantage of the given time, so it would be interesting to see how the Democratic party will try to disrupt the status quo.Sources:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/us/politics/trump-navy-warship-military-spending.html?ref=politicshttp://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/01/fact-check-trump-defense-spending-increase/98588160/http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-budget-idUSKBN1661R2https://theintercept.com/2017/02/27/trumps-proposed-increase-in-u-s-defense-spending-would-be-80-percent-of-russias-entire-military-budget/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/26/us/politics/trump-budget.htmlhttp://www.businessinsider.com/trump-budget-epa-lay-off-2017-3