In late February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order for military expansion in his first budget proposal that promised to cut costs by slashing funding to non-military programs and streamline other services. President Trump has made no secret that he wants to at the very least, pull away from what he feels are either "bad deals" or long-term international commitments that he believes are no longer in America's interests.

The White House sent their budget blueprint to government agencies on February 27 which reportedly called to increase the military budget by $54 billion, which means up to $603 billion with a similar amount cut from non-military programs; numbers touted were down to $462 billion.

By that Thursday, the President was in the Gerald R. Ford, a $12.9 billion dollar aircraft currently under construction, where he made various questionable statements in front of Navy personnel about the state of the U.S. military, which the media did not hesitate to fact check.

Congress still left to approve Trumpian budget

The President's first budget proposal was turned over to Congress by the Office of Management and Budget on Thursday, which would still have to approve the cuts, with a second budget proposal expected in the first part of May. Senator John McCain said of the increases in Military Spending that they were not robust enough, nor did he have confidence in OMB Director Mick Mulvaney's ability to prioritize defense per the proposed budget.

But when Congress finally got a chance to see the proposal on Thursday, many apparently already started to reject it. Politico reported the responses from lawmakers who are already saying they're not going to commit political suicide with the requests, which calls for taking funding away from humanitarian welfare programs they're supporting, saying that Congress will make their own budget.

Former Senator Newt Gingrich wrote an op-ed for Fox News titled "The critical task of staying true to Trump in the president's first budget," where he wrote about the challenge that Mick Mulvaney faces with creating a budget that is "Trumpian" enough to allow the President to negotiate deals the same way he did as a businessman with his hotels.

Gingrich's view is that there is too much of a bureaucracy and red tape to essentially let him loose. Blasting News reported on the President's efforts to force the State Department to start taking funding away from United Nations programs before the proposal revealed EPA, Public Broadcasting, welfare programs like Meals On Wheels would be among those taking the hit.

Fact-checking military weaknesses

During the campaign, candidate Trump was adamant about having a powerful military. In fact, much of his rhetoric was seen as out-of-line due to the aggressively violent nature such as calls to bring back "torture" and killing families of terrorists.

The rhetoric has continued into his presidency along with his habit of misspeaking about the military's lack of ability to engage in war. An article titled, "AP FACT CHECK: US military not as threadbare as Trump says," is a breakdown of his statements on the carrier, where he said the military increase was the biggest in history.

The article states that increases have been bigger in 2002, 2003 and 2008, all during the Bush administration. The details go even farther back to Wold War II with military spending "consuming" 43 percent of the economy 73-years ago. Like many Republicans, President Obama's restraint from putting massive numbers of troops on the ground to fight in the Middle East was criticized by Trump as a sign of weakness.

The President has exploited that view and said that the military was the weakest it's ever been, which appears to be the main reason he's pushing for military increases.

Even Republicans don't like it

The Political article titled: "Republicans pan Trump budget," details Republicans not on board with the proposal. Here's a view from both sides on Public Broadcasting's Newshour.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED