Nonprofit Causes Lose Big in White House Spending Plan

Dozens of federal programs that fund work by nonprofits in poverty, education, the arts, the environment, rural development, and foreign aid are on the chopping block in President Trump’s $1.1 trillion budget blueprint released by the White House this morning.

Shifting the government’s spending to boost the military and build his promised wall on the Mexican border, the president proposed eliminating numerous social programs dating to the Lyndon Johnson administration’s War on Poverty, Bloomberg reports.

The budgets for State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development will be cut by 28 percent in the 2018 fiscal year, Reuters writes. Traveling in Japan, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson defended the cuts in foreign aid and said the United States will expect its allies to contribute more to global antipoverty programs and disaster relief, reports BBC News.

As expected, the Trump budget calls for zeroing out the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, which make grants to artists and nonprofits for creative and cultural projects, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which subsidizes the NPR and PBS stations, writes The New York Times.

Also targeted for elimination is the Corporation for National and Community Service, which operates AmeriCorps, according to a USA Today list detailing the 62 programs the president proposes erasing. The Washington Post offers a department-by-department graphic breakdown of the budget impact.

Chronicle journalists are combing through the numbers for what matters most to nonprofits. For background on the proposed cuts and how they will impact the philanthropic world, see these articles:

• Nonprofits Scramble as GOP Vows Spending Cuts

• Trump Pays Little Heed to Volunteering, but People Sign Up in Droves

• Trump’s ‘America First’ Stance Alarms Globally Active Foundations

• Museum Leaders Fear Deep Budget Cuts Are for Real This Time