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There is plenty to criticize, or even be outraged by, in the 2018 budget unveiled this week by the Trump administration without having to resort to the hackneyed end-of-the-world rhetoric used by advocates and interest groups — and, alas, too many journalists — in response to every proposed cut in government spending. (Steven Pearlstein, 5/25)

For journalists covering domestic policy, this past week poses some hard choices. Should we focus on the Trump budget’s fraudulence — not only does it invoke $2 trillion in phony savings, it counts them twice — or on its cruelty? Or should we talk instead about the Congressional Budget Office assessment of Trumpcare, which would be devastating for older, poorer and sicker Americans? There is, however, a unifying theme to all these developments. And that theme is contempt — Donald Trump’s contempt for the voters who put him in office. (Paul Krugman, 5/26)

But there’s a giant hole in Medicare coverage, a hole that many aging American seniors eventually fall into: Nursing home care isn’t generally covered, and neither is full-time assistance at home. But if you live to 65, there’s a 40 percent chance you’ll enter a nursing home in the future. And it’ll cost you $80,000 to $90,000 a year on average. So where does that money come from if Medicare won’t pay? The answer is Medicaid, the other government insurance program, the one more often associated with the poor than the elderly. About 60 percent of nursing home residents rely on Medicaid. Which means that if the Republican plan to slash $834 billion from Medicaid goes forward, it could have a devastating impact on seniors with critical health needs. (Evan Horowitz, 5/25)

Whhen the White House unveiled its 2018 budget on Tuesday, plenty of Democrats were quick to characterize it as stingy and cruel. Among the exhibits for the prosecution was the plan for Social Security Disability Insurance, whose projected outlays the administration would cut by 5 percent by 2027. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney started the argument in March. "It's the fastest growing program," he asserted. "It grew tremendously under President Obama. It's a very wasteful program, and we want to try and fix that." He was promptly accused of factual sloppiness and heartlessness, and some of the criticism was justified. But Mulvaney is onto a real problem that demands attention. (5/25)

Cutting health care for the poor is a dream come true for many congressional Republicans. And that’s not an exaggeration, but a direct quote: “So Medicaid, sending it back to the states, capping its growth rate, we’ve been dreaming of this” since college, House Speaker Paul Ryan said in March. So, what are food stamp recipients who do work but don’t earn enough to feed their families to do? Get “the right mind-set,” says HUD head Ben Carson, since poverty is largely “a state of mind.” (Melinda Henneberger, 5/25)