Trump budget biggest losers include environment, labor, health, education, arts. Budget process spawns new TV show idea.

Satire from Ted Block

AROUND THE BLOCK

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Trump’s first budget calls for massive cuts to majority of federal agencies

Arts funding – CPB, NEA, others to be cut entirely

  

Within hours of announcing his first federal budget, which called for massive cuts in spending for a majority of federal agencies, advocates of the environment, workers’ rights, good international relationships, health and education and other aspects of life that contribute to making America great began pushing back.

As shown in the chart below, the budget plan would cut the Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent, the State Department by 28 percent, the Labor Department by 21 percent, Agriculture by 21 percent and Health and Human Services by 16 percent among other double-digit cuts.

But the complete elimination of funding for several smaller government agencies that have long been targets of conservatives — like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts — seemed to have touched a nerve that has caused the president to blink.

In that regard, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, announced this morning that there will be two adjustments to the budget.

“President Trump understands how important the arts, and particularly television arts, are to the American public. In fact, American TV programs are one of the things that truly make America great. And who should know this better than Donald Trump, one of the greatest TV personalities of all time,” Conway said. “As such the president is amending his budget with two, to directly quote the president, ‘Huuuge, believe me these will be huuuge’ initiatives.”

According to Conway, Mr. Trump re-read some of Mitt Romney’s campaign speeches from 2012 and was particularly taken by one regarding PBS, the Public Broadcasting System. Back then, Romney said,  "We're not going to kill Big Bird. But Big Bird is going to have advertisements. All right? After all, there’s nothing evil about a show like Sesame Street to pay for itself by having it sponsored by the things kids love anyway…like Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, Mattel, McDonalds and others. So what if there’s no fruit in those loops.”

Picking up on Romney’s idea, Trump is proposing that PBS continue to be known by its acronym, but that the “P” in PBS, which currently stands for “Public” be changed to “Profitable” so the new name will be the Profitable Broadcasting System (PBS).

And, going even further than Romney, Conway indicated that Trump is demanding that the new PBS not only run commercials, but also take advantage of product placement, or as it’s currently known, “embedded marketing,” a scheme that will allow, the president suggested, Burt and Ernie to do their thing while enjoying Big Macs and Cookie Monster to be renamed Oreo Monster. Conway went on to say that the president is hard at work with other embedded marketing ideas and has enlisted his other daughter, Tiffany, who to date has not had any role in the new Administration, to come up with “bigly” embedded marketing ideas.

(On a side note, Around the Block has learned exclusively that while thinking about the changes that will make Sesame Street and other PBS programs profitable, Trump wondered about Burt and Ernie “doing their thing” and has appointed Iowa congressman Steve King to head a special investigative unit to get to the bottom of Burt and Ernie’s “thing.”)

Trump’s second major arts initiative, according to Conway, will be to establish a new, self-supporting agency, the CRTV, or Corporation for Reality TV. In Trump’s plan, the CRTV would support any and all reality TV programs (other than those starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) that meet the president’s pre-approval, with funding coming exclusively from corporate sponsorship. Companies advertising on CRTV programs will, Conway said, receive a 150% tax credit against their CRTV spending. Asked how a corporate tax credit will not equate to government funding, Conway indicated that the president is working on that and his current favored option is that the credit must be re-spent by the qualified company on building the wall on the Mexican border.

“It’s a brilliant plan,” said Conway. “In one act Mr. Trump is providing the kind of TV programming America loves while simultaneously protecting those same Americans from ‘bad hombres’.”

According to White House sources, on the condition of anonymity because the idea is so incredibly great it is liable to be stolen by a rival producer, in conjunction with the establishment of CRTV, Trump been talking to his favorite reality TV producer, Mark Burnett, about a show that combines the best of Celebrity Apprentice and The Biggest Loser. The show, tentatively to be called The Biggest Loser, Federal Agency Edition, will have cabinet officers and other agency heads pitch their budgets to a panel including the president, his daughter Ivanka and son Eric, and Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner. If the submitted budgets do not please the president and his family, the agency head will be dismissed — "You're fired!" At the end of the season, the agency head whose budget is cut the most will be named "The Biggest Loser" because he or she will be retained as agency head and have to continue to work for President Trump.