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Trump Plans to Eliminate NEA, NEH, Cut Spending by $10.5 Trillion

President-elect Donald Trump
President-elect Donald Trump / AP
January 19, 2017

The Trump administration is seeking major cuts to federal spending upon taking office, with plans to eliminate agencies and programs to reduce the budget by over $10 trillion.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated, according to a new report on the administration's spending priorities published by the Hill.

Both arts agencies have budgets of roughly $147 million. The NEA awards millions of dollars worth of grants for art projects each year, which have included plays about assassinating Christopher Columbus, food stamps, and gun-control activist lesbians, climate change poetry, and "Doggie Hamlet."

Aside from the art agencies, the Hill reported the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, home of PBS and NPR, would be privatized, and the Commerce and Energy departments would "see major reductions in funding."

The State Department, Department of Justice, and Department of Transportation would also see programs removed entirely. The Government Accountability Office has identified hundreds of billions of taxpayer funding that could be saved by eliminating duplicative programs.

The new administration will release a "skinny budget" approximately 200 pages long within 45 days summarizing the president-elect's spending priorities. A full budget is not expected until April.

Trump plans to cut spending by $10.5 trillion over the next 10 years, higher than the Republican Study Committee's plan to slash spending by $8.6 trillion.

The U.S. national debt is set to surpass $20 trillion this year.

Published under: Trump Administration