WASHINGTON – The Trump administration will formally send its first budget plan to Congress on Tuesday morning, relying heavily on an Obamacare reform plan that is far from certain and deep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps — two programs that benefit lower-income families — to pay for increases in military spending, border security and controversial school choice efforts.

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney briefed reporters Monday on parts of the $4.1-trillion proposal for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. It still appears to include the elimination of $300 million a year for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative — a program that pays for water quality and wildlife habitat projects — first reported by the Free Press some months ago.

Many of the details were still secret, pending release of the budget Tuesday morning by the White House and follow-up reports from federal agencies. But speaking to reporters, Mulvaney said extra care was taken to look at “the impact of government spending on people who pay the taxes in the first place,” rather than focusing more on people potentially aided by government programs.

Using as an example a program intended to help students get advanced degrees that he said has not lived up to expectations, Mulvaney said it — like others throughout government — was being eliminated, adding, “We can’t do that anymore.” He also touted a proposal to require a Social Security number for anyone receiving refundable child care credits, denying them to undocumented immigrants who may pay taxes if they have children who were born in this country and are U.S. citizens.

The Trump budget calls for spending more in several areas, namely adding $54 billion more to the Department of Defense and $2.6 billion for border security, $1.6 billion of which is for “new and replacement border wall … to impede the flow of illegal crossings.” Throughout Trump’s campaign, he repeatedly promised construction of a southern border wall he said would be paid for by Mexico.

Mulvaney also made clear that additional funding for school choice programs would be included in the budget, though neither those details nor those of other cuts intended to pay for those increases were released. Trump’s education secretary, school choice advocate Betsy DeVos of west Michigan, will be expected to pitch those proposals to Congress and overcome entrenched Democratic opposition.

He said the budget includes a fully paid-for plan to provide six weeks of paid family leave to new parents, though it was unclear how it would work. Budget documents released by the administration indicated a cost of only about $19 billion over 10 years and seemed to suggest that states would be allowed to establish paid parental leave programs they deemed “most appropriate.”

Trump’s budget, like any other proposed by a president in recent years, is more of a statement of his priorities and policy beliefs than a document expected to approved as-is by Congress. The legislative branch is certain to come up with far different proposals through the appropriations process of horse-trading and House-Senate compromise.

Already, many lawmakers of both parties are criticizing Trump’s plan to eliminate the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, for instance. And the budget’s reliance on the savings contemplated by the American Health Care Act passed early this month, including some $800 billion over 10 years in reductions to Medicaid spending, is uncertain at best.

The health care proposal has been criticized by some Republican politicians, including Gov. Rick Snyder, for cutting Medicaid funding. And while the U.S. House was finally able to pass it early this month, senators have already indicated that they expect to start largely from scratch in coming up with a proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

“The President’s budget is incredibly short-sighted and reckless," said U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township in a statement released tonight. "With his budget, the President is essentially saying our way of life in Michigan doesn’t matter. I will fight these devastating budget cuts in Congress.”

The Free Press previously reported on the Trump administration's proposals in what was known as its "skinny budget." That document outlined only some larger ticket items, such as reducing spending on heating assistance to low-income families and the elimination of the Community Development Block Grant program, which sends millions a year to Michigan communities and others across the country.

The documents provided Monday add to those other cuts, including the elimination of subsidized student loans and the creation of a single “income-driven student loan repayment plan” that would set monthly payments at 12.5% of discretionary income and forgive any balances for undergraduate borrowers after 15 years. Loan forgiveness for taking a public service job after 10 years of payments would be eliminated, letting the government recoup $27 billion over the next decade.

The budget also calls for reforming the food stamps program — otherwise known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP — to cut it by $191 billion over 10 years. It also reduces payments for Medicaid as proposed under the AHCA, though the budget documents indicated a savings of $610 billion over a decade and not the $880 billion estimated some months ago by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The CBO this week is scheduled to release new estimates as to the impact of the health care act as passed by the House this month, since changes were made to it before the vote. The CBO had estimated that some 14 million people could lose coverage under the initial Republican proposal by 2018.

According to the state Department of Health and Human Services, there were some 1.8 million Michiganders who received traditional Medicaid, which is medical care for low-income individuals, in April and another 675,000 people who were part of Healthy Michigan, the state’s Medicaid expansion program created under Obamacare. The proposed health care act would cut back on federal cost-sharing for Medicaid expansion programs and eventually limit payments under Medicaid.

While the proposed reforms to the food stamps program weren’t immediately known, they could have large impact in Michigan as well, with nearly 1.4 million people, including 558,223 children, receiving food assistance in March.

Also left unclear for now was whether the budget included rumored items such as closing the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 5 office in Chicago, which oversees Michigan, or deep cuts to a Drug-Free Communities program created in part by U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak, decades ago.

Contact Todd Spangler: 703-854-8947 or tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.

