Anytime the White House or Republicans in Congress propose to trim a government program, brace yourself for the incoming wave of reports about how crucial the program is, and how little it costs compared to the overall federal budget.

As the media tell it, any reduction either eliminates a badly needed government service or its savings are too small to worry about it.

The White House on Thursday released its "America First" budget blueprint and it calls for double-digit reductions in several government programs and departments, including the State Department, EPA, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

It also proposes ending funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Endowment for the Arts.

The budget would trim domestic spending in places President Trump thinks are inefficiently managed by the government.

To put it another way, the NEA would need to find another way to pay for jars of urine.

In an online report, CNN dismissed the cuts for no other reason than that the budgets for these agencies are "historically low."

The report added that "in many instances, those agencies are already working with fewer dollars than they used to."

This would be like refusing a discount at the store because everything's already on sale.

Don't let CNN do your shopping.

A story in Politico said Trump's budget would "hurt many of the voters who supported him," in part because it reduces funding for "job training."

Anyone who's ever been to a government "job training" center knows that it's essentially a place where you can pick up pamphlets and, if you're really lucky, get treated to a PowerPoint slide show.

There might be better ways for the government to lower unemployment, like helping create private jobs or investing in areas that actually produce something, such as roads or airports.

But former CBS anchor Dan Rather was inconsolable, predicting that "people will die" from the budget cuts. (Though there's an 85-year-old newsman who will apparently live forever).

An expert on determining the veracity of official government documents, Rather on Facebook denounced the proposal as "not a budget" but a "philosophy" that will "hurt in real ways."

For the media, every budget cut will either "hurt in real ways" or isn't worth the paperwork.

Noting that funding for public broadcasting, the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities combined makes up a very small portion of the federal government's budget, the Washington Post said that the result in savings would be "awfully close to nothing."

The Post noted that those programs make up .002 percent of the budget. In dollars, according to the Post's numbers, that's about $741 million.

That might be "awfully close to nothing" for the Post but if the goal is to make some cuts, you have to start somewhere.

Yes, federal budget cuts would have consequences. Next time the National Institute of Health wants to study why lesbians are overweight, it may have to do so with 2 million in tax dollars instead of $3 million, for example. (That's a real multi-year study that began in 2013.)

Only the media view every government social program as virtuous and indispensable.

They're not and Trump was elected in part because he promised to prove it.

Eddie Scarry is a media reporter for the Washington Examiner.