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The Big Changes Proposed in President Trump's 2018 Budget Congress must decide how to implement the administration's fiscal vision for the country.

By Nina Zipkin

Michael Reynolds-Pool | Getty Images

The Trump administration introduced a budget proposal today that would significantly slash the budgets of several federal agencies while increasing spending on defense, security and veterans.

The proposal would cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent, the State Department by 29 percent and the Department of Labor by 21 percent. The Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security would see an increase in funding under the budget, with Defense getting a 10 percent bump.

The budget proposal, released by the Office of Management and Budget and titled "America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again," will likely not be applied to the federal budget as is. It is up to the members of Congress to vote on and allocate the resources in the federal budget.

Related: Here Is What Small Business Needs From the Trump Administration

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told The Huffington Post: "We wrote it using the president's own words. We went through his speeches. … We wanted to know what his policies were and we turned those policies into numbers."

Programs such as the National Endowment for the Arts and Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be eliminated entirely, as would federal-state partnerships that aim to stimulate job and economic growth across the country, such as the the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Delta Regional Authority and the Northern Border Regional Commission.

Read on for changes that the proposal could bring to the SBA and Departments of Labor and Commerce.

Related: How to Trump-Proof Your Small Business

Small Business Association

  • The budget proposal would allocate $826.5 million for SBA in 2018, which would be a $43.2 million -- 5 percent -- decrease from 2017.
  • More than $1 billion would be set aside for "disaster relief lending" and $28 million would go toward "microloan financing."
  • The proposal would eliminate PRIME technical assistance grants, Regional Innovation Clusters and Growth Accelerators, as well as any program "where the private sector provides effective mechanisms to foster local business development and investment."

Department of Labor

  • The budget would allocate $9.6 billion for the Department of Labor, down $2.5 billion from 2017.
  • The document says that it would look to change Job Corps, a free program that offers education and job training for people ages 16 to 24 around the country "by closing centers that do a poor job educating and preparing students for jobs."
  • The training grant program from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would also be eliminated.

Department of Commerce

  • The budget would allocate $7.8 billion for the Department of Commerce, a $1.5 billion, or 16 percent decrease, from 2017.
  • It would eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency and the Economic Development Administration, the latter of which works to "establish a foundation for sustainable job growth and the building of durable regional economies throughout the United States."
  • The proposal would cease federal spending on the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program, which describes itself as a "public-private partnership with Centers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico dedicated to serving small- and medium-sized manufacturers."
Nina Zipkin

Entrepreneur Staff

Staff Writer. Covers leadership, media, technology and culture.

Nina Zipkin is a staff writer at Entrepreneur.com. She frequently covers leadership, media, tech, startups, culture and workplace trends.

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