Mellisa Boteach: Trump's Budget Leaves Women and Girls Behind

Reflection on the News article
A news article under the title “Trump’s Budget leaves Women and Girls Behind” was published
in Ms. Magazine on the 13th Feb 2020. The author of this article Mellisa Boteach has criticized
the recent budget tabled by President Trump for its removal of many welfare schemes mainly
targeted at women, families, and LGBTQ (Boteach, 2020).
This article starts on a satirical note where the author points towards the statement made by the
president regarding the complete alleviation of the poverty from the USA. Further, the author
pinpoints the downsizing of the budget allocated for the welfare schemes targeted at females and
families. The author also takes a hedge when she describes the concept of maternity leaves with
pay as a tokenism to hide the real massive cut in the resources. The second part of the article
presents a synoptic quantification of budget allocations that were removed.
A brief reading of this article forced me to think about the concept of “equal opportunity for all
in any given economy” from a different perspective. According to the author, two-third of the
existing budget provisions have been removed and in the coming future, it will leave millions of
women and kids struggling for necessary help from the side of the government. Further, she
suspects red-tapes in the existing welfare schemes because of the additional paperwork. In the
concluding part, she states that the existing budget will leave millions of the working US women
far behind in gaining a respectful place in the existing economy. As far as I think, on a
theoretical level, it seems like a deliberate marginalization of a majority in a major economic
decision.
It is very important to think about this marginalization because the cuts in the budget are drastic
and massive. Previous governments created a support system for a marginalized segment of the