10 things you need to know today: February 12, 2018

The White House is unveiling President Trump's budget, Pence says the U.S. is ready to talk with North Korea, and more

Mike Pence in South Korea
(Image credit: Carl Court/Getty Images)

1. White House to unveil budget, infrastructure proposals

The White House on Monday is releasing its 2019 budget proposal, in which President Trump renews calls for deep cuts to non-defense spending. The budget will call for "an aggressive set of spending reforms" to slash the federal deficit by $3 trillion over a decade, out of a shortfall currently estimated at $10 trillion. Trump also will seek a big boost in funding for the Pentagon to make sure the U.S. has a "ready, larger, and more lethal military." The White House also will unveil an infrastructure plan that proposes to leverage $200 billion in federal spending into $1.5 trillion worth of infrastructure projects, mostly by asking state and local governments to match the funds by as much as a 4-to-1 ratio. Both proposals face long odds in Congress.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.