By ANDREW TAYLOR

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is offering a $4.8 trillion election year budget plan that recycles previously rejected cuts to domestic programs like food stamps and Medicaid to promise a balanced budget in 15 years — all while leaving Social Security and Medicare benefits untouched.

Trump’s fiscal 2021 plan, to be released Monday, promises the government’s deficit will crest above $1 trillion only for the current budget year before steadily decreasing to more manageable levels, relying on optimistic economic projections, lower interest costs, scaled-back overseas military operations and proposed cuts to agency budgets that run counter to two separate budget deals signed by Trump.

The budget “sets the course for a future of continued American dominance and prosperity,” Trump said in a message accompanying the document.

“There is optimism that was not here before 63 million Americans asked me to work for them and drain the swamp,” Trump said, according to a full copy of the budget obtained by The Associated Press. “For decades, Washington elites told us that Americans had no choice but to accept stagnation, decay, and decline. We proved them wrong. Our economy is strong once more.”

The plan had no chance even before Trump’s impeachment scorched Washington. Its cuts to food stamps, farm subsidies, Medicaid and student loans couldn’t pass when Republicans controlled Congress, much less now with liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., setting the agenda.

Pelosi said Sunday night that “once again the president is showing just how little he values the good health, financial security and well-being of hard-working American families.”

Trump’s budget follows a familiar formula that exempts seniors from cuts to Medicare and Social Security while targeting benefit safety net programs for the poor, domestic programs like clean energy and student loan subsidies. It again proposes to dramatically slash funding for overseas military operations to save $567 billion over 10 years but adds $1.5 trillion over the same time frame to make his 2017 tax cuts permanent law.

Trump’s budget would also shred last year’s hard-won budget deal between the White House and Pelosi by imposing an immediate 5% cut to non-defense agency budgets passed by Congress. Slashing cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and taking $700 billion out of Medicaid over a decade are also nonstarters on Capitol Hill, but both the White House and Democrats are hopeful of progress this spring on prescription drug prices.

The Trump budget is a blueprint written under Washington rules as if he could enact it without congressional approval. It relies on rosy economic projections of 2.8% economic growth this year and 3% over the long term — in addition to fanciful claims of future cuts to domestic programs — to show that it is possible to bend the deficit curve in the right direction. The economy grew by 2.1% last year.

That sleight of hand enables Trump to promise to whittle down a $1.08 trillion budget deficit for the ongoing budget year and a $966 billion deficit gap in the 2021 fiscal year starting Oct. 1 to $261 billion in 2030, according to summary tables obtained by The Associated Press. Balance would come in 15 years.

The reality is that no one — Trump, the Democratic-controlled House or the GOP-held Senate — has any interest in tackling a chronic budget gap that forces the government to borrow 22 cents of every dollar it spends. The White House plan proposes $4.4 trillion in spending cuts over the coming decade.

Trump’s reelection campaign, meanwhile, is focused on the economy and the historically low jobless rate while ignoring the government’s budget.

Ever since his days as a presidential candidate, Trump has been promising a health care plan. The budget repeats that promise but offers few details. It lays out a “health reform vision” that calls for better care at lower cost and protecting people with preexisting medical conditions. The budget also proposes tens of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts to hospitals and a Medicaid work requirement that would winnow the rolls.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats controlling the House have seen their number of deficit-conscious “Blue Dogs” shrink while the roster of lawmakers favoring costly “Medicare for All” and “Green New Deal” proposals has swelled. Tea party Republicans have largely abandoned the cause that defined, at least in part, their successful takeover of the House a decade ago.

Trump has also signed two broader budget deals worked out by Democrats and Republicans to get rid of spending cuts left over from a failed 2011 budget accord. The result has been eye-popping spending levels for defense — to about $750 billion this year — and significant gains for domestic programs favored by Democrats. T rump’s new budget essentially freezes defense at current levels while proposing a 3% military pay hike.

The White House hasn’t done much to draw attention to this year’s budget release, though Trump has revealed initiatives of interest to key 2020 battleground states, such as an increase to $250 million to restore Florida’s Everglades and a move to finally abandon a multibillion-dollar, never-used nuclear waste dump that’s political poison in Nevada. The White House also leaked word of a $25 billion proposal for “Revitalizing Rural America” with grants for broadband Internet access and other traditional infrastructure projects such as roads and bridges.

The Trump budget also promises a $3 billion increase — to $25 billion — for NASA in hopes of returning astronauts to the moon and on to Mars. It touts a beefed-up, 10-year, $1 trillion infrastructure proposal, but $800 billion of that comes through existing surface transportation programs. It contains a modest parental leave plan championed by first daughter Ivanka Trump and includes $135 billion in savings over the coming decade as part of an unspecified set-aside to tackle the high cost of prescription drugs this year.

Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall would receive a $2 billion appropriation, more than provided by Congress but less than the $8 billion requested last year. Trump has enough wall money on hand to build 1000 miles (1,600 kilometers) of wall, a senior administration official said, most of it obtained by exploiting his budget transfer powers. The official requested anonymity to discuss the budget before it is made public.

The reduced wall request could ease the way for action on appropriations bills in the GOP-held Senate, where a fight over last year’s far larger wall request stalled work on the annual spending bills for months.

Trump has proposed modest adjustments to eligibility for Social Security disability benefits, and he’s proposed cuts to Medicare providers such as hospitals, but the real cost driver of Medicare and Social Security is the ongoing retirement surge of the baby boom generation and health care costs that continue to outpace inflation.

With Medicare and Social Security largely off the table, Trump has instead focused on Medicaid, which provides care to more than 70 million poor and disabled people. President Barack Obama successfully expanded Medicaid when passing the Affordable Care Act a decade ago, but Trump has endorsed GOP plans — they failed spectacularly in the Senate two years ago — to dramatically curb the program.

Trump’s latest Medicaid proposal, the administration official said, would allow states that want more flexibility in Medicaid to accept their federal share as a lump sum; for states staying in traditional Medicaid, a 3% cap on cost growth would apply. Trump would also revive a plan, rejected by lawmakers in the past, to cut food stamp costs by providing much of the benefit as food shipments instead of cash.

Other cuts, outlined in an annual “Major Savings and Reforms” volume that’s ignored every year, include eliminating heating subsidies for the poor and $405 million worth of grants to boost community service work by senior citizens, along with plans to dramatically slash legal aid to the poor, the National Endowment for the Arts, and subsidies to states such as California saddled with high costs for jailing criminal immigrants.

By LISA MASCARO and ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Closing arguments in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial unfolded Monday more for history than to sway votes, one final chance to influence public opinion and set the record ahead of his expected acquittal in the Republican-led Senate.

The House Democratic prosecutors drew on history, the Founding Fathers and common sense to urge senators — and Americans — to see that Trump’s actions are not isolated but part of a pattern of behavior that, left unchecked, will allow him to “cheat”′ in the 2020 election.

The president’s defense countered the “fast-track” impeachment case against Trump was flawed and rushed, nothing short of an effort to undo the 2016 election and to try to shape the next one.

All that’s left, as the Senate prepares to acquit Trump on charges that he abused power and obstructed Congress is for Americans to decide now, and in the November election, as the third presidential impeachment trial in the nation’s history begins to close.

“Leave it to the voters to choose,” said White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

Senators acknowledge the House Democratic managers have essentially proven their case, that Trump abused power and obstructed Congress, by leveraging U.S. military aid to push Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden to thwart the 2020 election.

But key Republicans have decided the president’s actions toward Ukraine do not rise to the level of impeachable offense that warrant the dramatic political upheaval of conviction and removal from office. His acquittal in Wednesday’s vote is all but assured.

Democrats argue “right matters,” while Trump’s GOP allies contend it is time to end the partisan proceeding.

“What message does that send? “ asked Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., a House prosecutor, who warned that for Trump, the ”past is prologue.” He implored senators to realize that without a vote to convict, the Senate will “allow the president’s misconduct to stand.”

House managers opened with a plea from Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., a freshman, who told the chamber: “We cannot and should not leave our common sense at the door.”

The former Army Ranger invoked the founding fathers and even Republican Barry Goldwater from the Nixon-era impeachment proceedings to intone: “In America, no one is above the law, even those elected president of the United States. I would say — especially those elected president of the United States.”

Rep. Val Demings, a former police chief, argued that the president is not behaving like someone who is innocent. She warned he will try to “cheat” again ahead of 2020.

“Innocent people don’t try to hide every document and witness, especially those that would clear them,” she told the senators. “That’s what guilty people do.”

Before Trump’s celebrity defense mounted their closing argument, the president himself already registered his views on Twitter where he decried the whole thing, as he often does, as a “hoax.”

Kenneth Starr, the former prosecutor ahead of Bill Clinton’s impeachment, complained about the inadequacy of the House prosecutors’ case.

The Senate proceedings are set against a sweeping political backstop, as voters in Iowa on Monday are choosing presidential Democratic primary candidates in early voting and Trump is poised Tuesday to deliver his State of the Union address in his own victory lap before Congress.

The trial unfolded over nearly two weeks and reached a decisive moment last Friday when senators voted against calling witnesses and documents. Key Republicans said they had heard enough. It becomes the first impeachment trial in the nation’s more than 200-year history without any witnesses.

Even new revelations from John Bolton, the former national security adviser at the White House, whose forthcoming book discloses his firsthand account of Trump ordering the investigations, did not impress upon senators the need for more testimony.

Bolton has said he would appear, if he received a subpoena, but GOP senators said the House should have issued the summons and the Senate did not want to prolong the proceedings.

Prosecutors relied on a 28,000-page report compiled over three months of proceedings in the Democratic-controlled House, including the public and private testimony from 17 witnesses, many current and former ambassadors and national security officials with close proximity to the Ukraine dealings.

By KEN MORITSUGU

BEIJING (AP) — The U.S. advised against all travel to China as the number of cases of a worrying new virus spiked more than tenfold in a week, including the highest death toll in a 24-hour period reported Friday.

The virus has infected almost 10,000 people globally in just two months, a worrying sign of its spread that prompted the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a global emergency.

The State Department’s travel advisory told Americans in China to consider departing using commercial means, and requested that all non-essential U.S. government personnel defer travel in light of the virus.

China as of Friday morning counted 9,692 confirmed cases with a death toll of 213, including 43 new fatalities. The vast majority of the cases have been in Hubei province and its provincial capital, Wuhan, where the first illnesses were detected in December. No deaths have been reported outside China.

The National Health Commission reported 171 cases have been “cured and discharged from hospital.” WHO has said most people who got the illness had milder cases, though 20% experienced severe symptoms. Symptoms of the new coronavirus include fever and cough and in severe cases, shortness of breath and pneumonia.

China was arranging special flights to help Wuhan residents return home from holidays abroad. Some waiting for a flight leaving Bangkok said they wanted to return to take care of their loved ones.

China’s foreign ministry gave few details on the flights, but said people from Hubei and especially Wuhan would be sent directly back as soon as possible in light of the “practical difficulties” they were encountering.

China has placed more than 50 million people in the region under virtual quarantine, while foreign countries, companies and airlines have cut back severely on travel to China and quarantined those who recently passed through Wuhan. Infected people don’t show symptoms immediately and may be able to pass on the virus before they appear sick.

Since China informed WHO about the new virus in late December, at least 20 countries have reported cases, as scientists race to understand how exactly the virus is spreading and how severe it is.

Experts say there is significant evidence the virus is spreading among people in China and WHO noted with its emergency declaration Thursday it was especially concerned that some cases abroad also involved human-to-human transmission. It defines an international emergency as an “extraordinary event” that constitutes a risk to other countries and requires a coordinated international response.

“The main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China but because of what is happening in other countries,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva. “Our greatest concern is the potential for this virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems which are ill-prepared to deal with it.

“This declaration is not a vote of non-confidence in China,” he said. “On the contrary, WHO continues to have the confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak.”

A declaration of a global emergency typically brings greater money and resources, but may also prompt nervous governments to restrict travel and trade to affected countries. The announcement also imposes more disease reporting requirements on countries.

On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it was authorizing the departure of family members and all non-emergency U.S. government employees from Beijing and the consulates in the cities of Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenyang. Staff from the Wuhan consulate departed earlier this week.

The decision was made “out of an abundance of caution related to logistical disruptions stemming from restricted transportation and availability of appropriate health care related to the novel coronavirus,” the embassy said.

The level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory is the highest grade of warning.

Mike Wester, a businessman in Beijing who has lived in China for 19 years, said he has no plans to leave.

“I feel safer self-quarantining myself here at home than I do risking travel,” said Wester.

He pointed to potential risks from crowds at airports and being required to remove a mask for passport and security checks.

Speaking by Skype from Utah, Kelly Flanagan, 36, a school counselor in China since 2011, said she is planning to stay out of China as she watches the virus spread.

“This is probably going to be awhile,” said Flanagan, who said her Type 1 diabetes added to her health concerns. From the U.S. she is working remotely with her students to help them pass English proficiency exams.

Japan and Germany also advised against non-essential travel and Britain did as well, except for Hong Kong and Macao. Popular holiday and shopping destination Singapore barred Chinese from traveling there, becoming the first Southeast Asian nation to do so.

Tedros said WHO was not recommending limiting travel or trade to China, where transport links have shut down in places and businesses including Starbucks and McDonald’s temporarily closing hundreds of shops.

“There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade,” he said. He added that Chinese President Xi Jinping had committed to help stop the spread of the virus beyond its borders.

China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said Thursday evening in New York that “we are still at a very critical stage in fighting the coronavirus” but stressed that the epidemic is still mainly confined to China and urged the international community against any overreaction.

He said China appreciated “the friendly gesture made by the international community” in providing medical equipment, and “what are needed urgently,” especially in Hubei province, are masks and other protective medical supplies including glasses.

Although scientists expect to see limited transmission of the virus between people with close contact, like within families, the instances of spread to people who may have had less exposure to the virus is worrying.

In Japan, a tour guide and bus driver became infected after escorting two tour groups from Wuhan. In Germany, five employees of German auto parts supplier Webasto became ill after a Chinese colleague visited. The woman had shown no symptoms of the virus until her flight back to China.

“That’s the kind of transmission chain that we don’t want to see,” said Marion Koopmans, an infectious diseases specialist at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands and a member of WHO’s emergency committee.

On Friday, Thailand said a taxi driver became its first case of person-to-person spread. The Southeast Asian country, a popular travel destination for Chinese, has counted 19 cases in all.

Russia, Italy and England confirmed two cases each, the first cases in those countries. At least 20 countries beyond China have confirmed cases.

The new virus has now infected more people globally than were sickened during the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, a cousin of the new virus. Both are from the coronavirus family, which also includes those that can cause the common cold.

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Associated Press journalists Joe McDonald and Sam McNeil in Beijing, Maria Cheng in London, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Edith Lederer at the United Nations, Elaine Ganley in Paris, Frank Jordans in Berlin and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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This story corrects the number of cases in China that have been cured and discharged to 171, not 596.