Trump plans to eliminate 25 violence against women grant programs as way to cut spending

Donald Trump's staff has big plans to cut government spending, the most startling of which is a proposal to eliminate the Department of Justice's violence against women grant programs. 

According to the Hill, Trump's budget blueprint includes cuts to the Departments of Commerce, Energy and Transportation, while other programs like the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be nixed entirely. 

All together, these cuts would save the U.S. federal government $10.5 trillion over 10 years, but the discount is not without its costs to the American people.

The Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women oversees a total of 25 grant programs, which distribute funds to organizations committed to ending sexual assault, domestic abuse and dating violence. 

Most recently, the office launched a "Safer Families, Safer Communities" site to enforce the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in June that states people convicted of domestic violence can't own firearms. In October, the office awarded $9.85 million in funds to investigate gender bias in policing, and in September, distributed $25 million to addressing campus sexual assault. 

But the Trump team would like to see the Department of Justice's efforts to tackle some of the most serious issues affecting half of the United States population terminated — all in the name of saving government dollars.

Russ Vought and John Gray, members of the Trump transition team who both previously worked for Vice President-elect Mike Pence, are the architects behind the spending plan. 

The pair is working on a fully fleshed out, 175- to 200-page "skinny budget" proposal to release some time within Trump's first 45 days in office. Though Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Trump's pick for the head of the Office of Management and Budget, hasn't sounded off on what he thinks of the dramatic cuts, he's been known to vote for more conservative budget plans for his state of South Carolina. 

"Mulvaney didn't take this [Office of Management and Budget] position to just mind the store," an unnamed source told the Hill. 

"He wants to make significant, fundamental changes to the structure of the president's budget, and I expect him to do that with Vought and Gray putting the meat on the bones."