Trump Calls on Cabinet to Cut Department Spending by 5 Percent

President Trump has urged his cabinet to draft proposals to cut their respective agency budgets by 5 percent, following earlier reports that the federal government ran up its largest annual deficit in six years, according to ABC News . Trump hinted at the possibility of a "special exemption" for a department or two, but said others may be able to slash more than 5 percent off their budgets. The president said the government could make significant progress toward lowering federal spending via modest cuts to each executive department. "Now that we have our military taken care of, we have our law enforcement taken care of, we can do things we weren't into in a position to do when I first came," he stated. However, the Treasury Department reported that the government ran up a $779 billion deficit this past fiscal year, a 17 percent gain from the $666 billion deficit the fiscal year prior.