President Donald Trump has proposed a budget for the next fiscal year that would slash entitlements and other domestic programmes in favour of higher spending on the military and immigration enforcement.

The budget plan shows the deficit would soar to more than US$7 trillion (S$9.3 trillion) over the next decade, and economists say it relies heavily on estimates that the US economy would grow by 3 per cent annually for the next six years, a rate many describe as unrealistic.

Mr Trump allocated US$686 billion to the Pentagon - a 10 per cent jump over the previous year. More money has also been given to Homeland Security to curb illegal immigration and US$18 billion set aside for building a border wall.

Any president's budget proposal is customarily treated as a dead-on-arrival wish list in Congress, which controls the purse strings.

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