All indicators in President Trump’s budget proposal point to a dramatic draining of the federal bureaucracy not seen since after the Second World War. The Washington Post said it “would shake the federal government to its core if enacted” through “culling back numerous programs and expediting a historic contraction of the federal workforce.”

“This would be the first time the government has executed cuts of this magnitude — and all at once — since the drawdown following World War II,” The Post added.

It’s hard not to read bias into its coverage — it is The Washington Post, after all — but the next paragraph sounded more like a funeral dirge rather than the best news in decades:

Aides say that the president sees a new Washington emerging from the budget process, one that prioritizes the military and homeland security while slashing many other areas, including housing, foreign assistance, environmental programs, public broadcasting and research. Simply put, government would be smaller and less involved in regulating life in America, with private companies and states playing a much bigger role.

As we reported last week, the “drain the swamp” mantra was in full swing with the resignation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Mustafa Ali, who created the “Environmental Justice Office” that he headed for 24 years. What purpose he served, very few know. But Ali said he saw “the writing on the walls” and ducked out of his own volition before he was kicked to the curb anyway. Expect more of the same in the next few months. (Finally.)

There’s a lot to the new budget — too much to detail here — but here are some of the highlights, via WaPo:

The cuts Trump plans to propose this week are also expected to lead to layoffs among federal workers, changes that would be felt sharply in the Washington area... [reducing] employment in the region by 1.8 percent and personal income by 3.5 percent, and lower home prices by 1.9 percent.

The federal government is projected to spend $4.091 trillion next year, with roughly two-thirds of that going mostly toward Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, poverty assistance and interest payments on the government debt. This spending is expected to be left untouched in the budget proposal next week.

What Trump will propose changing is the rest of the budget, known as discretionary spending, which is authorized each year by Congress. Slightly more than half of this remaining money goes to the military, and the rest is spread across agencies that operate things like education, diplomacy, housing, transportation and law enforcement.

Among Trump’s expected proposals are an increase in military spending of $54 billion, more money to start building a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico, and the creation of new initiatives that expand access to charter schools and other educational programs.

To offset that new money, Trump will propose steep cuts across numerous other agencies... cutting the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s budget by $6 billion, or 14 percent... cutting the Environmental Protection Agency’s staff by about 20 percent and tightening the Commerce Department’s budget by about 18 percent...

Trump’s full budget will be released on Thursday.