Donald Trump won the presidency after running a xenophobic campaign filled with lies and bombast. He conducts himself in office no different. Yet every once in a while his administration proposes something that seems innocuous, even banal. That’s the case with his recently released plan to reorganize federal agencies that implement social policy.

Trump’s proposal is still in development, but its main features involve consolidating cabinet agencies and moving programs around in the name of streamlining and rationalizing the bureaucracy. One of the most headline-grabbing proposals is to combine the departments of Education and Labor. The plan’s other measures are similar. One initiative would shift a housing assistance program from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Another would relocate Community Development Block Grants, currently in HUD, to the Department of Commerce. And in what would perhaps be the biggest shift in funds, the food stamp program — officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, which the Agriculture Department has administered for decades — would be placed in a new “welfare” department that would include most programs for the poor.

Trump’s reorganization plan comes as congressional Republicans are pressing for massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The Trump administration conveniently claims — after its budget-busting tax legislation last year — that federal spending is out of control and must be brought in check. While the fiscal changes are not likely to pass due to Democratic resistance in the Senate, they highlight how Republicans are moving on multiple fronts in a cynical “starve the beast” strategy to squeeze as much money as possible out of social welfare programs. First, they slash taxes for the wealthy. Then they cry that the government is broke and must gut the welfare state.