5 agencies the Trump budget proposal would eliminate

President Donald Trump released his first budget proposal on Thursday, including $54 billion in cuts to federal agencies. The proposal would eliminate several federal agencies outright. Here's a look at five of those agencies and what they do in Oklahoma.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting

The 50-year-old federally funded nonprofit provides funding for public media, including two public television networks and five public radio networks in Oklahoma. In 2014, the most recent year for which data was available, the nonprofit gave about $2.9 million in grants to organizations in Oklahoma.

In a statement released Wednesday, CPB President Patricia Harrison called public media "one of America's best investments."

“There is no viable substitute for federal funding that ensures Americans have universal access to public media’s educational and informational programming and services," Harrison said. "The elimination of federal funding to CPB would initially devastate and ultimately destroy public media’s role in early childhood education, public safety, connecting citizens to our history, and promoting civil discussions — for Americans in both rural and urban communities.

Corporation for National and Community Service

The federal agency operates AmeriCorps, SeniorCorps, the Social Innovation Fund and other initiatives.

In Oklahoma, about 1,000 AmeriCorps participants work at 295 locations across the state, according to figures from the Corporation for National and Community Service. Another 6,433 SeniorCorps participants act as foster grandparents, senior companions and volunteers at 1,129 sites across the state.

Melinda Points, executive director of Oklahoma AmeriCorps, a nonprofit organization that manages AmeriCorps programs in the state, told The Oklahoman last month that most of the agency's programs in Oklahoma are education-related. For example, 370 workers from AmeriCorps' Teach for America program serve as teachers in the Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Lawton, El Reno and Muskogee school districts.

Many of the agency's volunteers work in rural areas where no other agencies are in place, Points said.

“If AmeriCorps goes away, there's nobody to step in," she said.

In an interview last month with The Oklahoman, Romina Boccia, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, acknowledged that the agency does important work, but said those services are better handled at the state and local level. The conservative think tank has called repeatedly for the agency to be eliminated.

"We don't really need the federal government involved in this," she said. "This is something that private contributors can do on their own.”

National Endowment for the Arts

Since 1998, the federal agency has awarded about $16 million in grants to Oklahoma agencies and institutions. The large majority of that funding — about $12.6 million — went to the Oklahoma Arts Council.

Amber Sharples, executive director of the Oklahoma Arts Council, told The Oklahoman last month that her agency uses those grants to support arts initiatives in communities across Oklahoma, including rural parts of the state, where it may not exist otherwise. The agency has given grants to support community theaters in Hobart and Guymon, tribal powwows in Talihina and Tonkawa and music festivals in Skiatook and Grove.

The agency also gives grants to individual institutions across the country, including the Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma. In 2007, the theater used a $55,000 grant to stage a production of the musical "Oklahoma!" starring Elk City native Kelli O'Hara in role of Laurey.

The agency has been a frequent target of budget hawks. In a policy paper released last year, the Heritage Foundation called for the agency to be eliminated.

"Taxpayer assistance of the arts is neither necessary nor prudent," the authors wrote. "Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for plays, paintings, pageants, and scholarly journals, regardless of the works' attraction or merit."

National Endowment for the Humanities

A sister agency to the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities gives grants to support research programs, historical preservation projects and other work. Since 1998, the agency has given about $14.1 million in grants to Oklahoma recipients, including about $8.7 million in state partnership grants awarded to the Oklahoma Humanities Council.

Ann Thompson, executive director of the Oklahoma Humanities Council, told The Oklahoman last month that the council uses that money to support research programs, historical preservation projects and humanities programming around the state, including Let's Talk About It, Oklahoma, a reading and discussion program that takes place in cities and towns across the state.

"From our point of view, it's a great investment that our federal government has made in this state," Thompson said.

Much like its sister agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities has been a target of small-government advocates. In a policy paper released last year, the government watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste called the two agencies "examples of dabbling in fields that should be entirely free from government intervention."

"Actors, artists, and academics are no more deserving of subsidies than their counterparts in other fields; the federal government should refrain from funding all of them," the authors wrote. "Anything else is anathema to taxpayers."

Community Development Block Grant Program

Funded through the U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development, the grant program funds a number of initiatives for low-income Americans. Meals On Wheels, a nonprofit program provides meals and other services to elderly residents, receives a portion of its funding from the grant program.

In 2016, the organization provided nearly 3 million meals to about 29,000 Oklahoma residents, including 500,000 veterans, the organization reported. Of those residents served, 49 percent lived in rural areas and 28 percent lived in poverty.

During the 2015-2016 fiscal year, 29,790 Oklahoma City residents benefited from Community Development Block Grant Program grants managed by the city of Oklahoma City, according to city records.

On Thursday, Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett called on Congress to save the program.

Mayors need Congress to save CDBG. pic.twitter.com/jNwn6Zfkd4

— Mick Cornett (@MickCornett) March 16, 2017