It was fitting that Donald Trump was on the way to the Vatican when he came out with his US budget. Only a pope could hear a confession as egregious as President Trump’s fiscal plan. Pope Francis champions “social capitalism”, a philosophy that values each member of society. Mr Trump’s budget would decimate support for America’s poorest to fund a tax bonanza for its wealthiest. His budget achieves balance through numerological voodoo. Rarely has a fiscal document relied on such dark accounting.

It is a blueprint for epic betrayal. Mr Trump’s campaign was about helping the US middle classes. Now he wants to denude them of what cushion there is. In addition to the cuts for the needy, such as food stamps, the budget would wipe out higher education funding. Subsidies for those who cannot afford college loans would be eliminated. Tax incentives to encourage those on lower wages to stay in work — the highly effective earned income tax credit — would be heavily cut. Investment in research, job training, opioid treatment and scholarships would fall sharply. The only spending increases would come in the defence budget and for US-Mexico border security.

On top of that, Mr Trump’s budget commits the deadly sin of electoral suicide. The consolation is that he will find it hard to persuade his Republican colleagues to push most of it through.