02.10.20

Sanders Calls on Congress to Reject Trump’s Budget “Of, By, and For the 1 Percent”

WASHINGTON, February 10—In response to the release of the Trump Administration’s federal budget proposal, Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said:

“The Trump Budget for 2021 is a budget of, by, and for the 1 percent. It reflects profoundly unethical priorities and shows that the president is—and it gives me no great pleasure to say this—a liar. Just last week, President Trump told the American people in his State of the Union that he would ‘always protect your Medicare’ and ‘always protect your Social Security. Always.’

“Today, President Trump released a budget that cuts Medicare by half a trillion dollars. It cuts Social Security by $24 billion, including at least $12 billion in cuts to Social Security Disability benefits.

“Last week, President Trump’s Medicare and Medicaid chief wrote, ‘No, the Trump administration is not cutting Medicaid.’ But this budget shows the administration’s actual priorities: cutting Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars.

“Three days ago, Vice President Pence said higher deficits were necessary for boosting economic growth. Now Trump’s budget uses that same deficit—which he ran up to cut taxes for the wealthy and inflate a bloated, wasteful Pentagon budget—as an excuse to cut programs for the most vulnerable people in America.

“The old cliché is that a budget is a moral document. What kind of unbelievable moral framework allowed this White House to propose $182 billion in cuts to nutrition assistance from needy families, when nearly one in seven households with children are food insecure?  The Trump Budget, outrageously, even cuts billions from a program that provides nutrition assistance for pregnant women, new moms, and their babies.

“At a time when 46 million Americans hold a collective $1.6 trillion in student debt, the Trump Budget cuts $170 billion from college affordability programs. At a time when we are facing a crisis in housing affordability, the Trump Budget cuts Section 8 rental assistance by $79 billion. And at a time when we face an existential threat from climate change, the Trump Budget maintains billions in subsidies for fossil fuel corporations while slashing the EPA by over 26 percent next year.

“The Trump Budget does not see a problem in this country it cannot somehow make worse. Unless, of course, the problem is that the wealthiest families and largest corporations in this country haven’t gotten enough tax cuts, or that the military-industrial complex isn’t raking in profits that are obscene enough.

“The Trump Budget is an immoral document. It is a budget that takes our collective resources and hands them to the wealthiest families and largest corporations in this country and ignores the needs of the most vulnerable among us. It is proof that this president did not care about the ‘forgotten men and women’ he said he would help—it appears he is too busy enriching his billionaire friends.

“It also seems that the Trump Budget is so shameful that the Senate Budget Committee is refusing to even hold a hearing with Trump’s budget director about it, the second time in this committee’s history to do so. I can only assume that the Chairman had nothing nice to say about this disastrous Trump Budget, so he’s saying nothing at all.

“As Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, I will do what I can to ensure that Trump’s Budget is rejected by Congress. This is not what our priorities as a country are about.”