Sanders Launches National Budget Town Hall Meeting Series

BURLINGTON, Vt., April 13 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he’s going outside the Capitol to hear from working-class Americans about how severe Republican budget cuts would affect their families, parents and health care.

Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said he wants to provide a forum outside the rigid structure of Congress as part of his efforts to speak directly with Americans about the issues that matter to them.

“The Republican budget plan is a massive transfer of wealth from people with very little to people who already have everything,” Sanders said. “It would throw 27 million Americans off of health insurance over the next 10 years, and make drastic cuts in nutrition, health care, education, child care and other lifesaving programs that help millions of Americans.  Meanwhile, the Republican budget would slash taxes for millionaires and billionaires by repealing the estate tax, and increase taxes on working families and the middle class.  Not only is the Republican budget immoral, it is bad economic policy.”

Sanders, who last month led the floor debate against the Senate Republican budget proposal, said his meetings are aimed at giving a voice to regular people and shining a light on the impact that drastic budget cuts would have if enacted by Congress later this year.

The current town hall schedule:

• April 22 at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. beginning at 6:30 pm.
• May 5 at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Hall, 4371 Parliament Place in Lanham, Md. at 6:30 pm.
• May 11 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, Va. at 6:30 pm. Additional hearings will be held later this spring.

The Republican proposal for the federal fiscal year 2016 budget would repeal the Affordable Care Act, gut Medicaid by $400 billion, increase prescription drug costs, cut $90 billion in Pell Grant funding, eliminate 110,000 spots from Head Start and deny affordable housing opportunities to nearly half a million Americans in any given year.

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