Opposition Builds Against Harmful House GOP Budget
As the House of Representatives prepares to vote on House Republicans’ ill-conceived, unreasonable, and unworkable budget today, dozens of organizations have expressed their strong opposition to a budget that imposes the burden of deficit reduction on the most vulnerable, low-income American households and disinvests in our nation’s future, our economy, and our long-term competitiveness. Here’s a roundup of what stakeholders have to say about the harmful Republican budget:
House Republican Budget Harms the Most Vulnerable Americans
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights: “We urge you and your colleagues to reject [the Fiscal Year 2016 budget proposal offered by Rep. Tom Price] and instead pass a resolution that strikes a fair and reasonable balance between revenue increases and spending cuts, rather than one that attempts to balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable Americans and hides the true costs of proposed cuts… The budget purports to balance the budget in nine years and proposes $5 trillion in cuts that are extreme, inequitable, and lacking in transparency... The budget would slash or eliminate services that are critical to communities represented by our member organizations, including vulnerable groups like young children, the elderly, low-income families, individuals with disabilities, students, the unemployed, and the uninsured. As the economy begins to recover and many hardworking families work to regain their footing, instead of providing a blueprint for shared economic growth and responsibility, the Price budget would unfortunately knock many Americans back down again by gutting Medicare, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), with dramatic, unspecified cuts in education, veterans’ pensions, and other necessities to come as well.” [Letter, 3/19/15]
National Women’s Law Center: “While the introduction to [Chairman Price’s] plan observes that “[t]he economy is not working for many Americans,” and “[a] lot of people are struggling to keep up or are being left behind altogether,” he has a funny way of showing his concern for their plight; like the budget plans put forward in recent years by Price’s predecessor, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Price plan balances the budget on the backs of vulnerable women and their families.” [Press Release, 3/18/15]
National Hispanic Leadership Agenda: “The House [Republican] Budget Resolution exacerbates the trend in recent years of achieving deficit reduction through shortchanging the investments our economy needs in order to grow… This is an unfair budget that places the burden of deficit reduction on those struggling to make ends meet…” [Letter, 3/24/15]
Coalition on Human Needs: “The coalition, dubbed Strengthening America’s Values and Economy (SAVE) for All, is calling on Congress to approve a budget that protects low-income and vulnerable people, invests in broadly shared prosperity and jobs, increases revenues from fair sources, and seeks responsible savings by targeting waste in the Pentagon and elsewhere. SAVE for All asks Congress to stop the sequestration cuts which in the past have denied Head Start, rental housing vouchers, and meals to homebound seniors to hundreds of thousands of people. The [Republican] Budget Committee proposals would cut domestic programs even more deeply than sequestration would require.” [Letter, 3/24/15]
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees: “This budget plan would impose considerable hardships on Americans who can least afford it in order to slash taxes for the wealthy and corporations, and to boost Pentagon spending… [T]he cuts are once again too deep to sustain essential programs serving working families and poor and vulnerable Americans with $.4 trillion over 10 years backed from the budget and with 69% of the cuts from low-income programs. It once again sets woefully inadequate spending levels for critical public services and slashes over three-quarters of a trillion dollars from post-sequester, non-defense discretionary spending… Safety-net programs that millions of children, seniors, and the disabled rely on are once again a target. The Price budget would end Medicare as we know it and turn the guarantee of health benefits for seniors into a voucher, doubling out-of-pocket costs for beneficiates… The budget also relies on the gimmicks of dynamic storing and sham accounting. The Price budget would hurt families, kill job growth and send the economy back into a tailspin.” [Letter, 3/23/15]
Economic Policy Institute: “The House Budget Committee passed, along party lines, a fiscal year 2016 budget resolution proposed by Chairman Tom Price that would continue damaging austerity for yet another year. This draconian budget proposes to eliminate the budget deficit by 2025 without raising taxes. To achieve this goal, the budget would punish low- and middle-income people by reducing economic growth and jobs over the next 2 fiscal years, eroding the effectiveness of safety net programs, taking away health insurance coverage provided by the Affordable Care Act, and reducing public investments… It seems rather odd that the GOP would completely ignore the current state of the economy in designing their FY2016 budget… Fiscal austerity has been best described as a dangerous idea. The GOP seems bent on turning a dangerous idea into a health hazard.” [Letter, 3/19/15]
Citizens for Tax Justice: “The House leadership’s budget (A Balanced Budget for a Strong America) once again demonstrates some of our lawmakers value rhetoric over substance. The blueprint is astonishingly vague on vital tax reform questions. The plan calls for reducing tax rates and eliminating special interest loopholes but is silent on how to achieve the tax reform that both parties agree is vital… Most worrisome, the plan would allow valuable temporary expansions of two tax credits for working families to expire. Reducing the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, as the plan appears to do, would push low-income working families further into poverty.” [Press Release, 3/17/15]
NETWORK: “The Fiscal Year 2016 GOP Budget, A Balanced Budget for a Stronger America, starts off with soft words that mask harsh policies… [Republicans] claim that they need to cut programs in order to grow the economy by giving further tax breaks to the wealthy. But, we have 30 years of experience that their trickle-down economics has only served to shift wealth to the top.” [Response, March 2015]
House Republican Budget Disinvests in Education and Research
Committee for Education Funding (CEF): “This [Republican] budget will cause irreparable harm to children, students, schools, libraries, museums and colleges and will undermine job creation, economic growth and global competitiveness by locking in the FY 2016 sequester level cap for nondefense discretionary (NDD) spending… Freezing the maximum Pell grant for ten years… Increasing student indebtedness by $62 billion by eliminating the in-school interest subsidy for need-based student loans, restricting income-based repayment, and eliminating public service loan forgiveness... These unprecedented and senseless cuts will move our nation backwards in efforts to close achievement gaps, improve overall student success, and increase high school graduation, college access and college completion rates; make postsecondary education more expensive for low- and middle-income families; and, stifle innovation by cuts to scientific research.” [Letter, 3/24/15]
Student Aid Alliance: “It would be difficult to overstate the significant negative impact this budget resolution would have on American college students. At a time when the return on investment of a college education has never been greater; when global competition has never been more intense; and when our economy is more dependent than ever on an educated and innovative workforce, this budget represents a threat to our nation’s future economic competitiveness… Overall, this budget would cut over $150 billion in student aid. If enacted, this approach will threaten America’s current competitive advantage in the global economy while countries such as China and India are rapidly expanding their investments in higher education.” [Letter, 3/19/15]
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “With widespread and growing bipartisan consensus that the country should do more for struggling families of modest income, House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price offered a budget plan today that does the opposite. Largely a retread of budgets that House Republicans adopted in recent years, it calls for $5 trillion in budget cuts, mostly through steep reductions in programs for low- and moderate-income Americans, as well as deep cuts in investments that strengthen productivity and future economic growth such as education, training, and basic research.” [Statement, 3/18/15]
National Education Association: “The [Republican] austerity budget could not have come at a worse time for working families and students. More than 50 percent of the nation’s public school students now qualify to receive free and reduced-priced meals. Fifteen million children in the United States — 20 percent of all children — live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level… The wash, rinse, and repeat governing style ushered by Republican leaders on Capitol Hill has to end. If enacted, the Republican budget will endanger economic growth and will rob working- and middle-class families of economic opportunities now and in the future… [I]t aims to balance the budget on the backs of families and students by slashing investments in education, job training, health care, and nutrition assistance for families and children most in need.” [Press Release, 3/17/15]
House Republican Budget Slashes Nutrition Assistance Programs
Food Marketing Institute (FMI): “Under the [SNAP] block grant scenario, states will be allowed to implement their own verification process. A consistent federal standard for SNAP over the past 15 years has served to improve administrative efficiencies, decrease human error and improve the ability to identify and prevent fraud andwe encourage Congress to continue with this approach.” [Letter, 3/24/15]
House Republican Budget Removes Patient Protections,
Raises Health Care Costs
Federation of American Hospitals: “The House Budget Committee’s FY2016 Budget proposal released today raises major concerns for patients and the hospitals who serve them…The Committee’s proposal adds insult to injury by further repealing the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) coverage expansions for the uninsured while retaining more than $320 billion in ACA hospital Medicare cuts. Further, the budget proposal poses challenges for vulnerable Americans and those providers and clinicians who care for them by assuming revisions in the Medicaid program which would result in significant cuts in payment and services. The safety net simply cannot sustain cuts of the magnitude proposed in this budget. Enough is enough.” [Letter, 3/17/15]
House Republican Budget Undermines Seniors’ Ability to Retire
with Peace of Mind and Dignity
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare: “On behalf of the millions of members and supporters of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, I urge you to oppose H. Con. Res. 27, the House Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Resolution, currently being considered by the House of Representatives. This budget, introduced by House Committee on the Budget Chairman Tom Price, would be devastating to today's seniors and future retirees, people with disabilities, spouses, survivors and children due to the proposed changes it makes to Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and Supplemental Security Income.” [Letter, 3/24/15]
Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Social Security Task Force: “The House of Representatives is considering pending legislation that would put at risk the economic well-being of the 11 million current SSDI beneficiaries as well as the 165 million Americans who pay in to Social Security today and may need SSDI in the future. We are deeply dismayed that the House would consider including these harmful provisions in its Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Resolution. These proposals run directly counter to the voices and views expressed by CCD members and people with disabilities, and put at risk modest but vital SSDI benefits which are a lifeline for millions of Americans.” [Letter, 3/24/15]
Medicare Rights Center: “The budgets released this week by House and Senate Republicans would undermine the Medicare program, now in its 50th year. While both budgets are lacking in critical details, the frameworks presented all but guarantee significant harm to older adults, people with disabilities, and their families.” [Letter, 3/19/15]
Alliance for Retired Americans: “The budget plan put forward by House Republicans today is a frontal assault on the needs of seniors, persons with disabilities and working Americans.” [Press Release, 3/17/15]
Center for Medicare Advocacy: “There are many common-sense ways to strengthen the Medicare program and make it work better for those it serves,’ according to Judith Stein, Executive Director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. ‘The proposals in this budget, however, ignore those options. Instead, the budget advances a philosophy rather than real deficit reduction plans. Once again, the Republican budget seeks to further privatize Medicare and shift additional costs to beneficiaries… ‘This is a budget proposal we cannot afford to support,’ said Stein.” [Website, March 2015]
House Republican Budget Harms the Environment
League of Conservation Voters: “LCV urges you to vote NO on the House (Price) and Senate (Enzi) fiscal year 2016 budget resolutions which irresponsibly slash investments that grow our economy and benefit all Americans—like clean air, clean water, and open spaces—at the expense of rewarding special interests like Big Oil. These budgets make drastic cuts to non-military investments that would harm our economy and jeopardize the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency, Interior Department, Energy Department and other agencies to fulfill their mission to protect our health, safeguard our natural resources, and grow clean energy. These cuts ignore the harm the sequester poses to our economy and to our environment.” [Letter, 3/24/15]
Natural Resources Defense Council and other National and Regional Environmental Organizations: “On behalf of our millions of members and supporters across the country, we urge you to oppose the damaging House and Senate budget resolutions. The drastic spending cuts proposed in these budgets are irresponsible and threaten the health of our nation’s environment and communities. Dirty water, polluted air, threatened wildlife, degraded lands and crumbling infrastructure won’t create jobs or strengthen the economy, but it will put our children’s economic and environmental security at risk.” [Letter, 3/23/15]
House Republican Budget Lets Down Veterans
Paralyzed Veterans of America: “This budget seeks to place all of the responsibility for deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility on the backs of low-income Americans, seniors and people with disabilities—many of whom have served this nation honorably in uniform and deserve better from their elected leaders.” [Letter, 3/24/15]
House Republican Budget Targets the Federal Workforce Responsible for the Safety and Wellbeing of Our Country
National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE): “I urge you to oppose the House Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Resolution, H.Con.Res. 27, because of its targeted and prejudicial attacks on federal employees and retirees… The House budget resolution offered by Budget Chairman Tom Price, R-GA, takes aim at federal and postal employees and retirees… Exacting another $318 billion from a constituency that already has contributed more than $120 billion to deficit reduction is unconscionable. This budget is nothing short of an attack on effective government…. This nation deserves a federal government that can best defend America at home and abroad, protect the health and wellbeing of its citizens, and deliver critical services and breakthrough research for which there is no ‘second-best.’ The House Budget Resolution would threaten our ability to perform these vital functions.” [Letter, 3/24/15]
Federal-Postal Coalition: “On behalf of the nearly five million Americans – federal and postal workers and annuitants – represented by the national member organizations of the Federal-Postal Coalition, we urge you to oppose H. Con. Res. 27, the proposed Fiscal Year 2016 Concurrent Resolution on the Budget. This extreme budget blueprint takes $318 billion from the federal and postal community, forcing this group of the middle-class dedicated public servants to once again shoulder a disproportionate share of the sacrifice… Among the many proposed reductions in civil service pay and benefits, the Coalition specifically opposes the elimination of both the defined benefit retirement program (FERS), a long-standing component of federal civil service compensation, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) by converting it into a voucher plan… This is nothing more than a poorly-disguised pay cut for workers who have already suffered through a recent three-year pay freeze, furloughs as a result of sequestration, and untold financial hardship and anxiety from the 16-day government shutdown.” [Letter, 3/24/14]
AFL-CIO: “Federal employees and their families have made extraordinarily harsh financial sacrifices in the past several years during various budget crises. They have suffered a three-year pay freeze, followed by two years of 1% pay increases that were well below the recommended baseline, and employees hired since 2012 have seen massive contribution increases to retirement. In addition to these lost earnings, 750,000 workers also lost up to eight days of pay because of sequestration in 2013. Federal workers’ total sacrifice to date is $159 billion over ten years. Yet this sacrifice by federal employees is not enough for Chairman Price. His budget resolution would cut federal employee compensation and jobs by an additional $318 billion over ten years, which when combined with the previous sacrifice of $159 billion, would result in federal workers and their families contributing almost half a trillion dollars to deficit reduction since 2011.” [Letter, 3/23/15]
National Treasury Employees Union: “By continuing sequestration funding levels and targeting the pensions of federal workers, the House Republican budget plan will have a devastating impact on agencies’ ability to perform their missions and will further erode employee morale… ‘Our nation depends on highly-skilled federal workers to protect us in so many ways and on so many fronts. This regressive proposal would harm middle-class federal workers and their ability to do their jobs,’ said NTEU National President Colleen M. Kelley.” [Press Release, 3/17/15]
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