Which Would You Choose? A Plan to Disinvest in Our Future? Or a Blueprint for Growth and Opportunity?

The House GOP Budget  Increases Health Care Costs on Working Americans:

While the Democratic Alternative Protects Health Care Benefits and Cost Savings Americans are Experiencing:

• Threatens the health care coverage of more than 16 million previously uninsured Americans who now have coverage through the Affordable Care Act.
• Eliminates tax credits that help make health care more affordable for 15 million Americans.

• Reinforces the Affordable Care Act, which has provided quality, affordable coverage to more than 16.4 million previously uninsured Americans since being signed into law five years ago.
• Maintains Affordable Care Act patient protections, such as young adult coverage and no denials for pre-existing conditions. 

The House GOP Budget Makes it Harder for Seniors to Obtain a Safe and Secure Retirement:  

While the Democratic Alternative Helps American Seniors Achieve a Safe and Secure Retirement:

• Ends the Medicare guarantee as we know it, increasing health care costs
• Increases costs to current seniors by repealing Medicare benefit improvements in the Affordable Care Act
• Raises retirement contributions for federal employees by $127 billion over 10 years by requiring higher employee retirement contributions, which translates into a 6% pay cut.

• Preserves the Medicare guarantee and important Affordable Care Act benefits for seniors, including help with prescription drug costs
• Ensures seniors and people with disabilities continue to get needed Medicaid services

The House GOP Budget Disinvests in Job Training and Workforce Development:  

While the Democratic Alternative Supports Job Creation Here at Home

• Eliminates the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships, which serve 30,000 small manufacturers that contribute to the creation of middle-class jobs and economic growth [White House, 3/17/15]
• Results in more than two million fewer workers receiving job training and employment services compared to the President’s budget [White House, 3/17/15]

• Supports House Democrats’ “Make it in America” plan to encourage a resurgence of manufacturing through job creation measures, including the development of new domestic manufacturing institutes to research innovative products and materials
• Ends subsidies for shipping U.S. jobs overseas, prevents companies from “inverting” to reduce U.S. taxes, and stops corporations from using tax havens to shelter profits from taxation
• Creates jobs through workforce development, jobs training programs, and infrastructure investments

The House GOP Budget Shortchanges Our Students' Futures:

While the Democratic Alternative Invests in Early Childhood and K-12 Education and Makes College More Affordable:

• Cuts investments in education, scientific research, energy technologies, advanced manufacturing, public safety, and other priorities by cutting non-defense discretionary funding well below sequester levels from 2017 onward
• Freezes the maximum Pell grant and eliminates $89 billion for Pell grant increases that Congress already enacted and paid for, making college less affordable for students and their families

• Increases the funding for Head Start and other early childhood education programs
• Provides more funding for elementary and secondary education, accommodating increases for key programs such as Title I (Education for the Disadvantaged), special education, career and technical education, and STEM education
• Funds the President’s new early childhood initiative to provide access to a high-quality preschool for all four-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families, while encouraging states to serve additional four-year-olds 
• Maintains the commitment to Pell grants, which help more than 8 million low-income college students each year
• Permanently extends and improves the American Opportunity Tax Credit

The Republican Budget Disinvests in Research: 

While the Democratic Alternative Invests in Research to Keep America the World's Leader in Innovation:

• Cuts investments in scientific research and other economically crucial activities by cutting non-defense discretionary funding well below sequester levels from 2017 onward

• Lifts the sequester and grows the economy by providing robust funding for scientific R&D, aeronautics and space exploration, and energy technologies
• Invests in public health and the health-care workforce, including biomedical research

The House GOP Budget Places the Burden of Deficit Reduction on the Most Vulnerable:

While Democratic Alternative Preserves Critical Programs that Assist the Most Vulnerable:

• Imposes damaging cuts to nutrition assistance, Medicaid, and other critical assistance programs for low-income families 
• Merges CHIP into Medicaid and slashes funding by $913 billion over the next ten years
• Cuts the base Medicaid program by 14 percent in 2017 and by one‐third in 2025
• Cuts $125 billion from nutrition assistance over ten years, which primarily benefits children, elderly, disabled, and low-income families
• Allows vital improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit to expire
• Causes 133,000 fewer families to receive Housing Choice Vouchers, and another 20,000 fewer rural families receiving help for affordable rental housing compared to the President’s budget

• Preserves nutrition assistance, expands child care assistance, and supports a number of vital programs that serve low-income families
• Extends funding for CHIP at ACA levels to ensure coverage for every eligible child in the country 
• Increases funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and fully funds the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to support the 8.5 million people expected to participate
• Seeks to support work and family balance by calling for legislation that expands sick leave and family and medical leave

The House GOP Budget Disinvests in Our Nation's Infrastructure:

While the Democratic Alternative Invests in Infrastructure to Keep our Nation Competitive:

• Disregards our nation's collapsing infrastructure by cutting $187 billion, or more than 19 percent, from transportation funding over the coming decade
• Puts funding for successful infrastructure programs like TIGER grants at risk, which help repair and modernize our infrastructure while creating well-paying jobs [White House, 3/17/15]

• Supports efforts to create jobs through infrastructure investments in areas beyond the scope of the surface transportation bill
• Funds the President's six-year surface transportation reauthorization proposal and additional infrastructure investments
• Supports the President's proposed National Infrastructure Bank as well as increased use of funds from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF) to address the growing needs of our nation's ports

The House GOP Budget Ignores the Need to Fix Our Broken Immigration System:

While the Democratic Alternative Supports Comprehensive Immigration Reform:

• Rejects comprehensive immigration reform, which would reduce the deficit by an estimated $900 billion over the next two decades and boost the economy by 5.4 percent

• Accommodates comprehensive immigration reform, such as the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act that House Democrats offered in the 113th Congress, which will help secure our borders, keep families together, boost the economy, and reduce deficit

The House GOP Budget Cuts Funding for Veterans:  

While the Democratic Alternative Ensures Our Veterans Have the Resources They Deserve:

• Cuts veterans' funding below the President's request by $1.9 billion for 2016 and $19 billion over ten years

• Eliminates the sequester for non-defense programs to ensure a pool of adequate funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
• Matches the President's requested 2016 funding level for veterans' programs, which is an 8 percent increase over current year funding
• Allows for increased funding for vital programs outside of the VA health care system, such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development-VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program to end veteran homelessness
• Allows for all of the VA's discretionary budget to be enacted in the funding bill for the prior year. Currently, only funding for VA's medical programs – approximately 85% of VA's discretionary budget – is provided a year early through advance appropriations
• Accommodates initiatives that make improvements to the Post 9/11 GI Bill and expedite the claims process