While House extremists are holding up efforts to pass spending bills and avert a government shutdown, House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (TX-19) has introduced a budget that gives us a frightening vision of what right-wing extremists want our country to look like.
The proposed budget aims to balance the federal budget in 10 years, but it does so via $5.4 trillion in cuts to essential human needs programs over those 10 years. These cuts include:1
- $400 billion in cuts to Medicare providers
- $2 trillion in cuts to mandatory health spending—which is largely drastic cuts to Medicaid
- Instituting Medicaid work reporting requirements
- $1 trillion in cuts to economic security programs, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF
- While extremists in the House Republican Caucus are planning to make families suffer even more at a time when cuts they backed caused poverty to rise, they’re demanding an extension of the Trump tax cuts from 2017, which are nothing more than a handout for the wealthy and major corporations.
- If Congress renews the Trump tax cuts for the ultra-rich, the top 0.1%—with incomes over $4.5 million a year—would get, on average, a tax cut of $175,000 in the first year alone while households making less than $50,000 would get about 50 cents a day.2 This is neither sustainable or just. And it’s definitely not a way to move our country forward with many struggling to make ends meet.