The Republican Senate budget is a remarkably destructive and radical proposal, one that would destroy the social safety net beyond anything they've proposed yet. Case in point, Medicaid, which they proposed be reduced by $800 to $880 billion in their various Trumpcare proposals. They're going for the full $1 trillion—yes trillion this time around. While they're at it, they're proposing cutting billions from Medicare as well. As ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Bernie Sanders got his hands on the budget and is raising the alarm.
"The Republican budget is a massive transfer of wealth from working families, the elderly, children, the sick, and the poor to the top 1 percent," Sanders’ report argues.
Sanders has already argued that the GOP plan breaks Trump’s promise on Medicare. The report emphasizes that it would cut spending for Medicaid, which provides care for low-income and disabled Americans, by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years.
Sanders also notes that Enzi calls for $5 trillion in “unspecified non-defense” cuts over the next 10 years. Assuming that these cuts are “applied proportionately” to existing federal outlays, Sanders writes, that would mean:
- Cutting affordable housing spending by $37 billion over 10 years, eliminating housing assistance for 1 million families.
- Cutting Pell Grant funding by more than $100 billion over 10 years, which Sanders says would affect 8 million students;
- Cutting enough funding from the WIC Program to end it immediately, meaning 1.25 million women, infants, and children would lose access to nutrition assistance;
- Cutting Head Start funding by $3 billion, which Sanders says would eliminate services for 25,000 children annually.
All this is in order to provide the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts they're planning for the rich. The good news is that this is a non-binding resolution that charts a path for the appropriating committees—it's not mandating that they make these cuts, but it is an expression of their intentions and their priorities. Not that we didn't know what those already were, but this is the starkest, meanest statement yet. And it didn't even come from Paul Ryan!
Remember this part, too. They snuck in some rules changes that allow them to put this—and the tax cuts bill—through under reconciliation, allowing for a simple majority vote, without getting a score from the Congressional Budget Office. This would allow them to vote on the bill and have the excuse that they didn't know just how devastating the effects would be—no CBO score to tell them. Democrats could request that the CBO evaluate pieces of it as they did with various Trumpcare proposals. But this is a remarkable and cynical departure from normal practices by the Senate, which is pretty much the hallmark of the Republican Senate.