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News Tuesday, May 23 2017

The Reviews Are In: Trump's Budget Exposed As Devastating For Working Families

May 23, 2017

The reviews are in and they aren’t pretty. The Trump Budget would be a disaster for working American families; it massively guts Medicaid, cuts Social Security, and slashes crucial programs that provide kids and low-income Americans of all ages with health care and food.  And Trump’s people couldn’t even accomplish this disaster without a $2 Trillion mathematical error to make the already jarring numbers work.
American Bridge Vice President Shripal Shah released the following statement on Trump’s budget that would put millions of American lives at risk:

“The overwhelmingly negative reaction to Trump’s budget is a direct result of the negative impact it would have on kids, seniors, women, and everyday Americans working to get ahead. The only people benefiting from this reckless proposal are billionaires like himself who will get giant tax cuts.” 

These are Trump’s budget priorities:
Gutting Medicaid’s finances would make it hard for hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of Medicaid patients, said Beth Feldpush, senior vice president for policy and advocacy at America’s Essential Hospitals. She said their member facilities, mainly urban hospitals that serve low-income patients, would likely have to cut staff and services if they ended up treating higher rates of uninsured people who had lost their Medicaid coverage.

New York Daily News: Trump budget plan breaks campaign promises with $800B Medicaid cut, slashes to Social Security

President Trump wants to let them eat cuts….The Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides healthcare support under Medicaid for poor children, would see a 20% cut in the plan’s first year alone.
Huff Post: Trump’s Budget Would Cut Planned Parenthood Out Of All Federal Programs

“This is the worst budget for women and women’s health in a generation,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement Monday. “It guts programs designed to help women and their families put food on the table, get the medical care they need, and make ends meet. Gimmicks and misdirection cannot cover up a deadly agenda that would hurt women and prevent access to basic health care in the U.S. and across the globe.”
AP: Advocates Slam Trump Plan to Reduce Aid for College Students

Education organizations are lashing out at President Donald Trump’s budget proposal to eliminate subsidized student loans and loan forgiveness programs…. The budget proposal also cuts funding for federal work-study programs, which help students pay for college.

Detroit Free Press: School choice wins, public schools take deep cuts in Trump budget plan

And the impact on Michigan? “It’s a blow that will be felt in the classrooms,” Hecker said.
Washington Post: Trump budget seeks huge cuts to science and medical research, disease prevention
Steven Houser, president of the American Heart Association, called Trump’s budget “devastating” and “unconscionable.” 
The Atlantic: Trump’s Cuts to SNAP and Social Security Would Hit the Rust Belt Hard

The president’s full budget includes reductions in income-support programs that core Republican voters rely on—more so than other groups do.

Washington Post: How Trump’s budget helps the rich at the expense of the poor

To the contrary, the policies described in his first comprehensive federal budget would add to the incomes of the rich, while taking away from the poor.
During the campaign, Trump pledged not to touch Medicare of Social Security…. Trump also said he would not cut Medicaid. But Mulvaney has acknowledged the House health care bill, which the president supports, would do that. The proposed cuts to safety-net programs, Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said, “betrays many voters who placed their trust in him.”
Trump wants lawmakers to cut more than $800 billion from Medicaid and more than $192 billion from food stamps…. Republican leaders in the House said lawmakers would be able to find common ground with the budget plan.
President Donald Trump’s first full budget would dramatically reduce the U.S. government’s role in society, hitting hard many of the rural, working-poor supporters who propelled him into office as he cuts through the safety net for the poor and disabled, impacting farming communities and inner cities alike.  And the urban minority voters whom Trump asked in his campaign “What do you have to lose” by supporting him got their answer in the $3.6 trillion in spending reductions he’s requesting. They, along with residents of rural areas, would feel the bite of steep reductions in food stamps, Medicaid health insurance payments, low-income housing assistance and block grants that fund meals-on-wheels for the elderly.
President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for next year would cut Social Security Disability Insurance, despite Trump’s vaunted campaign promise not to make any changes to Social Security.
A much smaller, but related program, know as CHIP, provides health insurance to children in low-income households.  On a per-voter basis, Mississippi and Montana, which voted for Trump, would be hardest hit by the proposed cuts. Other red states that would feel a big impact are Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Alabama, Utah and Kentucky.

But then the budget assumes $2 trillion in higher revenue from growth in order to achieve balance after ten years. So the $2 trillion from higher growth is a double-count. It pays for the Trump cuts, and then it pays again for balancing the budget. 

Published: May 23, 2017

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