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Budget Cut Series: Devastation For Low-Income Americans
Anti-poverty advocates have vowed to fight the proposed budget plan for good reason. It's devastating blow to millions of low income people throughout the country. It's a shockingly transparent effort to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and increase defense spending. Most importantly, we all must engage in Smart Dissent because budgets are drafted and approved by Congress, not the President. It's crucial to be aware of what the White House is proposing and let Congress know it is not acceptable.
Below are several of the most notable ways in which the White House's proposal budget will devastate tens of millions of low income Americans:
- Eliminate $272 billion of means-tested anti-poverty programs over the next 10 years. Cuts to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) alone would save $191 billion.
- These reductions come on top of plans announced earlier to cut billions of dollars in discretionary spending for the poor, in housing assistance, education and other programs.
- The proposed budget includes cuts to Medicaid, which provides health care for the poor, by more than $600 billion over 10 years.
- While claiming the budget forces people "back to work" be crushing the social safety net, the budget would reduce job training grants next year by more than $1 billion, and does not increase child care assistance, support many low-income families say they need to work.
- Limit the earned income tax and child care tax credits — crucial supports for low-income workers...
Trump crony, Tea Party leader, and now OMB Director Mick Mulvaney is the primary architect of the White House budget so the contents of it should not be surprising if you remember the entire purpose of the Tea Party. The budget is so absurd that even the usually spineless Republicans in Congress have major issues with it.
Congressional Republicans generally favor cutting domestic spending to help pay for increases in defense and tax cuts. But some of Trump's spending proposals are so severe, members of both parties are likely to resist, if only because many of their constituents rely on these programs. "It's a problem — it's a big problem," Kentucky Republican Harold Rogers, a powerful member of the House Appropriations Committee, told the Washington Post...