Shuler on the House GOP budget bill
- This week, in the middle of the night, Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to gut nearly $1 trillion from the essential programs that millions of Americans depend on so that the ultrawealthy can get even more tax breaks.
- The budget bill’s proposed cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are staggering and devastating. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this package would mean an estimated 8.6 million fewer people would have health care coverage and 3 million less people a month would be able to afford groceries.
- In 2026 alone, hundreds of thousands of care jobs would be eliminated as a result of these cuts, leading to higher health care costs overall and the closure of rural hospitals and nursing homes that depend on federal funding. It’ll cost us jobs in food processing, school cafeterias, retail and agriculture too, hitting our local economies hard.
- If that wasn’t bad enough, these corporate-controlled lawmakers also put in provisions that ban existing or future state and local artificial intelligence safeguards for the next 10 years, drain critical funding for family-sustaining energy jobs, and reduce the retirement benefits of federal workers.
- This is a billionaire hostile takeover of our federal budget. It shows clearly what the priorities are for this administration—and working people aren’t one of them.
- We can’t afford to let lawmakers carve out our essential services to give the ultrawealthy even more of a leg up.
- The fight to beat this is now in the Senate, but working people won’t give up on tough fights. Our jobs, our health care and our families are on the line.
-- Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO president