Groups Slam Draconian GOP 'Work Harder for Less' Budget
From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the impact of the GOP's "Work Harder for Less" budget on Medicaid:
House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price's budget plan proposes to radically restructure Medicaid by converting it to a block grant and cutting federal funding for it steeply, by $913 billion over the next decade.
Repealing health reform's Medicaid expansion means that 14 million people would lose their Medicaid coverage or no longer gain coverage in the future.
In addition, the large and growing cut in federal Medicaid funding from the block grant would almost certainly force states to sharply scale back or eliminate Medicaid coverage for millions of low-income people who have it today. All told, after accounting for the plan's proposed repeal of health reform's marketplace subsidies, tens of millions of people would likely become uninsured under Chairman Price's plan…The block grant funding would fall further behind state needs each year.
Organizations representing millions of hardworking Americans and their families are already decrying the GOP's budget:
From AFL-CIO:
The deep cuts in this proposal – which start with privatizing Medicare – add to the already open wounds of our struggling economy. As quick as Republicans' 180 during the campaign season to a sudden concern for the plight of working people, they're back to showing their true colors.
Poking working people with a hot stick isn't conservative economic leadership, its politics as usual.
From SEIU:
Repealing a healthcare law that's helping millions, lowering taxes for the ultra-rich: Republican leaders are #NotOnOurSide.
There's nothing to like in the #GOPBudget – just cuts that hurt working families and the same old favors for the wealthy few.
From American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE):
Instead of focusing on creating new jobs and lifting more Americans out of poverty, the House leadership has proposed a budget that does exactly the opposite by slashing the compensation and jobs of hard-working federal employees.
Rep. Price's budget ignores the $159 billion in cuts that have already been made to federal employees' pay and benefits and demands more cuts to this small segment of the American workforce.
Federal employees aren't some faceless bureaucrats to be cut at a whim. They are real people with real jobs who make a real difference in the lives of millions Americans every day, whether it's ensuring senior citizens get the Social Security benefits they're owed, caring for veterans who return from war with physical or psychological scars, or keeping knives and other weapons off airplanes. They deserve our respect and admiration, not the contempt and derision being presented in this budget.
From National Education Association (NEA):
U.S. House Republican leaders set to repeat budget mistakes of the past
The wash, rinse, and repeat governing style ushered by Republican leaders on Capitol Hill has to end. If enacted, the Republican budget will endanger economic growth and will rob working- and middle-class families of economic opportunities now and in the future. Families and students have been on the receiving end of their austerity-at-all-costs budgeting for the past three years—an approach that has hindered income growth and deprived students of the opportunities they all deserve. Yet, here we are again, and they are about to repeat the budget mistakes of the past. Congress can and should do better than that.
From National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare:
GOP Budget: Priorities or Perils?
Once again, the House GOP's budget would privatize Medicare with a voucher plan, leaving seniors and the disabled – some of our most vulnerable Americans – hostage to the whims of private insurance companies.
Incredibly, the GOP budget also tries to have it both ways by counting the savings in Medicare since the passage of health care reform and then repealing the law that delivered those same savings…The American people do not support gutting Social Security and Medicare and targeting the middle-class to pay for tax cuts and loopholes for corporations and the wealthy – which is the foundation the House GOP budget plan is built upon.