MEMO: 'Work Harder for Less' Budget Stands Against Hard-Working Americans' Interests
MEMORANDUM
To: Interested Parties
Fr: Democratic Leader's Press Office
Dt: March 25, 2014
Re: "Work Harder for Less" Budget Stands Against Hard-Working Americans' Interests
With 60 months of private sector job creation and over 11.8 million jobs added, our nation's economy continues to head in the right direction. But House Republicans' "Work Harder for Less" Budget would harm this critical progress, and negatively impact seniors, students, children, and hard-working middle class families – all to greenlight the interests of the ultra-wealthy and well-connected.
This callous budget will result in more hardship for America's middle class and hard-working families. And don't take our word for it…
Coalition on Human Needs, including 1,300 organizations from across the country:
The House and Senate Budget Committee proposals are the opposite of what the nation needs, and should be rejected…Instead of protecting low-income people, their budgets increase poverty for millions. Instead of investing in economic gains for all, the House and Senate budget proposals slash trillions of dollars from health care, education, housing, and most other domestic needs.
The Fiscal Year 2016 GOP Budget…starts off with soft words that mask harsh policies…Pope Francis says that trickle down theories "have never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings for the prevailing economic system.Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting." We here at NETWORK are still waiting to see a responsible blue print of government spending that prioritizes the needs of the majority of our people over additional preference for the wealthy. The actions they propose are hard to imagine creating a better place to live.
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights:
The budget would slash or eliminate services that are critical to communities represented by our member organizations, including vulnerable groups like young children, the elderly, low-income families, individuals with disabilities, students, the unemployed, and the uninsured.
National Treasury Employees Union:
This regressive proposal would harm middle-class federal workers and their ability to do their jobs.
The proposed House of Representatives and Senate budgets make VERY harmful funding cuts and structural changes to Medicaid.
We need to stop this!!!
The budget resolutions released by House and Senate Republicans would return our country to an era where older adults not yet age 65 and people with disabilities are unable to secure health insurance as they wait for Medicare.
House leadership's budget…once again demonstrates some of our lawmakers value rhetoric over substance…the blueprint is quite specific about two new budget-busting tax cuts for the best-off Americans.
…the budget would punish low- and middle-income people by reducing economic growth and jobs over the next 2 fiscal years
Poking working people with a hot stick isn't conservative economic leadership, its politics as usual.
SEIU:
There's nothing to like in the #GOPBudget – just cuts that hurt working families and the same old favors for the wealthy few.
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.
National Education Association (NEA):
…the Republican budget will endanger economic growth and will rob working- and middle-class families of economic opportunities now and in the future.
National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare:
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.
Once again, the [GOP] budget includes a proposal to create a ‘premium support' – or voucher – option for future Medicare beneficiaries, starting in 2024. Medicare vouchers would convert much of Medicare from a defined benefit to a defined contribution program. This would significantly undermine the traditional Medicare program that the vast majority of beneficiaries have relied on for 50 years. … Once again, the Republican budget seeks to further privatize Medicare and shift additional costs to beneficiaries.
Alliance for Retired Americans:
The budget plan put forward by House Republicans today is a frontal assault on the needs of seniors, persons with disabilities and working Americans. It would privatize critical aspects of Medicare … It breaks promises to seniors regarding benefits they have earned over decades of work. … Medicare has served our country's retirees well for 50 years and the rate of health care spending is now slowing after decades of uncontrolled growth. This budget puts those gains at risk and the needs of the privileged over the middle class.
Like the budget plans put forward in recent years by Price's predecessor, Rep. Paul Ryan, the Price plan balances the budget on the backs of vulnerable women and their families. … The Price budget would undermine the Medicare guarantee with a new voucher program. … And here's what the Price budget would not do: raise a penny of revenue from the very wealthy or corporations.
National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association:
Those who vote in favor of this grossly unfair and misguided budget are sending a powerful message to federal employees: ‘The work you do to protect our nation and its citizens is not valued.'
This is an unfair budget that places the burden of deficit reduction on those struggling to make ends meet, while asking for no sacrifices from those who have benefited from the largest gains in wealth over the past decade.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
Sadly, the Chairman's plan doubles down on the type of extreme and ideological measures that have characterized House budgets in recent years. If its policies were to become law, ours would be a coarser, more mean-spirited nation with higher levels of poverty and inequality, less opportunity, and a future workforce that's less able to compete with its counterparts overseas.
Paralyzed Veterans of America:
On behalf of Paralyzed Veterans of America, I write to express our strong concern over the budget plan recently announced by the House leadership that will soon come to the floor of the House of Representatives. Paralyzed Veterans is the nation's only Congressionally-chartered veterans service organization solely dedicated to representing veterans with spinal cord injury and/or disease. This budget seeks to place all of the responsibility for deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility on the backs of low-income Americans, seniors and people with disabilities—many of whom have served this nation honorably in uniform and deserve better from their elected leaders.
The budget plans put forward by Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) and Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia) (the Senate and House budget chairmen) include massive cuts to the health care safety net and, in that respect, are similar to previous budget proposals advanced by former House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin).
In the words of The New York Times, these proposals are a "disaster."
Federation of American Hospitals:
…the budget proposal poses challenges for vulnerable Americans and those providers and clinicians who care for them…
Enough is enough.
But despite their new rhetoric, the ideas in their budgets would hurt working- and middle-class families while benefiting the very wealthy few.
On behalf of the over eighty member organizations and institutions of the Student Aid Alliance…we write to express our strong opposition to the FY 2016 Budget Resolution…
…this approach will threaten America's current competitive advantage in the global economy…
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP):
…a look at the fine print shows that the roadmap presented by these budget proposals doesn't square with that rhetoric about hard work and economic security; in fact, it takes us on a U-turn in the other direction.
NGA simply cannot support a proposal that will increase costs and administrative burdens on independent supermarkets.
Committee for Education Funding:
The Committee for Education Funding (CEF), a coalition of 116 national education associations and institutions representing early learning to postgraduate education, writes to express our strong opposition to H. Con. Res. 27, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Budget Resolution.
This budget will cause irreparable harm to children, students, schools, libraries, museums and colleges and will undermine job creation, economic growth and global competitiveness…
Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities:
We are deeply dismayed that the House would consider including these harmful provisions in its Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Resolution. These proposals run directly counter to the voices and views expressed by CCD members and people with disabilities, and put at risk modest but vital SSDI benefits which are a lifeline for millions of Americans.