Washington, D.C. — Carmel Martin, Executive Vice President for Policy at the Center for American Progress, released the following statement today after Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives released their fiscal year 2017 budget proposal:
It’s another year, but Americans continue to see the same old and tired budget proposals from House Republican leaders. In stark contrast to President Barack Obama’s FY 2017 budget proposal to invest in the middle class and grow our economy, House leadership’s proposal calls for massive spending cuts that would devastate working families without raising even a dime of new revenue from the wealthiest Americans or big corporations.
The American people—including a majority of Republican voters—reject this. By proposing extreme cuts to programs for middle- and low-income Americans, House leaders have made it clear that they side with the wealthy and corporations over the American people.
While the House budget would devastate struggling families through huge cuts to low-income programs, it still does not present a realistic plan to balance the budget. Trillions of dollars of unspecified cuts from block grants and unrealistic caps on annual appropriations do not a balanced budget make.
Since the cuts in the House budget are not a realistic solution for the nation’s long-term budget challenges, House leaders will eventually have to decide whether to accept the need for more revenue or push for deeper but highly unpopular cuts to the two largest federal programs—Social Security and Medicare.
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