Earlier this afternoon, Republicans suffered a stinging defeat in their failure to pass a flawed appropriations bill. But the week is far from over. In the next 48 hours, the House of Representatives is likely to vote on two additional measures that will bear down hard on working families and poor children.
Under the guise of funding the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, House Republicans are calling for steep cuts in federal student aid programs, child support enforcement and Medicaid. At the same time, they are demanding $56.6 billion in new tax cuts for a segment of our society that is not in need of relief -- those Americans who earn over $1 million per year.
In other words, the wealthiest Americans get an early Christmas gift, paid for by working families.
If the Republican majority passes these cuts to student aid, Medicaid and child support enforcement it will prove catastrophic to working families and poor children across the country.
Last week, the House GOP leadership tried to slash $9 billion from student loan programs – the largest-ever cuts to higher education in American history – and $10 billion from Medicaid. Based on the Republicans’ recent track record, we can expect the revised budget plan to be equally devastating.
To make matters worse, though the Republicans are proposing to extend the capital gains tax cut, which primarily benefits households earning over $1 million, they have rejected a Democratic proposal to exempt working families from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which now affects 17.6 million middle-income households.
Make no mistake about it: the Republican budget plan represents the worst instincts in American politics.
Several weeks after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, George W. Bush addressed the nation from New Orleans and said, “I offer this pledge to the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.”
The Republican budget plan belies the president’s soft message.
In New Orleans, 38 percent of children live below the poverty line, a figure that trumps the already unacceptable national child poverty rate (17 percent). Child support payments account for 25 percent of total household income in poor families with children.
Surely the poor children of New Orleans shouldn’t be asked to bear the burden of rebuilding their city.
In the long run, the Republican budget also poses a grave threat to America’s economic security. Though George Bush claims that his austerity plan is a necessary corrective to the deficit, in fact, his new tax cuts for wealthy Americans will increase our national debt. And what Republicans don’t seem to understand is that skyrocketing deficits lead to higher debt service payments, which leads to higher interest rates, which dampens job growth.
Please join me in calling on Congress to reject the cruel and ill-conceived Republican budget plan. It’s bad for students, bad for poor children, bad for working families, and bad for America’s economic future.