Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the Republican budget resolution, which passed the U.S. House 217-215 with one Republican defection, will “gut health care and give tax breaks to the super-wealthy.”
"I want to focus on the House blueprint,” Schumer said at a virtual town hall meeting on Wednesday. “It lays out in plain terms the entirety of their horrible plan. It proposes savage cuts for critical programs in order to give tax breaks to the billionaires, and the largest of these cuts is to… Medicaid, which the House bill proposes cutting by at least 880 billion.”
Most Republican House members support significant changes to the program as part of an effort to cut over $2 trillion from the federal budget over the next ten years.
U.S. Representative Nick LaLota (R-NY-01), who voted for the budget, said in a statement that “it’s a critical step toward lowering taxes, cutting spending, and protecting vital programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. While this resolution doesn’t directly make those changes, it paves the way for a future budget reconciliation vote that will bring real results,” LaLota added.
Schumer warned against getting sidetracked by the “outrage cycle,” which he said is designed to “distract our attention.”
“[Trump] talks about the Gulf of Mexico becoming the Gulf of America, and he talks about annexing Canada together,” Schumer said. “They're designed to make the public feel fractured and exhausted and divert our attention. We're not letting that happen.”
The bill now goes to the U.S. Senate.
