WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), Ranking Democrat of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC), today blasted the House Republican budget proposal as a “fundamentally dishonest” document which relies on accounting gimmickry.
In a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Maloney said the Republican budget would dismantle Medicare, add tens of billions of dollars to what Republicans themselves have called a “slush fund” for defense and fail to achieve the balanced budget it claims to reach.
“This budget is a fiasco,” said Maloney. “The numbers don’t add up.”
In addition to gutting programs that low- and middle income Americans count on, the Republican blueprint repeals the Affordable Care Act, taking away health insurance from more than 16 million Americans who have gained it through the law.
“How will the Republican budget make up the $1 trillion it loses in revenues by repealing the ACA?” Maloney asked. “We have no idea because their blueprint doesn’t tell us. It counts the $1 trillion in savings even while it abolishes the law. This isn’t shoddy math—it’s dishonest.”
The Republican budget also would replace Medicare with a voucher program—giving senior citizens a coupon to help defray the cost of private insurance. Maloney said that “demolishing Medicare is a radical proposition. My guess is that if Republicans try to take apart Medicare, millions of Americans will storm Capitol Hill.”
The Republican budget slashes investments in education, devastates investments in research and innovation, ignores the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and would likely destroy up to 2.9 million jobs in 2017.
“This is not general belt-tightening—it’s the wholesale strangling of the dreams and opportunities of those who are already struggling,” continued Maloney. “The Republican budget would fairly be called a plan to ‘soak the poor.’ Poor and working families would be hit especially hard by proposals to allow critical provisions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit to expire at the end of 2017.”
Maloney said that the country needs to continue the economic policies that have led to the creation of 200,000 jobs for 12 straight months—the first time that has happened since 1977. She noted that Democratic policies have produced an economy that has been growing steadily, with low inflation, a strong dollar, cheap gas, a deficit that has shrunk by two-thirds and a Dow Jones Index that has tripled.
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