Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday condemned President Donald Trump's newly released $4.8 trillion budget blueprint as a
"shameful" proposal that would strip nutrition assistance and healthcare from needy families while rewarding the wealthy
and large corporations with more handouts.
"The Trump budget for 2021 is a budget of, by, and for the one percent," Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential
candidate and ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement. "It reflects profoundly unethical
priorities and shows that the president is—and it gives me no great pleasure to say this—a liar."
Contrary to Trump's campaign promise to shield Medicare, Medicare, and Social Security, the FY2021 budget blueprint
calls for more than a trillion in combined cuts to the three programs over the next decade—around $920 billion to Medicaid alone.
The proposal would also slash by billions of dollars the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and federal
student loan assistance.
Meanwhile, the plan would boost military spending to over $740 billion in fiscal year 2021, extend Trump's tax cuts for the rich, and
provide $2 billion for the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump promised he would not cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He lied. The budget Trump released today would:
- Cut Medicare by $500 billion
- Cut Social Security by $24 billion
- Cut Medicaid by hundreds of billions
All to pay for his massive tax breaks to the top 1%— Warren Gunnels (@GunnelsWarren) February 10, 2020
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"The old cliché is that a budget is a moral document," Sanders said. "What kind of unbelievable moral framework allowed
this White House to propose $182 billion in cuts to nutrition assistance from needy families, when nearly one in seven
households with children are food insecure? The Trump budget, outrageously, even cuts billions from a program that
provides nutrition assistance for pregnant women, new moms, and their babies."
The SNAP cuts in Trump's budget are both massive and immediate. SNAP benefits are already small - just $1.40 per person
per meal. Cutting the program by a quarter is extremely cruel. pic.twitter.com/IzXNqMbaOS— Senate Budget Committee (@SenateBudget) February 10, 2020
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Sanders vowed to do everything in his power to ensure Trump's plan doesn't make it through Congress.
"The Trump budget is an immoral document," said Sanders. "It is a budget that takes our collective resources and hands
them to the wealthiest families and largest corporations in this country and ignores the needs of the most vulnerable
among us. It is proof that this president did not care about the 'forgotten men and women' he said he would help—it
appears he is too busy enriching his billionaire friends."