During a meeting on the GOP’s proposed budget yesterday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called the plans “nothing less than a disaster for the working families of this country.”
“On every important issue that we face, both of the Republican budgets … do exactly the opposite of what needs to be done and, in fact, what the American people want us to do,” continued Sanders.
The GOP budget, as Sanders pointed out, would gut public assistance programs — like food stamps (SNAP) and WIC, kick 2.7 million people off the health insurance the got through the Affordable Care Act, and do nothing to address the crippling student loan debt many students graduate with.
“What the Republican budget does,” said Sanders, “is abolish the estate tax. Who benefits from the estate tax? The top 0.2 of one percent of the wealthiest people in this country. Fewer than 6,000 families will get a tax break of over $269 billion.”
“Has any constituent, working class person, gone to any member of this committee and said, ‘You know what I think you gotta do? You really gotta lower taxes for the families of billionaires,’” Sanders asked the committee. “I have not heard anyone say that at all.”
“This budget is a budget that is so out of tune with what the American people need or want. Poll after poll will tell you virtually every idea brought into this budget is not what the American people want,” Sanders concluded. “I would hope that in the remaining days and weeks that we have, we can, in fact, significantly revise this budget and start doing what the American people want and not just what the billionaires of this country want.”
Watch Sen. Sanders full speech to the budget committee.
