Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky captured both the absurdity and the cruelty of the budget Congress approved this week when he asked why, if the resolution cuts $1.5 trillion in spending, it would raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.
The simple answer, which the Trump administration and its allies in Congress appear too ashamed to admit, is the budget not only robs the most vulnerable Americans, but their children and grandchildren, to feed insatiable billionaires.
Despite promises and endless pandering to the working class, the GOP budget guts essential programs services for ordinary Americans and diverts those resources to the wealthiest Americans, leaving tax cut crumbs to the working class.
To make matters even worse, the administration’s reckless and incomprehensible tariff policy has thrown the economy into chaos, putting the nation at risk of a recession, massive job loss and soaring inflation.
Every serious budget analysis makes clear that it is impossible to cut $1.5 trillion in spending without slashing Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. A memo that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office sent lawmakers last month confirmed the fact.
Nearly every Republican in Congress voted for the budget anyway. The few who didn’t weren’t swayed by the devastating impact of the cuts on working families, but that the cuts aren’t devastating enough.
In other words, most Republicans were content with a cut that would require stripping health insurance from every single child covered by Medicare — all 31 million children — but a few don’t think that’s drastic enough.
To be fair, children might be able to retain their health care coverage if, instead, benefits were terminated for every adult over age 65 who relies on Medicaid for essential health care or 75% of Medicare funding were slashed for nursing home, in-home, or community-based care for seniors and people with disabilities.
These were the findings of a report issued by the National Urban League and 10 other leading civil rights and health equity organizations, which revealed that their vote, committing Congress to the largest cuts in Medicare history, endangers the health and financial security of more than 70 million children, seniors, people with disabilities and working families.
Americans of all backgrounds would be in danger, but communities of color would suffer especially widespread harm: nearly 42 million people, or approximately a third of all people of color in the U.S., rely on Medicaid for health care.
The budget also sacrifices the health and well-being of more than 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP, 90% of whom are in families with children, older adults or people with disabilities. Even though SNAP benefits average just $6.20 per person per day, even this modest safety measure would have to be slashed to deliver the promised windfall for billionaires.
President Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of the working class, vowing to end “the inflation nightmare” and bring down the cost of “groceries, cars — everything.” Instead, his tariffs will cost the typical American household an average of $4,600 a year.
This budget, which surely will go down in history as the great bait-and-switch, will test both parties. Will the GOP betray its new rhetoric about being the party of the working class? Will Democrats show the fight and fire to stand up to a reckless fiscal blueprint?
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, for his part, has committed to fight. “House Democrats are going to aggressively push back every day, every week, every month until we bury this reckless Republican budget resolution in the ground, never to rise again.”
Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League and was mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002. He writes a twice-monthly column for the Sun-Times.
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