Sanders, Democrats Rip GOP Plan to ‘Erode’ Safety Net With $5 Trillion in Cuts

In a new report unveiled on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee offered a scathing assessment of the Senate GOP’s recently unveiled budget blueprint, which they said would result in “a massive transfer of wealth from working families, the elderly, children, the sick, and the poor to the top one percent.”

The report highlighted in particular the Republicans’ plan to slash funding for Medicare and Medicaid by $470 billion and $1 trillion respectively over the next decade—a move that would have devastating consequences for tens of millions of Americans.

The analysis also points to deep cuts the GOP budget would impose on other crucial safety net programs, including:
A $37 billion cut to affordable housing programs, which would “eliminate” housing assistance for over a million families.
A $6.5 billion cut Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
A $3 billion cut to Head Start, which the report says would strip educational assistance from 25,000 children per year.
A $37 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health, “which would cut funding for Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and other critical medical research.”

In total, the report estimates that the Senate GOP’s budget would slash $5 trillion from non-defense spending over the next decade.

“Meanwhile, at a time when the U.S. already spends more on defense than the next 12 countries combined,” the analysis notes, “the Republican budget lays the groundwork for an increase of $91 billion to the Pentagon for Fiscal Year 2018 alone—more than enough to provide free tuition at every public college and university in America.”

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