Proposed Purported Republican Cuts in HR1

[Ed. ERA Inc has not validated the following. Would anyone want to take that on, out of need for accuracy?]

Here are just a few of the cuts that the Republicans make in HR 1:

· While 50 million Americans are now lacking health insurance they slash $1.3 billion in funding for Community Health Centers, denying primary health care to 11 million patients.

· While college education is already unaffordable for much of the middle class, they Slash Pell Grants by $5.7 billion, reducing or eliminating Pell Grants for 9.4 million low-income college students.

· While working families are unable to find decent quality, affordable childcare, they slash Head Start by 20 percent, eliminating the program for 218,000 children and forcing 55,000 layoffs.

· While many seniors and people with disabilities are today waiting far too long to get their claims processed, they slash $1.7 billion from the Social Security Administration, meaning long delays for seniors and disabled Americans.

· While poverty is increasing in our country, they slash the Community Services Block Grant program by $405 million, reducing the ability to get emergency food, housing and heating assistance out to 20 million seniors, families with children and the disabled.

· While the price of oil is soaring, they slash $400 million in funding for the home heating assistance program (LIHEAP), making it harder for seniors, the disabled, and families with children to heat their homes in the winter.

· While millions of Americans are suffering from environmentally caused illnesses, they slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by 30 percent, including a $1.4 billion cut from provisions that keep our air and water clean.

· While we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, they slash the WIC program by 10 percent. This program provides special supplemental nutrition for pregnant women, infants and children.

And, on and on it goes. These are just a few of the proposed cuts that the Republicans want.

As Vermont’s senator, I intend to do everything I can to defeat the grotesquely unfair Republican budget, which moves toward deficit reduction almost entirely through cuts borne on the backs of the weak and vulnerable, and asks nothing from the wealthy and powerful. On March 10th I introduced legislation which would impose a 5.4% surtax on all household income above one million dollars. The legislation also eliminates tax loopholes which enable oil companies to, in some cases, avoid having to pay any federal corporate income taxes.