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Trump Budget Would Slash Public Protections and Programs, Threatening Basic Standards of Living

May 22, 2017

Trump Budget Would Slash Public Protections and Programs, Threatening Basic Standards of Living

Statement of Susan Harley, Deputy Director, Public Citizen’s Congress Watch Division

Note: Public Citizen released the following statement in anticipation of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal.

President Donald Trump’s proposed budget is rigged for billionaires and big corporations. It makes deep cuts to critical programs and protections that ensure basic living standards for tens of millions of Americans – all to pay for hundreds of billions in tax giveaways to the superrich who lined the GOP’s campaign coffers. In other words, this budget is another corporate payback scheme.

During his first 100 days in office, Trump’s only significant legislative accomplishment was the rollback of 14 public protections that his corporate cronies did not want, such as online privacy rules, clean water safeguards and workplace fairness standards. Now he’s proposing to defund the agencies responsible for implementing and enforcing our laws, stopping them dead in their tracks.

Americans have a message for Trump and his enablers in Congress: Hands off the protections, programs and public institutions that keep us safe! Instead of slashing into the same clean air and water standards, retirement security programs, and worker health and safety guarantees that candidate Trump promised to protect, we should be looking out for families who are struggling to make ends meet and protecting Americans from the Wall Street banks, big polluters and corporate scam artists who continue to prey on workers and consumers.

In addition to the draconian budget cuts, Public Citizen is deeply concerned about the possible influx of hundreds of harmful policy riders that could be attached to appropriations bills. It’s bad enough that Trump and Republicans are proposing deep and painful funding cuts to the agencies that protect our health and safety, workplaces and wallets, as well as our environment and our economy. We shouldn’t tack on even more giveaways for big corporations and special favors for ideological extremists. Even with Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House, most of these measures are too extreme to become law, which is why they should be kept out of the budget process.

It’s time for Congress to put an end to these corporate payback schemes and stand up for the American people. Congress should pass a clean budget that protects our families and communities.

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