03.09.23

WHITEHOUSE: “Our cards are on the table. Unlike MAGA Republicans who are hiding their budget plan.”

Washington, D.C.— Senator Whitehouse (D-RI), Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, joined Senate Majority Leader Schumer (D-NY); Senator Murray (D-WA), Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee; Senator Wyden (D-OR), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee; and Senator Van Hollen (D-MD) to discuss the President’s 2024 Budget Request.

“As of today, our cards are on the table. Unlike MAGA Republicans who are hiding their budget plan. It’s time for them to level with the American people. Then the American people can choose between a budget for American families and one by—and for—Republican big donors,” said Senator Whitehouse.

WATCH: Senator Whitehouse on the President’s Budget Request

 

His remarks, as delivered:

President Biden's Budget presents his honest vision for a stronger and fairer and more stable America. It will lower costs for households, strengthen Medicare and protect Social Security, invest in our nation and grow our economy, as he likes to say, from the bottom up and the middle out. It will reduce debt and restore some integrity to a tax code torqued to favor the well-off and the well-connected.

Few things make a bigger difference to a family than child care. And the President's Budget increases childcare options for 16 million more kids, lowers costs for parents, funds pre-K access for all four-year-olds, and restores the full child tax credit—which we saw worked so well through COVID.

The President's Budget lowers prescription drug and health care costs and cuts wasteful subsidies to Big Pharma that cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

Republicans let big campaign donors and the most profitable corporations cheat and dodge using tricks like offshore loopholes to pay lower tax rates than teachers and firefighters. The President’s Budget puts a stop to that.

And he breaks the grip of Big Oil, which raked in record breaking profits and won't help with the environmental and economic toll of climate change. Ending those tens of billions in tax breaks is long, long overdue.

The net result of the President's Budget proposal? Nearly $3 trillion in deficit reduction.

Yep. While MAGA Republicans want to increase the deficit by $3 trillion and tax cuts for their mega-rich campaign donors, Democrats want to invest in child care, health care, and housing, and reduce the deficit by nearly $3 trillion. All while not raising taxes on anyone making less than $400,000.

As of today, our cards are on the table. Unlike MAGA Republicans who are hiding their budget plan. It’s time for them to level with the American people. Then, the American people can choose between a budget for American families and one by—and for—Republican big donors.