[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 27 (Monday, February 10, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S953-S954]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Budget Proposal

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today President Trump unveiled his budget 
proposal for fiscal year 2021. For the third year in a row, the 
President's budget puts a magnifying glass on the endemic, pervasive 
hypocrisy of this administration.
  He says one thing in the State of the Union and does the opposite in 
his budget. But the budget is what he does. The State of the Union is 
just what he says. So, 1 week removed from the State of the Union 
Address, President Trump's budget doublecrosses the American workers 
and middle-class families he promised to help in that speech.
  Let's take healthcare. Candidate Trump promised to protect the social 
safety net programs like Medicare and Medicaid, unlike other 
Republicans. Once in office, President Trump has proposed cutting--
cutting--Medicare and Medicaid every year he sent us a budget. Once 
again, the President proposed steep cuts to Medicaid, as well as 
onerous new qualification requirements, policies that would take 
coverage away from millions.
  Medicaid affects poor people, but it affects a whole lot of middle 
class people whose parents are in nursing homes and healthcare 
facilities. Dramatic cuts to Medicaid hurt large, large numbers of 
Americans, both poor and middle class.
  On top of that, the budget proposes cutting funding for the 
Department of Health and Human Services by 9 percent. That is the 
Department in charge of the coronavirus. He is cutting the budget. 
Then, when something bad happens, he will blame somebody else. That is 
his MO.
  The President stood in front of the Nation and promised his 
administration would protect Americans with preexisting conditions. It 
was a lie when he said it, and his budget makes that very, very clear. 
If the President's budget became reality, hundreds of billions of 
dollars would be taken away from healthcare services, and tens of 
millions of Americans would see their coverage disappear, including 
millions with preexisting conditions.
  There is one term that appears nowhere in the President's budget. It 
is called ``climate change.'' One of the greatest challenges of our 
time, the No. 1 threat facing our planet, climate change is not 
mentioned once among the hundreds of pages of the President's budget, 
except it does propose cutting the Environmental Protection Agency by 
26 percent--more than a quarter.
  The Earth is on fire. Antarctica had a 64-degree record temperature 
this week. What is the President's response? He douses the fire with 
the lighter fluid of weakened pollution regulations and then proposes 
cutting the fire department.
  He cares about the oil companies. Lots of those Big Oil wildcatters 
send him tons of money. He doesn't care

[[Page S954]]

about the future of this globe and that we are leaving something awful 
to our children and grandchildren.
  Going further, in the President's budget, hundreds of billions would 
be slashed from Federal housing assistance, student loan forgiveness, 
and Federal disability insurance. Nutrition assistance to hungry 
families, long on the President's chopping block, would see another 
round of severe cuts. Food--food for children. They are poor. Take it 
away. Is that what this country stands for? Is that what our Judeo-
Christian tradition stands for? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
  If you are an American struggling with student loan debt or health 
problems or housing costs or hunger, the President's budget says you 
are out of luck. Meanwhile, if you are a millionaire or a billionaire 
or a corporation or a Big Oil wildcatter, the President's budget says 
you are in luck.
  When it comes to taxes, the President thinks the tax cuts should be 
extended for an additional 10 years. So, so much for this deficit 
reduction that the Republican Party used to stand for. Now it is clear. 
A few years after the tax cuts--2 years after them--the deficit is 
increasing. It hasn't produced that dramatic increase in revenues that 
everyone talked about. But let's do it for 10 years. No Republican 
should complain to Democrats about deficit reduction when we are 
talking about things that matter to average middle-class people, like 
Medicare and Medicaid, when the tax cuts are proposed for 10 years.
  So the budget reveals once again where President Trump's priorities 
truly lie: not with the working Americans he touts in his speeches but 
with the ultrarich and the corporate elites he rewards with his 
policies. It can't be discarded soon enough.
  One more point--I said it the night of the President's State of the 
Union. I said the truth serum will be his budget. Let's see if the 
President, for once, is telling a little bit of the truth.
  The budget shows all the rhetoric is one way, and the actual budget 
is another. How long will the American people stand for this man's 
hypocrisy--blatant? I have never seen it in a President--Democrat or 
Republican--before.