Washington, D.C. – This week, Senate Republicans in the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees unveiled a $72 billion reconciliation package that includes nearly $40 billion for ICE and $1 billion for Donald Trump’s vanity White House ballroom. A full Senate vote on the package is expected within the next two weeks, and could face a U.S. House vote soon after. Trump and Republican leaders will fully expect U.S. Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY-17), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY-2) and Nick LaLota (R-NY-1) to rubber stamp the costly package full of deeply unpopular priorities.
This reconciliation bill comes on the heels of Republicans in Congress including Reps. Lawler, Garbarino and LaLota gutting more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations — causing health care costs to soar, 15 million Americans to ultimately lose coverage, hospitals and nursing homes to shutter, and hard-working families to face impossible decisions between paying for their medications or putting food on the table. Despite voters consistently ranking health care affordability as their #1 economic worry, Republicans in Congress blew a trillion hole in the American health care system, are stonewalling a resolution House Democrats passed to lower health care costs, and ignoring grave economic concerns of their own constituents.
In response, Save My Care president Brad Woodhouse released the following statement:
“Last year, Republicans like Reps. Lawler, Garbarino and LaLota gutted health care by $1 trillion to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and their corporate donors. Now they’re lining up to reward Donald Trump with billions of dollars for his gold-plated ballroom and his rogue ICE force that violently terrorizes communities. Talk about sick priorities. If these Republicans vote to abuse more tax dollars on Trump’s vanity projects after making health care more unaffordable for working people and seniors, what pathetic excuse will they make to voters?”
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