President Trump’s just-released 2021 budget proposal would leave seniors and other vulnerable citizens hungrier, sicker, and poorer. The spending plan betrays the president’s promises “not to touch” Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The administration wants to slash $478 billion from Medicare over a decade, which could compromise health care access for millions of seniors. It would gut Medicaid with some $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years, undermining older Americans’ access to long-term care. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) also would be slashed. Other cold-hearted cuts include the elimination of grants that feed low income seniors and help keep their homes heated in the winter. Though the budget proposal likely won’t be adopted by Congress, it does reveal the president’s cruel priorities heading into the 2020 election.
“One would hope that in an election year when politicians like to put forward their most popular ideas, the President would understand the benefits of protecting our most cherished income and health security programs. It’s time he delivers what the American people have been asking for, as indicated by poll after poll, and not the dangerous proposals of his fiscal axe-men.”- Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
Among other things, the President’s FY 2021 budget:
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Cuts $478 billion from Medicare over ten years.
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Cuts Social Security [Disability Insurance and SSI] benefits by 90 billion over 10 years.
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Cuts $1 trillion from Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies over ten years.
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Eliminates all federal block grant programs that help to fund Meals on Wheels.
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Eliminates the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
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Eliminates the Senior Community Service Employment Program
“This budget foreshadows a broader attack on seniors’ earned benefits that President Trump hinted at in a recent interview, when he said that cutting ‘entitlements’ is ‘the easiest of all things.’ Our most vulnerable citizens should not be expected to pay for policies that favor the wealthy and big corporations, most notably the Trump/GOP tax cuts of 2017,” said National Committee president and CEO Max Richtman.
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