Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Republicans’ Radical Budget Resolution Prioritizing Tax Cuts For Billionaires Over Programs Vital To American Families
Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor ahead of this week’s vote on House Republicans’ radical budget resolution, which prioritizes tax cuts for billionaires at the expense of middle-class Americans. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Over the last month, it’s become clear how Donald Trump and Republicans govern.
Donald Trump and Republicans have focused on things most Americans don’t care about or don’t even like, while refusing to focus on things Americans actually do care about.
Exhibit A of things that American’s don’t like is what’s happening today in the House of Representatives.
As soon as today, House Republicans will advance a budget resolution clearing the way for perhaps the most draconian cuts to Medicaid in American history – all so Republicans can cut taxes for their billionaires club, and have the American people pick up the tab and pay the price.
This is in the category of things Americans really don’t like.
There’s only one proper way to describe the Republican plan that’s moving through the house this week: radical.
The Republican plan radically hurts American families, while radically helping the billionaire’s club.
Republicans are so eager to cut taxes for billionaires that they’d increase the deficit by trillions of dollars or more to make room for their sweetheart deal tax cuts for billionaires like Elon Musk.
Republicans are also pushing for trillions in cuts for working and middle class Americans – endangering everything from Medicaid to nutrition programs to housing assistance and so much more.
The Republican bill could cut as much as $880 billion from Medicaid alone. That means eighty million Americans – kids, veterans, people with disabilities, rural Americans, the elderly – are all at risk.
And why? Why are Republicans putting these people at such risk and hurting things that benefit them – not waste, things that actually go to people and help them?
They’re doing it to make life easier for the billionaire’s club. They’re doing it to cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy.
Last week here in the Senate, during vote-a-rama, I pushed an amendment that said we should have no tax breaks for billionaires.
I also pushed an amendment calling for no billionaire tax breaks if even one dollar of Medicaid spending was cut.
What's more important? Helping people get health care, helping the elderly stay in nursing homes, helping our veterans – especially those who may be out of work – from getting the health care they need? What's more important? That, or a tax break for someone who's very wealthy already?
Well, on both amendments – the one that said no tax breaks for billionaires and the one that said no tax breaks for billionaires even if one dollar of Medicaid spending was cut Republicans overwhelmingly said no.
Let us hope – maybe a distant hope – but let us hope that House Republicans show more courage, compassion, and common sense to reject these horrible, harmful, radical cuts.
This is not what the American people signed up for. Billionaire tax cuts is a clear example of things Americans don’t like. Just look at all the backlash Republicans are seeing in their town halls.
And Republicans know all this.
Republicans know that cutting taxes for wealthy billionaires is something most Americans don’t like at all. They didn't campaign on it.
I didn't hear any of our Republican colleagues who were running home and say, I want to cut taxes for billionaires, although that's the first thing they're doing when they get here.
And yet Republicans seem to be full steam ahead all the same.
This, of course, is part of the pattern I’m talking about: over the last month, Donald Trump and Republicans have spent all their energy focused on things most Americans care about or don’t like, while refusing to focus on things Americans actually do care about, like inflation and rising prices.
You already see Americans are upset with the Trump Administration because prices continue to rise, as they have over the last many years.
Donald Trump promised to bring down costs on day one. He said the first day he's elected he's going to start bringing costs down, but instead, inflation has gone up.
Grocery prices are up.
Chicken, pork, and steak are all more expensive.
Eggs are up 15% from last month.
All the while, Republicans are focused on things that Americans either don’t like or don’t care about.
Americans don’t like, for instance, pardoning violent insurrectionists. It was one of the least popular things that we have seen. A recent poll from the Washington Post is clear.
But that was the first major decision Donald Trump made as President – the first major decision.
Most Americans don’t care whether you call it the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America or something else.
Most Americans don’t care about hotels in Gaza or annexing Canada.
Yet these are the things Donald Trump has focused on, to distract people from the fact that he doesn’t actually have real solutions to the things Americans really worry about.
And of course, there are the things Republicans are focused on that make things actively worse.
Most Americans don’t think it’s a great idea to get into a trade war with our closest allies.
That’s going to make trips to the grocery store even more expensive than they are now.
And of course, while most Americans do care about making government more efficient, and while everyone certainly supports cutting waste, Americans don’t like the harmful chaos that Elon Must and DOGE have unleashed.
They don’t want to see a rich billionaire treat federal workers with immense disrespect.
And make no mistake: Americans did not sign up for DOGE to endanger their Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
That’s not government efficiency. That’s not government efficiency and what DOGE is doing is chaos.
And Americans know the chaos being unleashed by DOGE is causing a lot of harm to the country.
Americans don’t want to see air safety personnel fired in droves, no questions asked.
That’s not government efficiency. That’s chaos and danger at the airports, in airplanes, at security checkpoints.
Our veterans don’t want to see the VA starved of resources. Someone came over the other day and said “my brother is in a VA hospital. He has a rare disease and seven of the people were let go. Who is going to take care of him?”
They don’t want to hear about cuts to the Veterans Crisis Line, where veterans who may have come back from Iraq or Afghanistan with PTSD or other problems have a place to go and a place to call.
That’s not government efficiency, cutting the veterans’ crisis line. That’s just more chaos, more harm, more hurt.
Can you imagine the callousness of firing personnel who operate the veterans suicide crisis line, as was reported by staff at the VA? That is a cruel and vindictive way to treat America’s heroes.
And of course, our 9/11 families did not sign up for DOGE trying to cut the 9/11 Survivor Health Program. The people who rushed to the towers – the brave heroes, police, fire, first responders, and others – the days after that horrible day of 9/11 and got illnesses in their lungs and gastrointestinal tracks and now are getting some help didn't sign up to cut that.
But that’s precisely what DOGE tried to do.
I am glad to have pushed President Trump and DOGE to reverse themselves on that issue, but they should be reversing themselves on many other issues also that hurt people so badly.
But the takeaway is very clear: what DOGE is doing is not making government more efficient. It’s creating more chaos.
And if there’s one thing Americans don’t want in these turbulent times, its more chaos.
Rather than actually cut waste in government in a smart way, a careful way, an effective way, rather than put the needs of working people first, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the Republican party have plunged basic government services into chaos and taken a meat axe at programs that help workers, middle class families, and low-income Americans.
All for the sake – all for the sake – of cutting taxes for billionaires and mega-corporations.
Republicans are all focused on the wrong things.
They are helping the wrong people.
And they are ignoring the vast majority of Americans they promised to serve.
Under Donald Trump’s Republican party, billionaires win, American families lose.
So let me say it all again: over the last month, it’s become clear how Donald Trump and Republicans govern.
Donald Trump and Republicans have focused on things most Americans don’t care about or don’t like, while refusing to focus on things Americans actually do care about.
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