Golden slams GOP budget priorities as fiscally irresponsible plan to juice elites at expense of working families

WASHINGTON — Congressman Jared Golden (ME-02) released the following statement regarding the House and Senate GOP’s budget plans, following a vote Thursday to advance a harmful budget resolution through the Senate: 

“Americans should be furious that the Senate GOP has picked up where their House counterparts left off, pushing a budget designed to slash taxes for the wealthy and corporations, paid for by cutting Americans’ health care and blowing up the deficit. Rather than pushing back against the many flaws in the House GOP budget resolution, Senate leaders are seeking simply to hide the cost of this plan from the American people with new budgeting gimmicks that, if successful, will set a dangerous precedent for future Congresses to ratchet up spending again and again without ever paying for it.

“We can do so much better than this naked attempt to further tilt the system against the many in favor of the few at the top. If we ask the wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share, we could cut taxes for the middle class and reduce the deficit without harmful cuts to health care. The GOP’s majority is slim, and I know that some of my colleagues on that side of the aisle oppose this irresponsible, harmful approach to government. I am ready to work with them, and anyone else, to pass a responsible budget that puts middle class families first.” 

The House-passed budget resolution called for $4.8 trillion in deficit increases. Nearly all of that spending would fund extension of the 2017 Trump Tax Cuts, which disproportionately benefited the wealthiest households and corporations. The House plan offsets the cost with just $2 trillion in spending cuts, for a total $3.4 trillion increase to the national debt, including estimated interest payments. 

The Senate plan attempts to hide the cost of extending the Trump Tax Cuts by using an accounting trick known as the “current policy baseline.” (“It’s like taking an expensive week-long vacation and then assuming you can spend an extra $1,000 per day forever since you are no longer staying at the Plaza,” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in an interview with the New York Times.) 

An honest accounting of the Senate’s budget resolution shows that it includes $5.8 trillion in new borrowing — twice as much as the House plan and three times as much as the American Rescue Plan — while adding as much as $6.9 trillion to the national debt, including estimated interest payments. 

The Senate resolution also retains language from the House bill instructing the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion in spending, a sum impossible to achieve without substantial cuts to Medicaid. Medicaid provides health coverage to 236,000 people in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District — more than one-third of the population — according to KFF.

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