GOP Budget vs. Democratic Alternative
REPUBLICAN BUDGET | DEMOCRATIC ALTERNATIVE | |
Economic Growth, Investment, & Opportunity | • Pursues misguided austerity policies that limit job growth in this recovery • Guts investments in education, scientific research, advanced manufacturing, public safety, and other economically crucial activities by cutting non-defense discretionary funding well below sequester levels from 2016 onward • Cuts transportation investments by over $52 billion in 2015 • Refuses to extend emergency unemployment benefits • Fails to support minimum-wage increase • Slashes education funding, including $145 billion from Pell Grants and $89 billion from K-12 education through 2024 • Increases student loan debt • Rejects economic potential of comprehensive immigration reform | • Supports policies that boost job creation • Supports critical investments in R&D, clean energy, manufacturing, and other keys to global competitiveness • Invests in the President's multi-year surface transportation reauthorization, protecting more than 700,000 jobs • Extends emergency unemployment benefits, saving 200,000 jobs this year • Supports an increase in the minimum wage • Supports jobs for veterans • Provides $76 billion for early childhood education and maintains other education investments • Ensures college affordability through lower student loan debt and new repayment options • Supports comprehensive immigration reform, boosting the economy by 5.4% and reducing deficits by $900 billion over 20 years |
Tax Fairness | • Provides millionaires an average $200,000 tax break while raising taxes on middle-class families by $2,000 • Protects tax subsidies for big, integrated oil companies—the top 5 of which had $93 billion in profits in 2013 | • Opposes tax reform plans that would lower the top individual income tax rate while raising taxes on middle-class families • Expands low- and middle-income tax incentives for work and school • Expands the EITC for childless workers |
Commitments to Seniors | • Ends Medicare guarantee, replaces with voucher shifting financial risk to seniors • Raises prescription drug costs for seniors • Cuts base Medicaid program by $732 billion, jeopardizing seniors' access to long-term care and other supports | • Preserves the Medicare guarantee • Preserves important Affordable Care Act benefits for seniors, including help with Rx drug costs • Ensures seniors and people with disabilities continue to get needed Medicaid services • Protects Social Security from privatization |
Health Care & Social Safety Net | • Undermines patient protections and denies 25 million Americans access to affordable health coverage by repealing Affordable Care Act • Threatens health care for 60 million Americans with steep Medicaid cuts • Cuts nutrition assistance by $137 billion | • Preserves Affordable Care Act coverage expansions and patient protections, such as young adult coverage and no denials for pre-existing conditions • Protects Medicaid for working families • Preserves nutrition assistance |