Boyle Leads Fight Against GOP Budget That Betrays the Middle Class as Trump Tanks the Economy

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan F. Boyle (PA-02), Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, delivered an opening statement at a Rules Committee meeting sharply condemning the Republican budget proposal. Boyle criticized the plan for including the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history while handing trillions in tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans - all as Donald Trump's reckless economic policies continue to push the nation toward a recession.

Remarks as delivered and video are below:

 

(Click for video of remarks as delivered) 

Ranking Member Boyle's full opening remarks as delivered:

The President has instructed the House of Representatives to close your eyes and pass his bill. I hope my remarks this morning will help open some eyes.

Let's look at the last three months, or even just the last week.

Three months ago, no one was predicting - not a liberal economist, not a conservative economist - no one was predicting a recession.

Now, it is the consensus projection that we will soon be in a recession, if we aren't in one now.

There have been three recessions in the last 25 years, in this century:

2001, after the 9/11 attacks; 2008, when the housing bubble burst; and 2020, the pandemic.

Each of those was caused by an external event that I just described.

What is causing this recession? Donald Trump's policies. Every single day, we are seeing carnage in the markets.

Every growth projection from three months ago is now showing a projection of recession. Job losses, retirement savings - 401(k)s are becoming 201(k)s and dropping.

This is all a direct result, not of a terrorist attack, not of a pandemic, but of President Donald Trump's wrongheaded policies.

So, Madam Chair, I respectfully suggest we should be here as a Congress working on a bipartisan basis - how we will stop and reverse the tremendous damage that has been done over the last two and a half months, but especially in the last week.

And frankly, if we don't come together and do that soon, I believe, as do others, that it can and will get far worse.

But instead, we are here not to talk about what everyone else is focusing on - from CNBC and news networks on all sides of the ideological spectrum and just everyday Americans.

Instead, we're here to talk about this bill that essentially is trillions of dollars in tax cuts paid for either by further debt or deep cuts, including and especially to Medicaid.

Now, I will say this: there is a little challenge in terms of presenting remarks in opposition, because I'm not sure which bill to speak about - the House Republican bill or the Senate Republican bill - because the two bills are 99.8% apart.

I will say this: I give House Republicans, led by the Budget Committee Chairman, credit. I profoundly disagree - and made that clear over our 12-hour markup - with how much I disagree with their work, but I respect that they at least did the work.

I respect the fact that they put down in pen and paper what they believe - put one and a half trillion dollars, at least, of cuts, which include the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history, as well as other programs.

Senate Republicans? They just gave up. They put even more for tax cuts and include nothing in cuts - 0.2%. Why? Because they're using, with a straight face, something called current policy baseline.

Now, that has a very official-sounding term. Surely, that must be some well-thought-out way of looking at things.

No - current policy baseline is intellectually bankrupt. It is pretending like math no longer exists. It is saying that we don't have to pay for the extension of the tax cuts next year, or the next five years, or the next decade and beyond.

It's pretending like those trillions of dollars in costs that CBO has certified go to zero.

I'll say this: not only do I oppose the use of current policy baseline in this context - I oppose it, period.

This is a dangerous precedent to set, and I would say to my Republican friends: if this precedent is set, just imagine the next time there's a Democratic trifecta. Do you really want current policy baseline to be used by your friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle? And then how in the world will we really tackle the growing debt crisis that we have?

We all know current policy baseline is a complete fraud.

Frankly, if this becomes the precedent and becomes the new way of doing things, I don't know why CBO would even exist.

There would be no need for it. Pass a bill, fund something for a week, then immediately pass another bill and say, "Well, we're adopting current policy baseline - that has become permanent."

That's the way things will happen around here from now on, and we will look back at this moment as the moment of origin -  of when it began.

Now, finally, I will say this: whether it's the House Republican plan or the Senate Republican plan, or some combination of the two, we do know enough to say - as CBO has confirmed - this bill, or either version, will include hundreds of billions of dollars of cuts to Medicaid.

44% of the people in my district, Madam Chair, are on Medicaid. Tens of millions of Americans are on Medicaid. They might know it by a different name depending on your state.

This will have a devastating impact on my district, on my state, and all 435 congressional districts throughout our land.

Why would we cut Medicaid?

Well, what the other side is attempting to do is to use those cuts in order to help offset the largest tax cut to the top 1% in American history.

I believe that that is wrong. I believe that it is immoral.

I believe instead we should come together - and in conclusion - on a bipartisan basis, reclaim Article One power, and correct the damage that this Administration has done over the last week and over the last three months.

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