Congressional Budget Would Place Heavy Burden on Working Families While Slashing Taxes for the Wealthy

WASHINGTON, DC—Today, UnidosUS (formerly NCLR) denounced the Senate budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 25. The budget amends H. Con. Res. 71, the budget blueprint passed by the House earlier this month, and will slash funding for crucial programs to provide massive tax cuts to wealthy people and large corporations. Among the budget’s most devastating cuts are to programs that help children, seniors and working families stay above the poverty line.

“Cutting billions of dollars from key programs that help millions of Americans, including many Latino families, will have a catastrophic impact on their ability to meet basic needs like putting food on the table and a roof over their heads,” said UnidosUS President and CEO Janet Murguía.

The budget resolution that passed last night by a narrow margin would result in a massive cut of more than $1.8 trillion to Medicaid, Medicare and Affordable Care Act subsidies for health insurance and health programs, and $800 billion in reductions to income security programs, which include child nutrition programs, SNAP and refundable portions of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit. In addition, it would advance efforts to restrict eligibility for taxpaying immigrant families and their U.S.-citizen children for the CTC—an effective tool that lifted nearly one million Latinos out of poverty in 2015.

“The budget would strip billions from our community, impacting the nearly four million U.S.-citizen children who have an immigrant parent, risking pushing them into poverty. To do this while providing a deficit-busting tax cut to the wealthy is shameful and goes against our values as a nation,” Murguía added.