By Eric Stock
WASHINGTON – Democratic U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois have slammed the $4 trillion budget blueprint which passed the Senate Thursday in a 51-49 vote.
It includes President Trump’s call for overhauling the tax code by cutting rates for individuals and corporations while making deep cuts to social programs.
“This plan doesn’t fix our broken tax code or even simplify it,” Durbin said. “It cuts taxes for corporations and individuals who earn more than $730,000 per year, and raises taxes on the nearly one-third of Americans who make between $50,000 and $150,000 a year. This has to stop. It’s time we looked at tax reform and economic growth in terms of the family room, not the board room.”
Duckworth voted to amend the budget to prevent Republicans from ending the state and local tax deduction and to prevent the budget from being used to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000. She also voted to restore funding that was cut from safety net programs. Those efforts were defeated by Senate Republicans.
“This Republican budget would recklessly slash funding for vital programs that tens of millions of seniors, students, veterans and hardworking families rely on,” Duckworth said in a statement. “It would scale back our investments in job-creating infrastructure projects and add trillions of dollars to the deficit – all to pay for massive tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthiest among us. That’s downright irresponsible. The American people deserve better.”
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
