Video: Kaine Speaks on Senate Floor Regarding Republicans’ Bill to Cut Taxes for the Wealthy by Slashing Programs Virginians Rely On

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Budget Committee, spoke on the Senate floor raising alarm about President Trump and Republicans’ plan to cut critical funding for programs that Virginians rely on and use that to fund tax cuts for billionaires. Republicans are expected to bring a budget resolution that tees up tax cuts for billionaires at the expense of middle-class Americans to the Senate floor this week. Republicans are using a legislative process known as “reconciliation,” which allows certain legislation to be expedited and passed in the Senate by a simple majority, avoiding the 60-vote threshold needed for most other legislation.

“If the Republican majorities here and in the House cared about the budget, we’d have an appropriations deal… Instead, what Democrats are hearing is that Republicans don’t want to do the traditional appropriations budget. They want to do a continuing resolution, which would be very harmful,” said Kaine.

“This discussion is a Trojan horse,” Kaine continued. “This is about an effort to dramatically cut spending programs that support everyday Virginians and everyday Americans and then to take those dollars and use them to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations. Taking from people who rely upon community health clinics, rely upon Medicaid, rely upon student loans—taking those dollars and then using them to fund tax cuts for the wealthy.”

“We can’t convince people that ‘oh, this is about border security and national defense’ when we’ve got a demonstrable bipartisan track record of being able to advance in those areas,” said Kaine.

“Let’s just be clear about what this is,” Kaine concluded. “It’s a Trojan horse effort to amass savings off the backs of everyday people to pour into tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans who don’t need help. We need to resist it in every way we can, and I look forward to joining my colleagues in doing so.”  

President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are currently negotiating an extension to Trump’s 2017 tax law, which cut taxes for large corporations and the highest-income earners and substantially increased the federal deficit. They are now proposing broad-based tariffs and massive, across-the-board cuts to federal programs like Medicaid to fund these tax cuts for billionaires. Tax estimates have shown that if fully enacted, Trump’s tariffs could raise costs by $2,500 to nearly $4,000 per household, and American consumers could lose between $46 billion to $78 billion in spending power each year.

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