U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan GrishamU.S. CONGRESSIONAL News:
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a member of the House Budget Committee, helped to kick off today’s hearing on the Republican budget plan. She delivered the following remarks:
“What you’ve heard from all of my colleagues is while our job is to figure out a balanced approach to a federal budget that is meaningful and makes the most sense for all Americans, what we have again is a budget that is imbalanced and, frankly, inappropriate. The really tough part for me is that it’s not surprising and since I’ve been on this committee it’s certainly nothing new. It’s a reflection now of both the President’s budget and the now-defeated ACA repeal in that it undermines our commitment to every single middle class priority.
“So instead of investing in education and job training, transportation, veterans care, medical research, or the healthcare system, this budget signs a massive check, again, as you’ve heard, to the wealthiest Americans and corporations. And I have constituents in New Mexico who don’t know where their next meal coming from; who don’t know how they’re going pay for college, and who, right now, still can’t afford go to the doctor. Twenty-percent of New Mexicans live poverty; one out of every four New Mexico children are food insecure, and my state has the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation.
“This budget prioritized benefits for the richest Americans instead of these constituents who are working hard every day to provide for their families and make ends meet. I want to introduce you to a constituent of mine, LaNae Havens. She’s a single mother of a young son, Connor, who is working full time and most recently in describing to me about how she manages a child care benefit or a SNAP benefit to make ends meet so that she can continue to work full time because she’s doing everything right to care and support her family. She was recently offered a 53-cent-an-hour wage increase. Now her choice is to take that wage increase, to continue to try to move into the Middle Class to get out of poverty. But in doing so, she will lose approximately $600 in public benefits. So the most noticeable is she will lose that food assistance, SNAP.
“These are the choices that this budget not only endorses, but it exacerbates by even removing the safety net so that my constituent would have no housing, no SNAP, no child care, and no hope for the future of her family. This is fundamentally unjust, and quite frankly, it’s bad policy if we’re trying to get America working. This is an America First budget only for Americans that are already well-connected, wealthy and powerful. I understand the goal of my colleagues to enact, I think, a fiscally responsible budget. But the record-setting cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP and other programs that provide basic living standards to some of the most vulnerable constituents in my district and yours is a devastating effort to a system that’s already stretched too thin. This is short-sited, arrogant and it’s an insult to my constituents who struggle to find jobs, pay their bills and provide their kids with a better future. I urge my colleagues to oppose this incredibly irresponsible budget.”
