Press Statement
Trump’s Budget Proposal Should be ‘Dead on Arrival;’ Deep Cuts to Medicaid, Planned Parenthood and Support for Low-Income Families Would Destroy Safety Net, Cause Lasting Harm to Women and Families

“The FY2019 budget proposal the Trump administration released today would undermine the health and well-being of tens of millions of women and families, leaving many more people in this country without health care, food, housing and other supports they need to survive. Women, people of color, seniors, workers, low-income families and others would suffer the most if Congress were to adopt Trump’s budget proposal. It should be dead on arrival and Congress should instead develop a budget that prioritizes the health and well-being of this country’s women and families.

Trump’s budget reflects all the wrong priorities. It abandons the traditional role of government and undermines our values as a nation by shredding the safety net and withholding support for people who are paid low wages, and especially women and families.

It is now entirely clear that the administration planned, all along, to pay for its tax plan – which was a windfall for the wealthy – by punishing the poor and those in need. We are especially concerned about the continued attack on the Affordable Care Act, deep cuts to Medicaid, the defunding of Planned Parenthood and other egregious efforts to deny women, LGBTQ people and low-income communities access to essential health care. The budget also includes yet another attack on health care access and immigrants’ rights with a ban on abortion coverage for people in immigration detention facilities.

And what the president calls ‘work requirements’ for health care and housing are actually blatant excuses to take critical support away from people who are already struggling. The expansion of such requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and unemployment insurance, coupled with cuts to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, slash badly needed funding for these programs and the support the individuals and families who depend on them need to survive.

We are still not fooled by the inclusion of a paid parental leave plan that would strain already fragile unemployment insurance programs, exacerbate state-based disparities, and exclude approximately 75 percent of working people who need family or medical leave for their own serious health issues, to care for seriously ill or injured family members, or to deal with a military family member’s deployment. Although the administration’s attention to this issue is a clear sign of progress after years of advocacy and clear public demand, this is the same sham plan the president proposed last year and more than 340 organizations have exposed as bad, woefully inadequate policy.

Trump’s budget proposal also cuts the U.S. Department of Labor’s funding by 10 percent. And despite historic and long overdue attention to the need to strengthen and enforce our nation’s workplace equity laws, it allocates no additional resources for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and slashes by more than two-thirds funding for the only federal agency mandated to represent the needs of working women – the Women’s Bureau. Such drastic cuts threaten the safety and fairness of our nation’s workplaces at a critically important time.

Our country will suffer immensely if Congress does not reject the Trump budget proposal. It is yet the latest indication of the president’s dangerous agenda and indifference to the real health and economic challenges facing the nation’s women and families. It must not advance.”

For more information, contact us:

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About the National Partnership for Women & Families

The National Partnership for Women & Families is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group dedicated to promoting fairness in the workplace, reproductive health and rights, access to quality, affordable health care and policies that help all people meet the dual demands of work and family.

More information is available at NationalPartnership.org.

For general inquiries, please email press@nationalpartnership.org.