WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Senator Tom Udall, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, released the following statement after the Trump administration released its 2019 budget proposal:
“The president’s budget proposal is yet another confirmation of this administration’s dangerous and extreme priorities. It repeats the same toxic attacks — on working families’ health care and their livelihoods — that the American people resoundingly rejected last year. Thankfully, this dangerous plan is dead on arrival here in Congress, where we’ve just passed a bipartisan budget agreement for the next two years, which completely discards President Trump’s offensive proposal.
“The Trump budget makes unconscionable cuts that would wreak havoc on New Mexico and cause real suffering for countless New Mexicans. It would slash Medicare and Medicaid and repeal the Affordable Care Act, taking away health care from hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans and millions of Americans. The budget is an assault on struggling families, gutting funding for the very programs that help people grappling with poverty and trying to get ahead. It drastically cuts research on climate change and dismantles essential protections for clean air, clean water, public lands, and a healthy future for our kids. The Department of Defense may be strengthened in the short term with increased funding, but by mortgaging diplomacy, education, and families across the country we will ultimately sap the strength of the American people, including the military, in the future. And, this budget once again shows this administration’s disregard for the federal government’s trust and treaty obligations to provide basic services to Native Americans.
“President Trump would have you believe that our nation can’t afford to invest in the programs that working people rely on. Yet, this irresponsible and draconian budget was written by the same administration that celebrated the enactment of a $1.5 trillion tax cut for the richest Americans and for the biggest corporations. This budget will likely not become law – but it gives us another clear window into where President Trump stands: on the side of wealthy and powerful people like him, and against working New Mexicans."
