Afro American: The struggle for equity

Congressman Elijah Cummings

The struggle for equity

On May 25, Senate Democrats unanimously rejected a Republican-passed House budget plan (commonly known as the “Ryan Plan”).  Maryland Senators Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski joined in that principled rejection for the same reasons that compelled my earlier “No” vote in the House.

Foremost among our concerns about the Republican proposal is this.  It would reward millionaires, billionaires and “Big Oil” that do not need more federal help, while throwing most of the suffering on the backs of working families, our elderly and our poorest citizens.

I do not make this challenge lightly, but consider this.

Shared Sacrifice

Our country’s economy and government face serious financial challenges.  As in the past, all Americans should step up to the plate and share in the sacrifices needed to balance our books.

The Republicans, however, would provide an additional $1 trillion in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, while also preserving tax breaks for Big Oil and those corporations that now are shipping American jobs overseas.

We Democrats reject that approach.

Stripped of its gloss, the Republicans’ proposal is no more than the same old Bush Era “trickle down” approach that – added to unthinking deregulation, the resulting financial meltdown and two major wars paid for on credit – led to our budget deficits in the first place.

Instead, we Democrats would reform the income tax code by better protecting middle income families, while also generating much of the revenue needed to balance the budget by allowing special-interest tax breaks for the most powerful and most affluent to expire.

Investing in Our Future

Not content with placing a greater share of the tax burden on working families, the Republicans would rob our children of a better future.  They would cut federal aid to elementary and secondary education by 25 percent, cut extra reading and math help to 1 million low-income children, and cut “Pell Grant” aid for nearly 10 million college students.

This would be wrong-headed.  It would be what farmers used to call “eating our seed corn, leaving nothing left to plant for next year.”

The better, Democratic approach is to invest in our future, preserving the gains enacted during the last three years.

Caring for Those in Need

Perhaps most morally bankrupt of all the Republican budget proposals is their attack on our national commitment to Medicaid and Medicare.

Republicans would slash federal Medicaid spending by $771 billion over the next 10 years – demanding, in effect, that seniors and the disabled pay for most of that $1 trillion in additional Republican tax breaks for the most affluent.

For any of us who do not realize how critical Medicaid funding is to our seniors’ well-being, consider this.

Fully 42 percent of all long-term nursing and in-home care for America’s senior citizens is paid for by Medicaid.  When Medicaid’s care for individuals with disabilities is included, the percentage increases to two-thirds.

The Republican cuts to Medicaid would be catastrophic.  Facing serious budget constraints, state governments would be unable to effectively cover a $771 billion Republican cut in federal funding.

Our seniors, along with their middle-aged children, would then be left with the bills, bulldozing them into a financial landfill.

The Republicans’ demand that we cut Medicare benefits would be just as damaging.
 
Republicans would immediately raise our current seniors’ healthcare costs by taking away the free preventive care benefit and reinstituting the prescription drug “donut hole.”

Even more pernicious, for those Americans who now are under 55 – and despite their paying into the Medicare Trust Fund for all of their working lives – Medicare’s guaranteed benefits would be taken away.

Under the Republicans’ Medicare proposal, future seniors would receive a voucher from the government each year and be forced to shop for their own private health insurance.  Private insurance company bureaucrats would be placed in charge of their healthcare.

The projected additional cost for those seniors would be substantial.  In Maryland, seniors’ out-of-pocket annual expenses would more than double by 2022 under the Republican proposal, reaching an individual budget-busting burden of $13,368 each year.

Democrats are committed to finding an equitable path to national solvency, as we demonstrated by the measures in our Affordable Care Act that extended the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by eight years.

What we will never accept, however, are misguided efforts to balance our national budget solely on the backs of America’s working families.

Washington must find a better way.

Congressman Elijah Cummings represents Maryland’s 7th Congressional District
 in the United States House of Representatives.