Senator Bernie Sanders thinks that Trump’s budget bill is “the most dangerous piece of legislation in the modern history of our country.”
On Sunday evening, the country’s most recognizable socialist took time to offer a scathing rebuke of the president’s most significant piece of legislation to date, highlighting the bill’s obvious skew towards the wealthy at the expense of the working class.
“If you are in the top 1 percent, you and the class you represent will receive a $975 billion tax break—$975 billion tax break at a time when the richest people in this country have never ever had it so good,” Sanders said. “If you are among the wealthiest two-tenths of 1 percent— not talking about 1 percent talking about the top two-tenths of one percent—you will be able to pay zero taxes on your $30 million inheritance. So all of you folks out there who are waiting to inherit at least $30 million, today is a good day for you! Collectively, you will receive approximately $211 billion in tax breaks. For the top two-tenths of 1 percent: congratulations, you hit the jackpot.”
Sanders then moved to the massive corporate bias baked into Trump’s bill.
“If you are a large corporation, and you want to throw workers out on the street and replace them with artificial intelligence, or maybe you want to shift your profits to the Cayman Islands or other tax havens: You are going to get a $918 billion tax break. Congratulations to the CEOs of large profitable corporations,” he said sarcastically.
The senator from Vermont was most incensed about the bill’s attacks on Medicaid.
“If you are concerned about health care, which I suspect that everybody in the world is, this bill throws over 16 million people off the health insurance they have, according to the Congressional Budget Office, by cutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by over $1.1 trillion,” Sanders said. “In other words, the top 1 percent [is] getting a $975 billion tax break, and that is coming directly by throwing 16 million people off of the health insurance they have.
“Over 50,000 Americans will die unnecessarily every year,” Sanders warned. “Fifty thousand Americans will die unnecessarily in order to give tax breaks to billionaires who don’t need them. In other words, this bill is literally a death sentence for low-income and working-class people.”
Even two Republican senators have come out against the bill on the grounds that it will hurt their own constituents and possibly set the GOP back with voters in 2026 and 2028.
“Alright, so what do I tell six hundred sixty-three thousand people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore, guys?” Senator Thom Tillis said Sunday, shortly after announcing his retirement. “The people in the White House advising the president … are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise.”
As Trump puts on his faux-populist act and lauds himself for little gifts like his no taxes on tips policy, it’s obvious that this bill is tailor-made for people like him: those who are incredibly wealthy and have a vested interest in protecting that wealth, even at the expense of health care for those in need.
“Bottom line is that this legislation is the most significant attack on the health care needs of the American people in our country’s history,” Sanders said.
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