04.03.25

Senator Murray Slams Republicans’ Blueprint to Give Billionaires More Tax Cuts—and Pretend They Are Free—While Kicking Kids Off Medicaid

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former chair of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement on the release of Senate Republicans’ modified budget resolution.

  

“Republicans blowing up our national debt to dole out massive tax cuts for billionaires is nothing new, but their attempt to use a ridiculous budget gimmick to try and evade longstanding budget rules and pretend their billionaire tax giveaways are somehow free is some next-level stuff.

  

“My preschool students would understand that zero and $3.8 trillion are not the same thing —and I don’t think it’s too much to ask United States Senators to admit that same basic fact. But since Republicans are plowing ahead with budget gimmicks so they can give billionaires new, permanent tax cuts, here’s a question: does that same imaginary math work for child care and housing too? Or is the magical thinking just to help billionaires?

  

“It’s worth noting that while Republicans cheer on Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s devastating cuts—insisting our country cannot afford to keep our Social Security offices staffed, or fund cancer research, or spend a single penny more to invest in working families—their number one priority in Congress is blowing up the deficit to give billionaires new tax breaks while kicking kids off Medicaid and cutting nutrition assistance families count on.”

  

The budget blueprint Senate Republicans unveiled today sets Republicans up to dole out $5.3 trillion in new tax cuts that will disproportionately benefit billionaires, the ultra-rich, and largest corporations. But to help allow themselves to make the tax cuts permanent without making even more devastating cuts to, for example, Americans’ health care under the Senate’s strict budget reconciliation rules, Republicans want to use a gimmick known as “current policy baseline” to pretend that extending $3.8 billion in tax cuts won’t cost the country a cent–and to try to make them permanent in clear violation of the longstanding Byrd rule that enforces reconciliation in the Senate. The budget resolution also sets Republicans up to make massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and other critical domestic programs.

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