On Senate Budget Chairman’s Plan — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Statement by Robert Greenstein, President, On Senate Budget Chairman’s Plan — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
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"While Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi’s new budget plan differs in some significant ways with House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price’s plan, the similarities greatly outweigh the differences. Like Chairman Price’s plan, the Enzi plan would increase poverty, decrease key investments to promote opportunity and foster economic growth, and rely on enormous “magic asterisks” to balance the budget. It would: Balance the budget in ten years through massive cuts in domestic programs, with no revenue contribution; Hit programs for low- and moderate-income Americans exceptionally hard, with about two-thirds of its budget cuts likely coming from programs for the less fortunate, thereby exacerbating poverty and inequality; Repeal health reform and cut Medicaid deeply on top of that, likely causing tens of millions of people to become uninsured or underinsured; Essentially balance the budget only on paper, with the help of two huge “magic asterisks” that are as large as Chairman Price’s — about $1.2 trillion in entitlement cuts over ten years that are left essentially unspecified, and about $1 trillion from the repeal of health reform’s revenue-raising measures without any identified replacement (as explained below);"

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