WASHINGTON - Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) today issued the following statement on the proposal House Republicans introduced in the middle of the night to replace part of the upcoming sequester with cuts that will dramatically slash services and benefits to children, seniors and the disabled.
Ways and Means Ranking Member Sander Levin: “House Republican leaders just aren’t getting the message. It is outrageous that Republicans continue to ask more and more from children, families, seniors, and people with disabilities while asking less and less from the wealthiest Americans. Today’s legislation would be just another hit to working- and middle-class families already hard hit by the recession. Instead of giving the American people the certainty they need, Republicans are pushing us all closer and closer to the edge of the fiscal cliff."
Worst Cuts in So-Called Republican “Sequester Replacement Act"
* Eliminates health care coverage for at least 300,000 kids on the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
* Reduces food and nutrition assistance to every household receiving SNAP benefits (food stamps) almost immediately, including cutting benefits for 20 million children
* Denies nearly 300,000 children school meals, on top of the food stamp cuts
* Zeroes out the Social Services Block Grant, which helps 23 million children, seniors, and people with disabilities become self‐sufficient and economically independent.
** This helps fund programs like Meals on Wheels, prevention of child abuse, and child care for working parents.
* Repeals the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which supports things like cancer screenings for women and immunizations.
** Over 500,000 women would not get the cancer screenings they are slated to receive in FY 2013.
* Leaves in place most of the worst cuts caused by sequestration, including nearly three-fourths of all non-defense cuts and both the mandatory and discretionary cuts in domestic appropriations (funding for education, NIH, and agency budgets), the 2 percent cut to Medicare, and the 7.6 percent cut to Trade Adjustment Assistance.
