New Sanders Report Shows Extent of Republican Budget Gimmicks

WASHINGTON, March 22 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, today released a blistering new report detailing how the Republican budget plan is based on budgetary gimmicks.

“Instead of being honest and upfront about their goals, the Republicans have used a number of budgetary gimmicks to cover-up the devastating impact that their budget will have on the lives of ordinary Americans,” Sanders said. “I find it particularly offensive that Republicans, who are demanding massive cuts in Medicaid, education, nutrition and health care in order to move toward a balanced budget, have no problem adding $38 billion to the deficit through the off-budget Overseas Contingency Operations fund. That is hypocrisy pure and simple.”

Sanders released the report today to help inform the debate on the Senate floor over the Republican proposed budget plan for fiscal year 2016. Sanders said Democrats will try to improve the budget with amendments to create jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, to increase wages by raising the minimum wage and pushing for pay equity, to prevent cuts to Social Security and Medicare and to make certain that billionaires and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes

The report shows the Republican budget relies on four major ‘tricks’ to claim balance, including:

Using the Overseas Contingency Operations fund, which falls outside of the budget caps to significantly increase defense spending;

Masking the true consequences of their policies under the guise of ‘unallocated’ cuts and ‘government-wide’ savings;

Only achieving their goal of ‘balance’ by using made-up ‘dynamic’ numbers; and

Dismantling health care reform, but keeping the savings and revenues that support it.

The full text of the report can be found on the Senate Budget Committee website here.