Martin Heinrich: “I rise to oppose this deeply flawed budget that is terrible for America and particularly harmful to working families.…”

“I rise to oppose this deeply flawed budget that is terrible for America and particularly harmful to working families. The Republican plan that we face today is a budget-busting first step toward issuing massive tax breaks to special interests and to wealthy individuals. This proposed budget fails to improve economic growth or to drive up wages. It should look awfully familiar to all of us because it is a retread of the failed trickle-down economics which exploded budget deficits in the 1980s and squandered the budget surplus we had briefly in the early 2000s. That trickle-down theory ruined our budget and failed to grow the economy then, and we cannot afford to relive those failed policies now. Our Nation faces significant economic challenges today that need to be addressed directly. Wages have barely improved in the past 20 years; the costs of education, childcare, and other essential living expenses continue to climb. Job creation is slowing. From February through September of this year, the economy added the lowest number of jobs in 7 years. Wages are also falling this year. Since the Trump administration took over, 39 States and the District of Columbia have seen workers' wages decline, after adjusting for inflation. Nearly 4 in 10 rural families don't have access to high-speed internet and the opportunities it affords. We all know many of the communities we represent, in both rural and urban areas, still have not fully recovered from the great recession.…”