Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus Campaign for Children, released the following statement regarding last night’s passage by the House of a sweeping budget bill:
The House of Representatives, the people elected to protect Americans and our children, have voted to sacrifice babies for billionaires. There is nothing in the big bill that lawmakers passed last night that is beautiful for children, but the absolute gutting of children’s food and health care is particularly ugly. Under this bill, over 10 million people, including children, will lose access to health care, millions of others will go hungry. And that’s before we even get to the provisions that will decimate public education by installing a federal voucher program that is specifically designed to help wealthy people avoid capital gains taxes. Or the Child Tax Credit that will leave behind 20 million children because their parents make too little to qualify and will discriminate against nearly 5 million young citizens because their parents don’t have a Social Security number. Or the myriad other cuts that will intentionally harm children.
This bill is a throwback to the Gilded Age, when the uber-wealthy controlled industry and government, and everyone else — especially children — shouldered the burdens. The bill also increases the debt by trillions of dollars – yet another burden we will ask the next generation to shoulder.
That said, I believe there is hope: the majority of the 500+ amendments that were filed in the Rules Committee were about defending and protecting the nation’s children from these cuts. Members were not allowed to vote on those amendments, but they were able to lift up the negative consequences that this bill will have on our nation’s children and families. Although some disingenuous lawmakers continue to insist that children will not be harmed, First Focus Campaign for Children will continue to support all efforts to make children’s needs and concerns heard and to get them addressed.