Taken together, budget proposals released by House Republicans and the far-right agenda outlined by the Trump-aligned Project 2025 initiative would "create a harsher country with higher poverty and less opportunity" while simultaneously delivering more tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the United States.
That's according to a
detailed analysis published Tuesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which examines the House Republican Study Committee's (RSC) budget blueprint, the GOP House Budget Committee's (HBC) proposed budget, and the Project 2025 agenda crafted by dozens of right-wing organizations and former Trump administration officials.
Analyzing the three proposals in tandem "brings the implications of influential conservative policymakers' and a think tank's broader fiscal policy agenda into sharper focus," CBPP said Tuesday, explaining how—if enacted—the plans would slash critical social programs such as Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance, disinvest from public infrastructure and medical research, attack immigrants, and double down on "skewed, expensive, and ineffective tax cuts" for the rich.
The liberal think tank estimates that the three right-wing proposals would strip Medicaid coverage from tens of millions of people in the U.S., take early learning services from roughly 800,000 children, curb cash assistance for millions of seniors, and cut nutrition assistance for tens of millions of low-income families. Such proposed cuts are
consistent with the budgets Republican nominee Donald Trump put forth during his first term in the White House.
"The RSC budget calls for cutting average Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits by about 22%," CBPP's new analysis observes. "This cut would affect 41 million people participating in SNAP."
"And Project 2025 calls for gutting summer food assistance programs that children in families with low incomes rely on when school is out, which could include the new Summer EBT program that is expected to provide grocery benefits to more than 21 million children this summer," CBPP added.
The think tank emphasized that "behind these eye-popping budget numbers are millions of real people who will see health coverage, food assistance, and other forms of support taken away."
"This will make it even harder for them to afford the basics, leading to serious hardships such as homelessness or overcrowded living, food insecurity, hunger, and untreated health conditions," the CBPP said.
While proposing funding cuts that would strip food aid, healthcare, and other programs from working-class people across the U.S., the three proposals align behind a tax agenda that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans, according to CBPP.
"For example, each agenda would double down on the 2017 tax cuts, whose core provisions are tilted heavily toward high-income households," the think tank said Tuesday. "The RSC budget calls for the continuation of all of the 2017 law’s individual income tax cuts and adds substantial tax cuts for corporations, wealthy shareholders, and large estates on top."
"Project 2025 goes further," CBPP added, "calling for a set of extreme near-term tax policies that would raise taxes on middle- and low-income households while cutting them for wealthy households, shareholders, and corporations."
Additionally, each of the three right-wing policy proposals calls for the elimination of an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) funding boost approved by congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. The funding increase has allowed the IRS to collect over $1 billion in past-due taxes from the wealthy in the U.S., according to the agency.
CBPP's new analysis lends weight to Democrats'
warnings that House Republicans have injected elements of the deeply unpopular Project 2025 agenda into key government funding fights in the lead-up to the November elections, in which control of the White House and Congress are at stake.
"It is also notable what is missing from these agendas," CBPP said Tuesday. "Despite rhetoric from some Republicans about the need to support families—and children in particular—these sweeping agendas do not call for new or increased investments to help families afford childcare or rent, to expand the Child Tax Credit, or to bolster the [Earned Income Tax Credit] for workers without children."
"And they do nothing," the analysis adds, "to ensure that all workers have access to paid family and medical leave so they can take time off to welcome a new child, attend to a health issue, or care for a family member who needs them."
