WASHINGTON, DC – House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) spoke on the House Floor today on the President's Fiscal Year 2021 Budget. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery and a link to the video:   “Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the Trump Administration released its budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2021. It was titled, 'A Budget for America’s Future,' but its vision for that future is bleak. Its vision of the future is the true 'American carnage' that President Trump described in his Inaugural Address. It envisions an America that is less than it can or should be. It envisions an America where working families are left to struggle while the wealthy continue to prosper.

“Rather than expanding economic opportunity to all, it would force families to choose between food and other essentials by cutting nutrition assistance by $182 billion, and it would completely eliminate the Community Development Block Grant Program, which helps local communities keep millions out of poverty.

“Rather than ensuring health care is accessible to all, this budget cuts Medicaid by $900 billion and slashes Medicare by half a trillion – even though the President promised he would never touch the program’s funding. It would also cut research into lifesaving cures at the National Institutes of Health by $3.3 billion and it cuts the Centers for Disease Control and prevention by more than half a billion – at a moment when we need to protect our people against the coronavirus and other public health threats.

“A true budget for America’s future wouldn’t increase the cost of attending college, as this budget does, by cutting student loan programs by $170 billion and discouraging those who want to serve their communities by eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. It wouldn’t slash the Department Of Education’s budget by $5.6 billion this year alone while eliminating afterschool programs for kids.

"Ignoring another of his pledges, this time on infrastructure, President Trump’s budget proposes cutting the Department Of Transportation by 13 percent this year and reducing funding for the Army Corps of Engineers by 22 percent.

“It proposes a future devoid of innovation, as well, eliminating several programs that fund and promote research and innovation to support advanced manufacturing, new energy technologies, and entrepreneurship. And this budget promotes a future that is less secure by reducing funding for public diplomacy and foreign aid.

“Moreover, this budget extends the 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy while once again asserting the debunked and discredited theory that the tax cuts pay for themselves. But the evidence is clear: the President’s tax cuts for the wealthy did not provide the trickle-down benefits he promised or give our economy the kind of boost he said they would. Yet the Administration is back again, promoting the notion that if we give tax cuts for the wealthy one more try, they will produce growth well above what every mainstream economist project.

“This budget is not a serious proposal, nor is it fiscally sustainable. Budgets are about priorities. The priorities in this budget – giving tax cuts to the wealthy, while cutting the programs that help working Americans get ahead – are the wrong priorities for our nation.”