Democrats Condemn Republicans' Big Ugly Bill as Disaster for Working Families

Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO) and his Democratic colleagues in Congress have strongly condemned the Republicans' Big Ugly Bill, which they claim will have devastating consequences for working families across the nation. The bill, they argue, makes the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in history, while providing more tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, further exacerbating income inequality.

According to independent estimates, Republicans' Big Ugly Bill will have far-reaching consequences, including:

• **Ripping healthcare away from 17 million Americans**, including 265,298 Missourians, and making premiums, deductibles, and copays soar for millions more.
• **Cutting staff and closing hospitals and nursing homes in communities nationwide**, with as many as 300 hospitals at risk of closure and one in four nursing homes estimated to close.
• **Making the largest cut to nutritional assistance in history**, with 5 million people losing food assistance and 18 million kids at risk of losing school breakfast and lunch.
• **Increasing energy costs**, with families paying an average of $400 more per year in energy costs nationwide, and seniors and low-income people struggling to pay their energy bills.
• **Killing more than a million jobs**, with massive cuts to clean energy costing over 840,000 jobs in the next five years and an additional 790,000 jobs over the next ten years.
• **Weakening our public schools and making higher education more expensive**, with the creation of a permanent, unlimited tax credit for private school vouchers and attacks on protections for student borrowers.
• **Adding more than $3.3 trillion to the national debt**, with interest payments expected to rise by an additional estimated $700 billion over the next ten years, threatening to bankrupt the country and mortgage the futures of our children.
• **Overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthiest 1% of Americans**, with almost a trillion dollars in tax cuts given to the top 1% of households, transferring money from the poorest Americans to the wealthiest.

According to the House Committee on the Budget, the Big Ugly Bill will have significant impacts on Missouri's 5th Congressional District:

• **Rip healthcare away from Missouri families and raise healthcare costs**, with an estimated 265,298 Missourians losing health insurance and covered under the Affordable Care Act seeing an average increase of $710 in premiums.
• **Raise food costs**, with at least 58,000 Missourians at risk of losing some or all food assistance.
• **Kill manufacturing jobs and raise energy costs**, with 37,000 manufacturing and energy jobs eliminated and Missourians seeing an $800 average yearly increase in energy bills.
• **Increase the cost of higher education**, with 66,960 students in Missouri at risk of having their Pell grants cut or eliminated entirely.

Representative Cleaver stated, "At a time when American families are struggling with the cost of living, it is morally reprehensible and supremely sinful to take from the poor to give more handouts to the richest among us—but that is precisely what President Trump and Republicans have chosen to do."

The Democrats in Congress vow to continue fighting to roll back these deeply regressive policies, invest in communities, and lower costs for hardworking families in the years to come.

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