Chair Grijalva on Trump Budget Cuts: Republicans Cut Taxes for the Super-Rich and Then Claim We Don’t Have Enough Money to Protect the Environment

Washington, D.C. – Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) released the following statement on today’s “skinny budget” released by the Trump administration. The plan proposes a roughly 14 percent cut for the Department of the Interior without providing specifics on how those cuts would be implemented.

“This budget is the Republican approach to governing in a nutshell: cut taxes for the super-rich and then, when it’s time to fund national priorities, lecture us about tightening our belts. If you think environment conservation is an unaffordable luxury, you’ll love this plan. This isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, it’s dead on arrival in Congress, and printing it was a waste of time.”

The plan admits that the administration is pushing ahead on its unauthorized reorganization of the Interior Department, including “moving headquarters staff west.” Grijalva has vowed oversight of the reorganization plan, which administration officials have never explained to members of Congress and for which no written plan is publicly available. The budget plan requests $28 million for the effort* – a small fraction of the anticipated cost of restructuring a large federal department.

* - See page 58 of the budget.

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