WASHINGTON – Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Wednesday criticized a Republican budget bill endorsed by President Donald Trump, which provides tax breaks to the wealthy that are partially offset by huge cuts to Medicaid.
Van Hollen also blasted billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to dismantle certain federal agencies and fire large numbers of federal workers.
“It is the great betrayal,” Van Hollen said in remarks on the Senate floor. “Because the reason we’re seeing these efforts to slash important public investments across the board and cut important positions in federal agencies is because they want to make room for a big tax cut for wealthy people.”
The GOP bill unveiled in the House includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthy. At the same time, the proposed budget would slash funding for numerous domestic programs like Medicaid, which Van Hollen said he hopes to safeguard in a proposed amendment to the bill. During a Senate Budget Committee meeting last week, he tried unsuccessfully to pass a similar amendment.
“If there’s abuse going on in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, absolutely – go for it,” the senator said. “But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We said: ‘Don’t cut benefits to the American people.’”
“Medicaid is a very important health program. It benefits hundreds of thousands, if not close to a million, Marylanders,” Van Hollen later told Capital News Service.
Van Hollen said that while during the campaign Trump disavowed any knowledge of the far-right Project 2025 agenda, he is now implementing it.
With a Republican majority in the House, Trump claimed in a Truth Social post Wednesday that the budget resolution, split into two bills, will “implement (his) FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it.”
Van Hollen earlier Wednesday spoke at a rally against cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, particularly in the National Institutes of Health, where numerous employees have been fired. The NIH is headquartered in Maryland.