The new GOP majority in the House is using their so-called mandate for spending reductions to target programs and workers that have long been on their hit list. High on the list are federal workers, high-speed rail projects and Amtrak.
Just released by the Republican Study Committee, the new GOP blueprint for spending reductions calls for the outright elimination of funding for high-speed rail projects and Amtrak, elimination of the USDA sugar program, elimination of automatic pay increases for federal employees for five years, reduce the federal civilian workforce by 15 percent, repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act that protects workers’ wages in federally-funded projects and bar funding for federal employees performing union activities.
Other proposals include rolling back federal spending levels to 2008 levels and freezing them there for ten years, prohibit funding of health care reform, eliminate any further stimulus program spending, eliminate the Technology Innovation Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and cut Medicaid aid to states that has helped cash-strapped states keep hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters and police on the job.
“The GOP campaigned on a promise to create jobs, and it’s hard to see where the jobs will come from in these proposals,” said IAM President Tom Buffenbarger. “If we fail to invest in our nation’s infrastructure, how will we compete in the global economy? If we abandon the states in the worst economic crisis in decades, how will that keep teachers, firefighters and police on the job? How can Congress keep voting themselves pay raises and accept taxpayer-funded health care and then deny them for federal workers and millions of uninsured Americans? These proposals sell out our nation’s middle class and ignore fair solutions to the deficit problem.”
Click here for more information on the GOP spending cuts.
