Westbrook, MAINE - Maine Democratic Party Chairman Phil Bartlett issued the following statement today in response to Congressman Poliquin’s hypocrisy on the budget. Poliquin issued a press release today renewing his push for a balanced budget amendment after he voting to add trillions of dollars to the national debt in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
“Let’s not be fooled here: Bruce Poliquin wasn’t concerned with the national debt when he voted to explode it by trillions of dollars in order to give away massive tax cuts for corporations at the expense of working Mainers - not to mention our children who will have to pay it all back.
“Now, like a typical politician, he’s using the debt he created to feign interest in balancing the budget - but it’s really nothing more than a facade for him to work at cutting Mainers’ Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Mainers will see through it.”
Congressman Poliquin’s renewed interest in the budget comes after he and his Republican colleagues voted to explode the national debt by more than $1 trillion in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest and giant corporations.
Poliquin voted for the bill despite mountains of evidence that it would do little, if anything, to grow the economy. In fact, of 42 top economists, only one believed that the GOP tax bill would help the economy. Even the person responsible for helping President Reagan devise his tax cuts concluded that they did little to grow the economy.
However, Poliquin handed the wealthiest and giant corporations a huge tax cut that would have been better directed at the middle-class. Meanwhile, his vote for the tax scam also gutted the Affordable Care Act which is going to lead directly to a rise in health care premiums for Mainers soon.
Additionally, immediately after passing the tax cuts, Speaker Ryan declared - just as Democrats predicted - that due to the increasing national debt he and Poliquin created, “Congress would “have to get back next year at entitlement reform”
We also know that Bruce Poliquin is more than willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of Mainers to attack the critical programs they rely on. Last year he supported a repeal of the Affordable Care Act that would have gutted Medicaid, saying, “Medicaid is an open-ended program with no budget, which continues to grow beyond the taxpayers’ ability to pay for the health care benefits. It’s simply not sustainable.”
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