Responding to the news that the Trump administration may seek to solidify its spending freezes by sending a “rescissions bill” to Congress next week, ActionAid USA Senior Policy Analyst, Kelly Stone, said:
“The Trump administration’s various budgetary moves have shown that they care only for rich people and corporations, and see everyone else as disposable. The foreign assistance freeze is a perfect example of this: if you’re poor, foreign, and non-white, this administration doesn’t respect your rights, or consider you worthy of dignity or care.
Many, if not most, of the administration’s cuts have been done without proper process. If the administration sends a recissions bill to Congress to try to formalize their cuts, Congress must reject the bill for both process and policy reasons. Deciding to destroy entire agencies, and inflicting irreparable harm to their workforces and the people they serve, should not be an executive power. Immediately and unilaterally canceling all foreign assistance, which literally creates illness, death, and chaos around the world, should not be an executive power.
Of course, this goes beyond foreign assistance. This administration has made clear it wants to cut taxes for the very wealthiest, cut programs that provide care for everyday people, and cut programs that keep the heat on in the winter, our air and water clean, and food on the table. A budget is a moral document, and this administration’s budgetary moves are absolutely monstrous.”
ENDS
Kelly Stone, ActionAid USA Senior Policy Analyst, is available as a spokesperson. For media requests, please email christal.james@actionaid.org or call 7046659743.
About ActionAid
ActionAid is a global federation working with more than 41 million people living in more than 71 countries, including some of the world’s poorest countries. We want to see a just, fair, and sustainable world in which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality and to eradicate poverty, including by shifting power to local organizations and movements.
