The Impact of the Ryan Budget on America's Women

Floor Speech

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Ms. TITUS. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my friend, Donna Edwards for organizing tonight's important colloquy and Special Order to talk about the Ryan Republican budget and its unacceptable impact on women.

For the fourth year in a row, Chairman Ryan has proposed an uncompromising budget plan that is out of touch with Nevada's priorities and the country's vision for the future.

Chairman Ryan has used a lot of gimmicks in this budget, but no amount of chicanery can hide what it means for women.

Instead of laying out a plan to strengthen and grow the middle class, Representative Ryan's budget disproportionately harms low-income women and the families they struggle to support. It also undermines the health and economic security of the elderly and the disabled, most of whom are women, as you have just pointed out.

It would repeal the Affordable Care Act and the critical protections and benefits this landmark legislation offers to women. Millions of women and their families would have to pay out of pocket for lifesaving preventive health services such as mammograms and cervical cancer screenings.

Insurance companies would be allowed, once again, to treat being a woman as a preexisting condition. And over 200,000 women in Nevada alone would lose access to affordable health insurance that is provided by the ACA.

The Ryan budget also threatens a laundry list of vital programs that help southern Nevada women and children, such as SNAP, WIC, Head Start, TANF, and Pell grants, just to name a few.

Currently, over 75,000 Nevada women and children rely on WIC, and 358,000 Nevadans depend on SNAP, 154,000 of whom are children. In addition, nearly 5,000 children in Nevada participate in Head Start, and 33,000 Nevada students benefit from Pell grants.

Under the Ryan budget, women could lose access to these critical programs, programs that help them put food on the table and give their children access to the education they need to succeed.

The Ryan budget also eliminates the Brand USA program, which fosters international tourism, an industry that employs many women in service jobs in Nevada and around the country.

Instead of protecting women and children, Representative Ryan and the Republican Party would rather provide the richest one-tenth of 1 percent, those households making more than $3.3 million a year, with a $1.2 million tax cut.

Now, the Federal budget is a blueprint for our Nation's future. It is a statement of our priorities as a Nation, and it should provide a path forward that we can all be proud of.

My constituents in Las Vegas, and our constituents all around the country, deserve better than this rehashed Ryan budget which slashes programs for children, dismantles health care, eliminates the safety net for seniors, and defunds education and needed research and development.

This budget is not a road to prosperity, as Representative Ryan calls it; it is a road to ruin. And as someone said recently, it is like giving the middle finger to the middle class.

Instead, we need a balanced plan that protects women and their families while making investments in our future. Let's work on that kind of budget.

So, again, I want to thank my friends who have come to the floor tonight to point out these problems.

I yield back to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

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