Administration Fails to Live Up to Promises to Protect Medicaid or Invest in Infrastructure
$25 Billion Slashed from Federal Crop Insurance Program that Protects Farmers From Severe Weather and Price Drops
Rural America sees Funding for Broadband, Health Clinics, Economic Development Gutted
Congresswoman Cheri Bustos, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement after the President released his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2021:
“Illinoisans are crying out for lower health care costs, support for our farmers and investment in our crumbling infrastructure. This budget fails to hear them.
“The President campaigned on lowering health care costs, but his budget would gut Medicare by $900 billion over the next ten years. He also promised to lift up rural America and instead his proposed budget slashes the very program aimed at protecting farmers’ livelihoods. After surviving the President’s trade war, severe weather conditions damaging crops and a tough economy, our farmers deserve better than to face deep cuts to the crop insurance program.
“While the Administration’s proposal makes some strides, it cuts funding for critical programs that hardworking families across the Midwest depend on. I remain committed to working across the aisle with anyone who will work to bring real solutions to the table.”
CUTS TO HEALTH CARE
- Cuts total funding to Medicaid by $900 billion over ten years by allowing states to increase copays, eligibility standards, and implement work requirements, which would hinder access to health care in rural areas.
- Cuts payments to Rural Health Clinics by $1.7 billion over ten years, putting access to care in jeopardy in our rural communities.
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Eliminates programs to train doctors and health care providers
by slashing $484 million in Health and Human Services programs. This funding helps train and place physicians in rural hospitals.
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Cuts Graduate Medical Education Payments by $52 billion over ten years, used to train and retain physicians in our communities
already facing provider shortages.
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Cuts uncompensated care payments to hospitals
by $87.9 billion over ten years, funding that hospitals in our region need to provide services.
- Slashes Centers for Disease Control funding to states by $427 million to prevent chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
CUTS TO AGRICULTURE
- Slashes the federal crop insurance program by $25 billion. This program protects farmers in the Midwest against natural disasters and severe price instability. Cuts to funding will make it more difficult for farmers to survive severe weather like the flooding experienced in 2019. Congresswoman Bustos started the bipartisan Crop Insurance Caucus with Congressman Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson last year, to fight to protect this program.
- Cuts voluntary conservation programs by $9 billion. These programs help farmers address land stewardship and climate-related issues. Congresswoman Bustos has previously proposed increasing funding for voluntary conservation programs as part of her Rural Green Partnership framework.
CUTS TO INFRASTRUCTURE
- Guts Army Corps of Engineers funding by $1.7 billion, used to maintain locks and dams and help communities respond to flooding and natural disasters.
- Cuts $400 million from airport infrastructure funding. Decreases funding for the Airport Improvement Program, utilized by the Quad City International, Peoria International and Chicago Rockford International Airports.
- Slashes funding for Amtrak Long Distance Rail by $689 million.
- Eliminates funding to rehabilitate and replace buses and bus facilities utilized by MetroLINK in the Quad Cities, the Greater Peoria Mass Transit District and Galesburg, among other transit agencies in IL-17.
- Guts rural broadband by more than $305 million. Decreases funding for rural broadband loan and grant programs by $305 million and provides $5 million less for the broadband grant program. More than 21 million Americans still do not have high speed broadband. Congresswoman Bustos was the lead cosponsor of the Broadband Connections for Rural Opportunities Program Act, and helped lead the fight during the last Farm Bill to recreate loan and grant combinations to support broadband deployment in rural areas.
CUTS TO EDUCATION
- Cuts the U.S. Department of Education’s TRIO programs by $140 million, which encourage individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds to enter and complete postsecondary education.
- Slashes $680 million from work study programs that low-income college students rely on to pay their bills and tuition costs.
- Eliminates the public service loan forgiveness program, cutting resources for long-term public service employees like those at the Rock Island Arsenal.
- Eliminates subsidized student loans, ensuring that low-income students in our region will pay more when they take out student loans.
CUTS TO DEFENSE
Cuts Defense Environmental Restoration Accounts (DERA) for all services by $44,182,000 (Army); $49,068,000 (Navy); $181,074,000 (Air Force); $9,897,000 (Defense-Wide); $58,413,000 (Formerly Used Defense Sites). DERA provides funding to the military to clean up bases, like the Peoria Air National Guard Base, from substances like PFAS, otherwise known as “forever chemicals.”
CUTS TO SMALL BUSINESS, MANUFACTURING & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
- Cuts $94 million from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Business and Cooperative Programs, which provides business services and job training for rural areas. In 2018, Atkinson, Illinois received $99,000 from one of these programs to help redevelop their downtown.
- Eliminates the Economic Development Administration (EDA), the only agency exclusively focused on economic development. EDA funding recently provided more than $2 million in federal investment in Rockford to redevelop the 22-acre Barber-Colman Factory Campus.
- Eliminates funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program, which helps small- and mid-sized U.S. manufacturing companies grow and create American jobs. In Peoria, the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center is an MEP center.
- Cuts funding for Small Business Administration (SBA) Entrepreneurial Development Programs by $93 million. After holding economic roundtables last year with business leaders in Sterling, Canton, Freeport and Galesburg, Congresswoman Bustos wrote the SBA requesting information regarding the services they offer for business succession planning to ensure local business owners have the support they need to plan for the future – these services would see their funding reduced.
CUTS TO SUPPORT FOR OUR COMMUNITIES
- Slashes $136 million from the COPS Hiring Program, which provides community policing development and training to all levels of law enforcement, including in our communities. Previously, this program helped the City of Rockford hire five new officers.
- Cuts Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) federal assistance for state and local grants critical to disaster preparedness, which played a key role in state and local governments ability to respond to disasters like the severe storms and flooding across Illinois last year.
- Eliminates Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), which support housing, public facilities and local economic development. In 2019, local governments across our region received $6,052,654 in total CDBG funds.
- Eliminates the HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME), which creates affordable housing for low-income households. In 2019, local governments across our region received $1,551,556 in direct HOME grants, in addition to $15,391,165 awarded to the State of Illinois.
- Eliminates the Public Housing Capital Fund, which provides annual funding for the development, financing, and modernization of public housing developments and for management improvements. A total of $13,733,942 was awarded to housing authorities across the region last year in Peoria, Rock Island, Moline, Rockford, Freeport, Pekin, Whiteside County, Winnebago County, Fulton County and Knox County.
CUTS TO PROGRAMS FOR STRUGGLING FAMILIES
- Decreases Unemployment Insurance Tax Credits by $7.5 billion over ten years, reducing the amount of unemployment benefit funding for individuals who lose their job.
- Cuts $181 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides assistance to roughly 1.78 million Illinoisans.
- Eliminates the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program, which annually helps roughly six million American households afford their energy bills when times are difficult.
***Report Courtesy of the Office of Congresswoman Bustos***
