Sanders: Trump budget is ‘grotesquely immoral’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) blasted President Trump’s new budget as “grotesquely immoral,” saying it would rob from the poor to pay the rich. 

“That budget that Trump has presented is a grotesquely immoral budget, a horrific budget. What it says is that if you are the richest person in this country, the richest family, you will get over a $50 billion tax break through the repeal of the estate tax,” Sanders said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” 

“So you are looking at a massive transfer of wealth from working families, from seniors, from children into the hands of the richest billionaires in this country. It is an outrageous budget, a budget the American people do not want. It’s a budget that should not see the light of day.”

Sanders has joined Democrats in assailing the administration’s budget request, offered Tuesday, which calls for steep cuts at government assistance programs, including Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor and disabled.

The White House has argued that the cuts are needed to balance the budget and pay for major tax cuts that it says would spark $2 trillion in economic growth. 

Sanders blasted the $2 trillion prediction as “hocus-pocus accounting.” He said the administration is making a “short-sighted” decision by seeking to cut the State Department budget while boosting defense. 

“To suggest that the future is simply to put more money into the military and cut back on the kinds of support and State Department programs that uplifted poor people around the world, that made them believe that America was on their side, I think that that is very short-sighted and counterproductive,” he said.