“The President’s budget should be a reflection of the needs of all Americans. While his budget proposal ignores key challenges facing many Americans, his failure to sufficiently address the needs of millions of hard-working, tax-paying Hispanic Americans is particularly disappointing.
While 1.4 million Hispanic workers are out of work, the President’s Budget provides additional tax breaks for the wealthy, slashes funding for the Small Business Administration, and eliminates funding for job training programs.
In addition, the budget proposal provides little or no increased funding for key education programs like bilingual education, migrant education, GEAR-UP, and Pell Grant funding and eliminates important programs like the dropout prevention and parent assistance programs that have a proven track record in the Hispanic community. If we are serious about meeting our nation’s future workforce needs, we must demonstrate to Latino students that we believe in them by investing in programs that will help them succeed.
Finally, the President’s budget does little or nothing to provide health insurance for the millions of uninsured Hispanics and under-funds programs that support disease prevention, health promotion, and increased diversity in the health professions.
As we begin our work on the budget in the Senate, Democrats will fight to fund critical programs that will create good paying jobs, improve education, and lower health care costs. It is my hope that these efforts will help the millions of hard-working Hispanic Americans achieve the American Dream.”
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