Senator Murray’s Statement on Securing Priorities for Working Families in Budget Bill

Bipartisan spending deal strengthens investments in child care, wildfires and fisheries disaster prevention, transportation & infrastructure programs, and more

Senator Murray: Glad Democrats & Republicans rejected President Trump’s harmful proposals & worked together to “make significant new investments in Washington state, local jobs, and middle class priorities”

(Washington DC)  – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) released the following statement after congressional Republicans released details on a bipartisan budget deal to fund the federal government:

“This is a bipartisan compromise in a Republican-controlled Congress and Administration, but I am very glad that Democrats and Republicans were able to work together to not only reject so many hateful and harmful policies from President Trump that would have been devastating for workers, women, patients, immigrants, and the environment—but also make significant new investments in Washington state, local jobs, and middle class priorities.

“I worked hard to make sure this bill included investments in major Washington state priorities, including local infrastructure investments through Capital Investment Grants and my TIGER grant program, better ways to handle wildfires and fisheries disasters, environmental protection for the Puget Sound and across our state, veterans care and support, tackling the opioids epidemic, medical research, and ensuring that the federal government continues to live up to its legal and moral obligation to clean up Hanford.

“I am especially glad that we were able to include billions of dollars in new federal investments in early learning and child care for low and middle income families. This is an important step in the right direction as we work to pass my Child Care for Working Families Act to make sure that every working family has access to high quality and affordable child care. This bill includes significant new funding to make college more affordable and help workers gain the skills they need to get new and better jobs. And I am very proud that we were able to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to K-12 schools and students and that, once again, Democrats and Republicans came together to reject attempts by President Trump and Secretary DeVos to privatize and voucherize public education as well as so many other of their harmful anti-education proposals.

“Finally, I am deeply frustrated that Senator McConnell and Speaker Ryan have once again rejected bipartisan work on health care in favor of partisan health care politics. I’m going to keep pushing them to reconsider and allow Republicans to work with Democrats on health care policies that actually help deliver what patients and families want: lower heath care costs.”