DeLauro Statement on House Passage of Republican’s $95 Billion Budget Resolution

WASHINGTON – House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) issued this statement following House passage of the Republican’s budget resolution, which is the first step in a series of procedural actions to spend $95 billion on President Trump’s war of choice with Iran and other priorities.

“President Trump’s war of choice with Iran has cost American families more than $130 billion in higher prices so far. After failing to negotiate an end to the war he started, he is now demanding Republicans in Congress pass an additional $73 billion to support the war. Today, House Republicans happily obliged.

“We learned from recent reporting that the Pentagon withheld information from the public regarding the true human cost of this conflict. Eighteen American servicemembers have now lost their lives during this war, a sacrifice which President Trump minimized in a shameful and insulting social media post; a stunning display of disrespect from a president who went to great lengths to avoid military service when his country called on him to serve.

“The American people do not want more open-ended, aimless, expensive, and deadly wars in the Middle East. They want the price of basic necessities like food, housing, healthcare, childcare, and gasoline to go down. The American people want relief. But all Republicans and President Trump have been able to offer are tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations and billions of dollars in deficit spending on wars of choice. Meanwhile, the president, his family, his friends, and his allies get richer and richer.”

The Republican budget resolution would authorize $73 billion in new spending on military and intelligence under the guise of the war in Iran, despite Department of Defense estimates that the war has cost more than $37 billion. This is in addition to the $1 trillion in funding the Pentagon received last year, and the $1.5 trillion they have requested for next year.

The resolution would provide $12 billion to bail out American farmers following President Trump’s disastrous trade war. And it would provide $10 billion to make it harder for American citizens to vote, barely 100 days before the midterm elections.

None of the $95 billion total proposed by the resolution is offset. 

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