PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Gov. Josh Shapiro is warning that President Donald Trump’s budget bill, passed by the United States House Thursday, will have dire impacts on Pennsylvania.
“There's a lot of rhetoric and hot air that comes out of DC all the time, but what they voted for yesterday is going to have very real and very lasting and very harmful impacts on Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro says the loss of federal funds in Pennsylvania will knock 300,000 people off Medicaid, end SNAP benefits for 140,000 people who are food insecure and cut Medicaid payments to already struggling hospitals. Shapiro says the state simply does not have the ability to backfill the loss of federal funds.
“We have an acute problem with our hospitals. In fact, in rural Pennsylvania, 25% of our hospitals are working at an operating deficit.”
Shapiro says the plan also raises the national deficit with tax cuts for the highest earners. He hopes the Senate takes a long, hard look at it.
“I don't want to be partisan, but I think it is important to note every single Republican in Pennsylvania's congressional delegation voted to rip away health care and food benefits from their constituents,” Shapiro said.
“So ripping away health care from poor folks, taking away food benefits from people can't afford to put food on the table for them and their families, spiking the national deficit in order to give a huge tax break to those who are at the highest income levels.”
The only Republican member of Congress in Southeastern Pennsylvania, Bucks County’s Brian Fitzpatrick, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.