As the Senate voted down the partisan budget proposed by Sen. Pat Toomey last week, Sarah Steelman supported the proposal, asserting herself as a reliable vote for Republican special interests. The Toomey Budget would turn Medicare into a voucher system and would cut billions of dollars in pro-growth investments in education, research, transportation and infrastructure. Also, the budget fails to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share, and instead ensures that they receive even more tax breaks.

 

“Sarah Steelman’s support of the Toomey Budget displays a total lack of leadership from a candidate who obviously intends to be a rank and file vote for the special interest agenda,” said Caitlin Legacki, spokeswoman for the Missouri Democratic Party. “Like the rest of the Republican Party, Sarah Steelman does not seem to grasp that Missourians are fed up with the same old failed economic policies of gutting entitlements to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.”

 

The Toomey Budget was a part of a series of four extreme Republican Budgets that were voted down in Senate. The Toomey Budget received just 42 votes, all of which were cast by Republicans.

 

According to Eli Yokley at PoliticMo: "A spokesperson for Steelman said if Steelman were in the Senate, she would have voted in favor of all four budget proposals." [PoliticMo.com, 5/18/12]

 

Despite attacking others for their votes on these measures, John Brunner’s highly-paid consultants refuse to say how he’d vote on these extreme budget proposals. Brunner previously expressed support for both versions of the Republican Plan to End Medicare as we know it, while Rep. Todd Akin voted twice to pass the same proposal. The plans that Brunner and Akin supported are very similar to the Toomey Budget.

 

 

The Toomey Budget embraces the latest attempt to end Medicare as we know it. Instead of strengthening Medicare, Senator Toomey would replace Medicare’s guaranteed benefits with a voucher for Medicare or private insurance, creating higher costs for seniors and unraveling the traditional Medicare program. [DPCC, 5/15/12]

 

The Toomey Budget slashes investments in economic growth. Senator Toomey’s budget guts education, research, transportation and infrastructure investments. It cuts domestic spending billions of dollars below the levels agreed to in the Budget Control Act and pins them there. [DPCC, 5/15/12]

 

The Toomey Budget rolls back the guarantee of health care for vulnerable populations. Children, pregnant women, the disabled, and seniors face the prospect of losing their health insurance or facing higher costs as a result of the proposal to block grant Medicaid and end the critical countercyclical nature of the program. [DPCC, 5/15/12]

 

The Toomey Budget would result in huge tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. On top of the $150,000 tax cut that millionaires and billionaires would receive when Toomey makes the Bush Tax Cuts permanent, the Tax Policy Center has estimated that the 20 percent across the board reduction in tax rates that Senator Toomey proposed would result in people who make more than $1 million receiving an additional tax cut of $92,000 a year, or 100 times what an average family earning $50,000 - $75,000 would receive. [DPCC, 5/15/12]