WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) stood up for New Mexico families by voting against Senate Republicans’ budget reconciliation that funds Republicans’ tax handouts for billionaires at the expense of working people.
For over 27 hours, Heinrich pushed to amend Republicans’ reconciliation legislation, repeatedly voting to lower costs for families, block cuts to Medicaid, protect rural hospitals in New Mexico, extend tax credits for health care premiums, and prevent millions of Americans from losing their health insurance.
“The largest cut to Medicaid in American history. The largest transfer of wealth to the rich in American history. The largest cut to food assistance in American history. The largest increase to the national deficit in American history: That’s what this bill represents. And it has one effect — billionaires win, American families lose. It’s a betrayal of working families masquerading as legislation.
“If signed into law, this bill will hike electricity bills, leave tens of millions uninsured, cut food assistance for millions more, shutter hundreds of nursing homes, force rural hospitals to close, and send health insurance premiums soaring. The consequences of this bill will be deadly — and Republicans will own every single one.
“Senate Republicans had a choice: stand with working families or bend to billionaires. They chose greed, cruelty, and a callous disregard for the people they represent. New Mexicans and all Americans will suffer for it. I urge all Americans to raise their voices and call on their elected leaders in the House of Representatives to stop this disaster before it becomes law.”
Last night, Senate Republicans blocked Heinrich’s efforts to:
Fight Increasing Costs
- Senate Republicans voted against:
- Lowering health care costs for working families and small businesses and ensuring the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share in taxes.
- Protecting food assistance for kids, veterans, and seniors, including 223,000 New Mexicans from losing all or part of their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in just the first year this bill is enacted into law.
- Preventing cuts to Medicaid that could lead to increased costs for people with private insurance.
- Increasing the Child Tax Credit by ensuring the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share in taxes.
- Lower energy prices for families and small businesses by preserving the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits.
- Providing permanent tax relief for overtime wages for working class Americans.
- Protect families and small businesses from cost increases by ending the trade war with Canada.
- Preventing any policy changes that raise the cost of electricity prices.
Protect Rural Hospitals
- Senate Republicans voted against:
- Preventing rural hospitals from closing, converting, reducing, or stopping services, including emergency care, mental health care, and labor and delivery services.
- As a result, this bill could cause 6 to 8 rural hospitals to close in New Mexico, according to the New Mexico Hospital Association.
Protect Medicaid
- Senate Republicans voted against:
- Stopping cuts to Medicaid and preventing over 90,000 New Mexicans from losing their coverage within the first year alone.
- Stopping cuts to Medicaid that put 4 four nursing homes in New Mexico at risk of closure.
- Stopping cuts to Medicaid that help fund substance use disorder treatment.
- Protecting millions of Americans from losing their health care as a result of new administrative burdens and paperwork requirements.
- Extending the health care premium tax credits created in the Affordable Care Act to prevent millions of people from losing health insurance.
- Keeping labor and delivery units open by stopping cuts to Medicaid that fund 40% of births nationwide and nearly 50% of births in rural communities.
- Ensuring access to reproductive care — including cancer screenings and birth control – by keeping Planned Parenthood funded.
- Expanding Medicaid to cover dental, vision, and hearing and to cut the price of prescription drugs under Medicare in half.
Protect Our National Security
- Senate Republicans voted against:
- The financial, health, and well-being of our nation’s veterans by prohibiting any federal agency from carrying out mass firings of veterans.
Prioritize Working Families Over Billionaires
- Senate Republicans voted against:
- Preventing tax handouts for people making over $10 million a year.
- Preventing tax handouts for people and corporations making over $100 million a year.
- Preventing tax handouts for people making over $500 million a year.
- Preventing tax handouts for people making over $1 billion a year.
- Preventing tax handouts for corporations making over $1 billion a year.
- Preventing more than $37 trillion from being added to the debt in 30 years—more debt than has accumulated over the past 249 years.
Below is a list of amendments that Heinrich filed to amend Republicans’ budget resolution to cut taxes for billionaires at the expense of working people:
- Amendment to stop a new burdensome requirement that could strip health care from 64,000 New Mexicans on Medicaid.
- Amendment to stop a $268 million cost shift that could force New Mexico to cut SNAP benefits and kick families off their food assistance.
- Amendment to protect food assistance for hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans by stopping harsh, burdensome work requirements that would cut SNAP benefits for families, including 39,790 New Mexicans who could lose their benefits altogether.
- Amendment to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing and cut prescription drug prices under Medicare by 50%.
- Amendment to ensure no increase in cost for middle class families or individuals using Medicaid, CHIP, or private insurance marketplaces established by the ACA.
- Amendment to lower student loan payments by blocking a plan to force borrowers into a more expensive repayment option.
- Amendment to protect students from losing their Pell Grants to cover the cost of rising tuition costs.
- Amendment to protect a tax credit that helps families keep energy costs low by incentivizing clean energy upgrades like installing home heat pumps.
- Amendment to protect a tax credit that helps families save on energy bills and make their homes more comfortable and energy efficient.
- Amendment to protect a tax credit that incentivizes developers and home builders to build energy-efficient homes.
- Amendment to remove a provision in the bill that bars workers providing Medicaid home- and community-based services from obtaining job-based health insurance, retirement benefits, skills training, and the option to have a voice on the job through a union.
- Amendment to save the Inflation Reduction Act’s EPA Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles grant program that makes our air cleaner, improves public health, spurs important energy and fuel savings for public school districts, and creates high-quality jobs.
- Amendment to protect funding for air pollution reductions, greenhouse gas corporate reporting, methane emissions and waste reduction, environmental and climate justice block grants.
- Amendment to protect the $7,500 clean vehicle tax credit to help Americans with the upfront cost of electric vehicles.
- Amendment to provide $200 million in economic assistance for facilities and businesses harmed by the New World screwworm outbreak.
- Amendment to provide $500 million to combat the spread of and eradicate the New World screwworm through surveillance, training, biosecurity, research, and the construction of sterile fly production and dispersal facilities.
- Amendment to protect mixed-status families by removing unjust new vetting rules that discourage adults from sponsoring unaccompanied children in need of care.
- Amendment to eliminate $2 billion in wasteful spending for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which would fund unjust, extreme immigration enforcement measures that target vulnerable migrants and expand deportation efforts.
- Amendment to block nearly $30 billion from funding U.S. Immigration and Customs’ (ICE) extreme and unconstitutional immigration enforcement agenda.
- Amendment to stop steep new immigration fees that would block immigrants from applying for legal status and push more strain onto New Mexico border communities and law enforcement.
- Amendment to stop $46 billion in wasteful spending on President Trump’s border wall, which bypasses environmental regulations and threatens important wildlife habitats for dozens of endangered species, including Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico and Arizona.
- Amendment to shift funding away from unproductive, invasive background checks on immigrant families and instead invest in child welfare professionals at DHS to ensure unaccompanied kids receive safe, supportive care.
- Amendment to ban the President, Vice President, Senate-appointed Executive Branch Officials, Members of Congress, Special Government Employees, and their spouses and children from directly or indirectly issuing or profiting from cryptocurrencies.
Below is a total list of amendments that Heinrich filed in his capacity as Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to amend Republicans’ budget resolution to cut taxes for billionaires at the expense of working people:
- Amendment to ensure meaningful Tribal consultation occurs on federal oil and gas leasing projects.
- Amendment that decouples Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) oil and gas leasing from renewable energy approvals.
- Amendment to protect clean energy manufacturing jobs.
- Amendment striking metallurgical coal from 45X Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit, which has no phase out.
- Amendment prohibiting companies from receiving a royalty rate reduction authorized under OBBB if the price of oil rises above the price at the time of enactment, protecting taxpayers from high oil prices and pain at the pump.
- Amendment to strike provisions that would increase electricity prices on American households and force a debate on how OBBB raises costs.
- Amendment to strike the new Loan Program Office (LPO) title named “Energy Dominance Financing, which will give $1 billion to fund only coal, oil and gas projects, instead of opening financing to cleaner, cheaper energy options.
- Amendment reserving $100 million for Tribal Energy Projects from the $1 billion provided for “Energy Dominance Financing” program.
- Amendment to strike $1 billion from “Energy Dominance Financing,” which primarily finance coal, oil, and gas projects.
- Amendment grandfathering LPO pipeline projects in “Energy Dominance Financing,” ensuring that projects currently in LPO’s pipeline are still considered under the new program.
- Amendment eliminating Inflation Reduction Act recissions.
- Amendment to strike provision that expands oil and gas leasing in the National Preserve in Alaska, to protect Alaskan lands from additional leases.
In February, Heinrich attempted to amend Republicans’ resolution by offering an amendment to reinstate blocked grants for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence and ensure law enforcement can hold predators and abusers accountable. Republicans voted against his amendment. Watch Heinrich’s video here.
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