Senator Murray Statement on Trump & Vought Taking Action to Raise Americans’ Costs, Kill Jobs, & Hurt People—Including in WA

Trump, Vought cause shutdown, use it as pretext to enact their extreme agenda & inflict pain on the American people

President Trump yesterday : "A lot of good can come down from shutdowns. We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn't want."

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Ranking Member of the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, issued the following statement on announcements made by White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought vowing to cancel billions of dollars in funding provided by Congress to lower people's energy costs-including in Washington state.

"President Trump has spent the year hurting families, killing jobs, and raising people's costs, and now he and Russ Vought are gleefully using the shutdown they have caused as a pretext to inflict even more pain.

"The American people deserve so much better than a president and an administration that treat their families and their livelihoods like pawns in some sort of sick political game.

"This administration has had plans in the works for months to cancel critical energy projects, and now, they are illegally taking action to kill jobs and raise people's energy bills. This is a blatant attempt to punish the political opposition, but this won't just hurt Democrats-it'll hurt regular people just trying to get by, in red districts and blue districts alike. We've never had an administration work so hard to hurt the people they represent.

"The last thing that anyone is asking for right now is to pay more on their electric bill or their health care, but that's what President Trump is ensuring happens.

" If Donald Trump and Russ Vought think these ugly intimidation tactics will work, they are sorely mistaken. I will be standing firm against this corrupt abuse of power-and every Republican should think carefully about what precedent they want to set by allowing this weaponization of taxpayer dollars."

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