“Like any Americans we’re just stunned that the House republicans could vote yesterday, along strict party lines, for a tax plan that would leave our seniors and working families vulnerable,” said United States Senator Jack Reed (Democrat, Rhode Island) at a press conference in Cranston, Rhode Island Friday. “The Republican tax bill actually raises taxes on working families… it cuts billions from Medicare… it would, if the Senate version passed, throw 13 million Americans off their health care plans and it would do that just to provide tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.

In addition to trillions in deficits, the bill will “trigger automatic Medicare cuts in 2018, continued Reed. According to CBO, the deficits created by this bill would trigger $25 billion in automatic Medicare cuts in 2018, along with $111 billion from other critical federal program, noted Reed in his press release.

“This is just a totally destructive piece of legislation. And it’s all so that the wealthiest Americans can enjoy a tax break.

That’s not good economic policy, it’s not fair, we’re going to do all we can to stop it.”

United States Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat, Rhode Island) called the Republican tax bill “an assault on American health care.”

“We’ve seen this show before. They run up big deficits to finance tax cuts for very wealthy people, and then they come back and they say, ‘Oh! We are shocked! Shocked at the deficits we have run up! Now we have to be fiscally sensible and cut Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security.’

“If we can stop their partisan, Republican only effort on health care, there’s another road. We’re not saying, ‘No,’ we’re saying, ‘Let’s work together.’”