“I’m willing to suffer whatever punishment is available to me,” Green said earlier this week.
The U.S. House of Representatives formally voted on Thursday to censure Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), two days after he interrupted a speech by President Donald Trump to condemn the president’s plan for drastic cuts to Medicaid and other social programs.
A censure is a formal rebuke of a lawmaker’s actions or statements. Censures are generally considered rare — although they have become more common in recent years — and carry no punishment beyond a public admonition.
Earlier this week, Green stood up near the beginning of Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress. While waving his cane toward the president, Green heckled, “You don’t have a mandate to cut Medicaid!”
Trump’s budget proposal will undoubtedly involve cuts to the program dedicated to helping Americans with lower incomes access health care. Although Trump has repeatedly promised that his budget won’t affect Medicaid, a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis released on Thursday indicated that it would be impossible to make his proposed cuts without slashing Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Polling shows that nearly one in two Americans want more spending, not less, on the program, with only 13 percent saying that the program’s funding should be cut or eliminated completely.
