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No cuts! No way. No how!
Since February, both chambers of Congress have been negotiating budget proposals that will take healthcare and food assistance – basic needs spending – away from everyday, average Americans to fund tax cuts for the wealthy and supercharge detention and deportation capacity. It's a bad deal for America.
Right now, the Senate is marking up their reconciliation proposal in reply to the House version which passed by a party line vote. Unless changed by the Senate, followed by hard-nosed engagement of Moderates in both chambers; the House package will profoundly harm at-risk and vulnerable communities. If nothing else, we need to mitigate the worst harms of the House bill.
As proposed, the current package would see:
- $295 million in SNAP cuts (CBPP) will exacerbate hunger, hitting children, seniors, and working families worst. These cuts are both cruel and short-sighted, especially at a time when food insecurity remains high in many communities,
- $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act along with other provisions in the House package, means roughly 15 million Americans will lose health coverage (CBPP). (A later CBO (Re)estimate says 16 million.)
- Tens of millions of low income people will lose access to many basic needs programs through eligibility requirements (CBPP) and maneuvers.
- Tax breaks (TCF) designed to primarily benefit the wealthy and corporations (Penn-Wharton) and, in effect, facilitate a wealth transfer from average Americans.
- A funding regime designed to supercharge harm to immigrant communities (NILC) by escalating roundup and detention capacity to effect an unprecedented "border hardening and massive deportation enforcement." (WOLA)
As Unitarian Universalists, we oppose passage of unfair tax policies: policies that are profoundly regressive and disproportionately benefit the wealthy while making low-income and vulnerable communities suffer; policies that escalate economic inequity. Taking food assistance and healthcare away from millions is not good for our society or economy. Actually, it's the essence of what Rev. William Barber, II and the Poor People's Campaign: NCMR described as "federal policy violence."
The Senate must protect healthcare, nutrition, and other essential services for millions of families. Our Senators should protect policies and programs that meet the basic needs of millions. We should strengthen support for these programs—not take them away. We need each and every Senator to get a strong and clear message that their constituents oppose these harmful proposals.
Send our message to your Senators now, please don’t fail to respond. Unity of purpose in the minority and a slim few, principled actors in the majority, can make a difference. ACT NOW!
Why You Should Act:
If passed, the legislative proposals in both chambers articulate a massive restructure of our approach to basic needs policy and programs in the U.S. They authorize a massive and unconscionable transfer of wealth from poor, low-income, and low-wealth households to wealthy and billionaire Americans. They do so in the form of resource and program reductions for the vulnerable paired with bonanza tax cuts for for the greedy.
The budget strategy being deployed by Congressional Leadership will profoundly harm our national well-being and is delivered directly to all 435 congressional districts, 50 states across the U.S.
Also see, June 4th, NEW POLL: Republicans’ Billionaire Tax Scam Toxically Unpopular with American Voters (Families Over Billionaires) and New Polling: Voters Oppose the Republican Budget Bill (Hart Research, Families Over Billionaires, CAP Action, and Protect Our Care)
The Budget Reconciliation Package Would:
- In the case of Medicaid, most of the cuts would come through combining three tactical elements: (a) work reporting requirements, (b) reductions in expansions under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and (c) caps or cost shifts on aid directly to states. Cuts in Medicaid would leave roughly 15 million without health insurance. Medicaid together with its companion, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), currently reach 38 million children, comprising nearly half of all enrollments.
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Make changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which would threaten 22 million people who rely on the program. A recent study out of Chicago University found that Congress saved 27,400 lives when it expanded Medicaid to cover millions of poor people during the period of 2014 – 2022. These cuts to ACA tax credits would increase health insurance premiums by as much as 100%, including at least 3 million small business owners and self-employed workers among that 20 million.
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Cap Benefits - Impose cost-sharing on people with income greater than the federal poverty level ($15,650 per year for an individual in 2025) who are enrolled in Medicaid through the ACA expansion. The caps – ask Puerto Rico about Medicaid caps – could mean tens of millions losing health care coverage as states seek to tighten budgets, narrow eligibility, and reduce the levels of care offered rather than improve efficacy and efficiency over time.
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Implement Work Requirements for Recipients - The work reporting requirements aim to push about 36 million people off health care with tricky bureaucracy and unnecessary administrative processes. The cautious Congressional Budget Office estimated in April about 600,000 people would completely lose funding for their Medicaid.
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Reduces Services for Seniors and People with Disabilities - Medicaid provides services for Seniors and People with Disabilities; cuts to this program would result in undue burdens on the participant’s families. Medicaid pays for millions of Seniors in Assisted Living Facilities or Nursing Homes. Millions of disabled people depend on Medicaid for services and Direct Care Workers, which honors their worth and dignity and allows them to live and work in their community or at home.
On SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program):
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Expand work requirements to older adults aged 55-64 and to parents of children over the age of 7. As well as, limit waivers to those who live in areas with poor economic conditions. What are Work Requirements? These restrictions require applicants to prove that they work 20 hours a week. (See state and congressional district data here.) The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this would affect 11 Million People or approximately 1 in 4 SNAP Recipients will be cut. Studies show that these requirements do not improve employment outcomes. Instead, these restrictions would result in people losing their benefits because of red tape. (Read More Here).
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End Food Assistance to people with Lawful Immigration Status. Leave States and Nonprofits holding the bill by reducing the Federal Contributions. This Budget Could Cut Contributions by as much as 25% per state. States will have to make up the funding by: (a) Raising state taxes, (b) Making cuts to the programs, or (c) Ending SNAP benefits completely. See: House Reconciliation Bill Proposes Deepest SNAP Cut in History, Would Take Food Assistance Away From Millions of Low-Income Families and Millions At Risk of Losing Food Assistance Under Proposed Expansion of SNAP’s Work Requirement.
On Tax Inequities:
- Overview: The Budget Resolution not only renews the tax cuts from the previous Trump Administration, but it expands them by an estimated $900 billion; making it one Big Beautiful Bailout for the ultra-wealthy!
- Extending these cuts will cost about about $1.5 trillion and will give people in the top 1 percent (i.e. those making about $743,000 per year and up) a tax cut averaging $62,000. Official Treasury estimates found, on average the top 0.1% of highest earners would get a $314,000 annual tax cut, while the bottom 50% of taxpayers would receive less than $1 per day. That analysis found maintaining Trump’s 2017 tax law would cost $5.5 trillion over the next decade. Most estimates put the full cost between $4.6 and $5.5 trillion.
- The Congressional Budget Office found, real GDP growth would be 0.1% lower if Trump’s 2017 tax law continues. In addition, inflation would be expected to increase, interest rates on treasury bonds would likely be raised, and private investment would probably be reduced.
- Trump’s 2017 tax law lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Afterward corporations began paying a lower effective income-tax rate than the average American family for the first time in nearly a century. At the time legislators passed the law, they promised companies would use that difference of 14% to boost workers' wages and create jobs, corporations instead launched a massive stock-buyback campaign, awarded their executives huge bonuses, and kept worker wages stagnant.
- It is estimated that for every $100 Congress spends on corporate tax cuts, only $10 trickles down to the bottom 80% of American households, while $40 goes to foreign investors, and $17 goes to the top 1% of highest-income households. This showcases the inefficiency of corporate tax cuts as a means to grow the our economy. We get a better return on taxpayer investment from direct allocations in worker productivity it’s Ȼ.20 as compared to $1.25—yes, investing in people gives a $1.05 better yield. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that on average the increased economic output generated from $1.00 of corporate tax cuts is just Ȼ.20. Conversely, $1.00 of direct payments to working families—such as a refundable monthly child tax credit—yields $1.25 of increased economic output on average.
- The stark disparities are disturbing. Billionaires—who are almost exclusively white—can go years without paying taxes because the U.S. system isn’t set up to properly tax huge wealth, or the income that flows from it. That difference–we suspect willful failure– in our tax revenue system means poor and working class people pay a higher rate of payroll taxes than those with income of a million dollars and more. It one of the factors contributing to escalating economic inequity.
On Immigration:
- Over the next 4 ½ years, the Reconciliation Bill would increase the ICE budget by over $160 billion. Not only would this bill increase and fund Inhumane practices against Immigrants, which is directly in opposition with our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. But, It will quadruple our country’s detention capacity with dubious oversight and could serve as a bailout for corporations that specialize in incarceration, while again taking food and healthcare from American Citizens.
- This Bill Would Provide: $5 billion for border barrier construction; $45 billion for adult and family detentions; $3 billion for the Office of Refugee Resettlement to hold unaccompanied minors (children); $15 billion for ICE; $16.2 billion to hire new ICE, CBP, and Border Patrol agents; $12 billion to reimburse states (mainly Texas) for Operation Lone Star.
UU Grounding:
As of General Assembly 2024, as Unitarian Universalists, we have agreed to “adopt new language on core religious values.” We agree love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values. The values we share include all the following, which we hold as inseparable and deeply interconnected: Interdependence, Pluralism, Justice, Transformation, Generosity, and Equity. (Read more on the Article II revision process.) With these agreed core religious values in mind, we also ground our call to action related to hunger and poverty issues, in the following Unitarian Universalist Statements:
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Undoing Systemic White Supremacy: A Call to Prophetic Action, 2021 Statement of Conscience
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The COVID-19 Pandemic: Justice. Healing. Courage, 2021 Action of Immediate Witness
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Escalating Economic Inequity, 2017 Statement of Conscience
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Ending Hunger, 1987 General Resolution
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Hunger,1980 General Resolution
No cuts! No way. No how!
Urgency Highlight:
- Consider personalizing our message with your concerns.
- Be brave and mention the worries your community is discussing.
Thank You For Trying To:
No cuts! No way. No how!
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