Category Archives: Federal Budget

Long Island Community Leaders Warn of Destructive Impacts of Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

At the press conference held at the Levittown Community Action Coalition’s YES Community Center, Representatives Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen were joined by community leaders including Michael Dowling, CEO of Northwell Health, Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, President and CEO, Family and Children’s Association, Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Randi Shubin Dresner, President and CEO of Island Harvest, Nicole Zerillo, Director of Strategic Communications of AHRC, Larry Lamendola, Co-Chair of Levittown Community Action Coalition, Dr. Shetal Shah, Past President of American Academy of Pediatrics NY Chapter 2, and Wendy Darwell, President and CEO of Suburban Hospital Alliance of New York State. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

By Karen Rubin, editor@news-photos-features.comnews-photos-features.com

Leaders of Long Island’s health care, social service organizations and environmental groups warned of the damaging impacts to lives “of neighbors, family, community” as a result of the funding cuts in the Republican budget bill (known as Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”) that passed the House in the middle of the night by a single vote. The bill, while slashing Medicaid, SNAP, clean energy projects and raising costs, delivers the needless tax cuts to the wealthiest, and will explode the national debt by $3.3 trillion.

As the Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee reported, the “GOP Tax Scam” cuts nearly $1 trillion from the health care system – effectively chipping away if not repealing entirely the Affordable Care Act – eliminating health coverage for at least 13.7 million Americans including 1.5 million New Yorkers.

The largest cut to hospitals and healthcare providers in history, will raise costs for consumers, shift costs to states and cut payments to providers, and make it harder for people to get and keep affordable health coverage.. People who no longer have access to care early and in clinics, will be forced to go to emergency rooms when they are sicker, at much higher cost. Since New York and other states guarantee access to health care, that results in higher taxes and higher premiums on private insurance – so even if you thought that these historic cuts to Medicaid would not impact you, they will.

The bill cuts a historic $700 billion in Medicaid; $267 billion in SNAP benefits; triggers $490 billion in Medicare cuts; and would result in 10 million Americans losing health insurance, all to deliver an average tax break for the top 0.1 percent of $225,000, paid for by taking away the services from millions of the most vulnerable people who will suffer from the loss in services the most, while still resulting in exploding the national debt by $3.8 trillion.

The proposed healthcare cuts in the House-passed reconciliation package represent the largest cut to hospitals and healthcare providers in history. The bill eliminates health coverage for at least 13.7 million Americans, including 1.5 million New Yorkers. It raises costs for consumers, shifts costs to states and cuts payments to providers, and makes it harder for people to get and keep affordable health coverage.

Nearly 7 million New Yorkers benefit from Medicaid. New York State estimates these changes will cost New York $13.4B per year. NYS currently spends $35.5B per year in state dollars on Medicaid. 

Hospital losses in NYS will exceed $1.3B annually due to an increase in uncompensated care and reduced reimbursements. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, Long Island will lose almost 30,000 jobs as a result.

Congressmembers Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen, Democrats of Nassau County, brought together community leaders at the YES Community Counseling Center in Levittown, Long Island, to address the impact of cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other essential safety net programs.

“I have serious concerns about the reconciliation and budget plan for several reasons,” said Rep. Suozzi. “Most notably, the package includes callous cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and other vital programs that support hospitals, nursing homes, and children’s care centers. These cuts will significantly undermine the delivery of healthcare services, putting access and quality of care at risk for everyone.”

“Additionally, the reconciliation package expands tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans—those who need them the least,” Suozzi continued. “While implementing these deep and harmful cuts, the budget plan also adds significantly to the national deficit.”

“I’m all for making people’s lives better with the SALT deduction, but we don’t need to cut taxes for wealthiest while taking away health insurance and food assistance from people who need it most,” Suozzi said.

People making more than $1 million per year would have an average tax cut of almost $90,000. The top 5% would receive almost half of the total tax cuts

“If New York has to pick up the bill, our taxes will go up in one of most highly taxed places, because we [in New York] take care of our poor, our elderly,” said Congressmember Laura Gillen. “What kind of country do we want to be? One that cares about the vulnerable or only cares about those who pay to play?” © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Rep. Gillen said, “Being factual, not fear mongering, there are real life impacts these cuts will have on neighbors, friends, our own wallets. When Medicaid cuts go through, it will increase premiums on private insurance. Cuts to SNAP, to Island Harvest, will have devastating impact.  When health care costs go up, parents won’t eat to have money for child’s medication.

“Be honest: all this is cost shifting scheme to make it look like they are making cuts to be fiscally responsible, but they are increasing deficit, while shifting the burden to New York State to pick up bill for what federal government  will no longer be spending in New York to feed hungry. If New York has to pick up the bill, our taxes will go up in one of most highly taxed places, because we [in New York] take care of our poor, our elderly.

“What kind of country do we want to be? One that cares about the vulnerable or only cares about those who pay to play?

”There is no greater champion for eliminating waste fraud abuse [than me], but this is about putting up roadblock to those who need assistance to get ahead.” Gillen said.

“It’s about what we believe in – health, environment. This is the opposite,” said Michael Dowling, CEO of Northwell Health. “ We should be going forward, not backward – help people more, not taking away for which people fought so many years to get, and assume it doesn’t matter – it’s about a philosophy of government, about caring, it’s what you believe in. Up here, we believe America is better than this. We have got to make sure this is curtailed and can be reversed as the bill goes into the Senate.” © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

This budget bill, Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling declared, “is undermining our commitment to public health and health overall – not just hospitals and ambulatory clinics, but everything. It is a curtailment of protecting people against pollution, against commitment to dealing with gun violence, undermining major commitment to research and science across the board – 50% reduction in funding for National Institutes of Health – [engendering] the idea that science is bad, that science doesn’t work. We’re all healthier because of commitment to science of last 50 years. What is happening is undermining of trust in government, trust in organizations.

“We also see an assault on international partnerships and alliances – eliminating the alliance with the World Health Organization which provides us across the board information on what happening around world healthwise, alerting us to what might happen here.

“It is a devaluation of past successes we’ve all had. Taken all together, it sends the message we don’t care much about health, wellbeing, people’s livelihoods, especially those not at top echelon, that we can’t trust anything unless we tell you what we want you to trust,” Dowling declared.

Turning to the specifics of the budget bill, Dowling noted “the implications are larger than you think.” It will reduce revenue by $370 million; cut Medicaid by $200 million; curtailing eligibility for Medicaid will render 1.5 million people in New York ineligible for Medicaid. The bill also cuts millions from Northwell’s research. (Northwell is the largest employer in New York State.)

“It’s about what we believe in  – health, environment. This is the opposite. We should be going forward, not backward – help people more, not taking away for which people fought so many years to get, and assume it doesn’t matter – it’s about a philosophy of government, about caring, it’s what you believe in. Up here, we believe America is better than this. We have got to make sure this is curtailed and can be reversed as the bill goes into the Senate,” Dowling said.

Wendy Darwell, President and CEO of Suburban Hospital Alliance of New York State, noted, “The numbers here for health care are staggering – $1 trillion in health care cuts in all, means $13.5 billion in cuts to New York State; 1.5 million will lose insurance coverage;  $150 million cut a year to Nassau and Suffolk hospitals. It is not possible for New York State to absorb $13.5 billion hit without cutting benefits, eligibility, providers.


“The numbers are hard to relate to. You may think the cuts may hit somebody else, but they hit everybody. People who need care will continue regardless of insurance or not, so will come to the ER without insurance, get care in the most expensive way, probably when they are much sicker. Instead of spending a little money on coverage, we will spend a lot on emergencies, and most will get charity care. That destabilizes the healthcare infrastructure – health systems will have to respond. It will be hard to retain the level of service, the kind of access as now.

“If don’t think this applies to you, you will likely face longer wait times at the ER, less access to service in community, it will be harder to get appointments to see doctor. It cuts across the health care system.”

Most people do not realize how expansive the state’s health insurance coverage options are now because of the funding system, but could include the adult child who aged off insurance at 26 (thanks Obamacare!); a parent in nursing home. In absence of a better option, Medicaid is long term care insurance for New Yorkers.

Cuts will have impact on commercial insurance, because costs will have to be offset – if you have private insurance, you won’t be immune either. From a hospital perspective: the median operating margin in New York State  0%, so any cuts put that margin into negative.Cuts this staggering can’t be absorbed and will fundamentally destabilize the state’s healthcare system.”

Congressman Suozzi noted,”I’’m in a relatively wealthy district, yet 29% of children in my district [40% nationally] rely on Medicaid for health insurance; two out of three senior citizens in nursing homes in America are covered by Medicaid, one out of 10 of vets in America are covered by Medicaid. Think of the children, the elderly, the disabled that will be impacted by this.”

Dr. Shetal Shah, Past President of American Academy of Pediatrics NY Chapter 2 (Long Island) said, the House bill jeopardizes health of 37 million children across country at risk.

“Medicaid is foundational to children’s health in New York State – 49% of all newborns are covered by Medicaid; 44% depend upon Medicaid for life saving asthma medication…Medicaid is for all of us -not just for people more socially vulnerable.”  Even if you get insurance through your employer there are annual caps on coverage.  “if you are unlucky to have a newborn with congenital heart lesion, you will surpass the limits in a matter of weeks; few could afford the tens of thousands a day to care.” Medicaid can be the difference between selling a home to pay for medical debt. “It is a safety net for all of us – sad fact is most don’t think about it until we need it.”

Also, hospitals rely on each other to provide high level care across Long Island and state – children’s hospitals across Long Island are shared resources, specialized resources. Medicaid helps keep them open, but drastic cuts are a threat that hospitals will close. Then we all lose community resources – pediatric ER , specialized burn and rehabilitation, pediatric dialysis and intensive care centers.

“Make no mistake: these cuts will cause all of us to pay more; will detach children from primary care; simple problems that could be addressed in clinic become bigger problems in ER; and private insurance will raise premiums to offset costs.”

At the press conference held at the Levittown Community Action Coalition’s YES Community Center, Representatives Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen were joined by community leaders including Michael Dowling, CEO of Northwell Health, Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, President and CEO, Family and Children’s Association, Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Randi Shubin Dresner, President and CEO of Island Harvest, Nicole Zerillo, Director of Strategic Communications of AHRC, Larry Lamendola, Co-Chair of Levittown Community Action Coalition, Dr. Shetal Shah, Past President of American Academy of Pediatrics NY Chapter 2, and Wendy Darwell, President and CEO of Suburban Hospital Alliance of New York State. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Mental health services are also jeopardized, at a time when the state and Long Island are still struggling under a mental health crisis, with overdoses and suicides.

Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, President and CEO, Family and Children’s Association, said his agency serves 36,000 children facing drug addiction, mental health crises, and suicidal ideation.

“It’s no secret this country, this state, and Long Island struggled under mental health crisis since covid – number of overdoses – over time – more than 1 in 4 adults have demonstrated symptoms of anxiety and depression; one in six kids contemplated suicide. The single largest payer of children’s mental healthcare is Medicaid

“Things are starting to get better in attempted suicides, suicides, involuntary placements, school avoidance. It’s undeniable – one of the ways we’ve made any progress has been through Medicaid programs that support mental health, that support facilities to support kids considering taking own life. We could take a victory lap in drop in opioid overdoses – decrease in fatalities is cause to celebrate but not for too long – 30,000 didn’t die. But 80,000 Americans did die – nothing to celebrate.”

“Now is not the time to rip the  rug from out from under families, hospitals, communities, folks who spent 10 years looking for hope in midst of crisis – finally have glimmer of hope only for Washington to take away. Everyday average folks should understand that this could happen to any one’s family – make sure care and treatment available, speak up now.”

(Reminder: Republicans are constantly blaming the gun violence epidemic on mental health, rather than the unconscionable easy access to weapons of war, but do nothing to provide mental health services. Instead, as Suozzi pointed out, the budget bill repeals a $200 fee and requirement to register “unusual or dangerous firearm accessories like silencers that dates from 1934, and that brought $145 million in revenue on 710,000 silencers sold in the USA in 2024. “They gut the Affordable Care Act, but make it easier to buy silencer,” Suozzi said.]

The Republican “Big Beautiful Bill” cuts funding for Narcan that has saved thousands of people who would have died from overdoses, and for drug treatment. And Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is sitting on $100 million in federal money to address opioid addiction, noted Larry Lamendola, Co-Chair of Levittown Community Action Coalition.

The House bill would also impact more than 7000 who depend on disability services – housing, employment services, transportation, day services, and direct support from meals to medication. In New York, medicaid funds 95% of services overseen by office of disability services to organizations like AHRC, said Nicole Zerillo, Director of Strategic Communications of AHRC.

Medicaid is a shared federal and state program. When the federal share shrinks, the state has to choose whether to reduce services, put people on wait list. More staff leave, smaller providers close and people with developmental disabilities lose the supports they need to live safely.

New York spends $850 million, “but continued investment relies on a sustainable federal match. We can’t afford to backslide. Forcing people to recertify Medicaid eligibility twice year won’t improve accuracy or root out fraud, it will just limit coverage,” she said.

“The Republican Budget bill “undoes 75 years of progress to help move from institutions to inclusion [note: that is the DEI that Trump has declared “illegal.”] 

“The bill risks cutting critical supports – and pushing people back to margin: protect Medicaid, right to live in community and protect the future spent generations building.”

Randi Shubin Dresner, President and CEO of Island Harvest, noted that 2.8 million New Yorkers – 14% of the population – depend on SNAP dollars. It’s not just about giving people who are vulnerable money so they can buy food. That money is spent in local supermarkets, delis, bodegas, with an $11.5 billion impact on local businesses in New York State.

The cuts in SNAP will take 9.5 billion means off the table every year, across the country. Every meal supports a person. 9.5 billion meals are at risk for our neighbors, relatives most in need.

Cuts have already impacted Island Harvest – $1.7 million in cuts has taken a million meals off the table.

“Many Long Islanders don’t qualify for SNAP benefits because the cost of living is so high on Long Island. So why in one of the richest communities, richest zipcodes, is Island Harvest helping over 200,000 people each year? Because it is one ecosystem- so if there are cuts in others – housing, mental health, Medicaid – it always means people have to make decisions about where to cut in family budget. The easiest is food budget – we eat 3 meals a day, countless parents are giving up 1 or 2 meals in order to fed children, pay med gills and transportation to doctor. If there are more cuts , they will cut more meals at home. Young mothers have to water down formula for their infant to make it through the day.”

Besides the direct impacts on health care, Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” slashes funding for clean energy and climate action, in order to force people back to relying on fossil fuels that impact health and contribute to pollution, global warming, climate change and climate disasters.

“This big ugly bill takes us back to 1960s energy policy,” declared Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “Today, we are implementing 21st century energy policy for the 21st century, tomorrow, we will be taken back to the 1960s. This bill derails the  clean energy sector, one of fastest growing job ;sectors in America.” © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

“This big ugly bill takes us back to 1960s energy policy,” declared Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “Today, we are implementing 21st century energy policy for the 21st century, tomorrow, we will be taken back to the 1960s. This bill derails the  clean energy sector, one of fastest growing job ;sectors in America.”

Since Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, over 2000 new industry, manufacturing companies have been created in the U.S.; $289 billion in private sector investment; 130,000 jobs in clean energy. This bill completely eliminates the tax credit for solar, for residential and commercial. Low income and working class Americans are using the tax credits, not to save the planet but  because of affordability and stability to home energy gills.

It eliminates all tax credits for electric vehicles – workign class and mid-income residents were using  to add affordability to their transportation, so they aren’t at the mercy of unpredictable and expensive gas prices.

It does away with all tax credits for energy efficiency – appliances, HVAC systems, changing windows that made homes warmer in winter, cooler in summer, and helped stretch dollars and save energy.

While removing incentives for clean energy, the bill promotes “Drill, baby, drill,” – going back to oil and natural gas that will increase air pollution – asthma, heart attacks, respiratory illness, premature deaths, water contamination, and increase and accelerate the impacts of climate change – which Long Island cares about. Overall, taking us back in energy policy is bad for health, It makes no sense, unless you are invested in the oil industry..

Suozzi and Gillen noted that House Democrats attempted to amend the budget bill – offering 500 different amendments over the marathon sessions in committees and on the floor – all of which were shot down by Republicans, who even shot down raising taxes on those earning $100 million a year.

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© 2025 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles,Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com,email editor@news-photos-features.com.Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures

T’was the Night After Christmas

On the street in New York City at Christmas © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.comeditor@news-photos-features.com

The night after Christmas, New York City was teaming with people, actually queuing up on the street for a turn to enter stores, jamming holiday markets, cafes, enjoying Christmas decorations. But they had to walk past people camped out on the street in freezing temperature.

The New York Times just reported that the number of people experiencing homelessness topped 770,000, an increase of more than 18 percent over last year and the highest on record. The causes include the end of COVID protections against eviction and aid programs, the abusive mishandling of migrants by Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, literally trafficking and dumping people in cities led by Democrats, the obstruction of Republicans to pass border security and immigration reform so that these people making a legal claim for asylum cannot be processed in a timely way, and on top of that, the high cost of housing and lack of affordable housing.

Kamala Harris’campaign offered ways to address the problem, targeting housing affordability in an Opportunity Economy agenda, aimed at an economy, and a society, in which people “thrive, not merely survive.”

Instead, a slight majority of voters chose faux-populist dictator-wannabe Trump, richest-man-in-the-world Elon Musk and the Project 2025 approach: slashing the social safety net altogether to shave $2 trillion from federal spending (one-third of the budget), which means Head Start, food stamps, Medicaid, public health, public education, Pell grants, Medicare and Social Security. (So-called “discretionary spending” totals $1.7 trillion.)

“We have to reduce spending to live within our means,” Musk said. “And, you know, that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity” for him and the other billionaires.

Here’s what that looked like in New York City on the Night after Christmas:

On the street in New York City at Christmas © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
On the street in New York City at Christmas © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
On the street in New York City at Christmas © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
On the street in New York City at Christmas © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
On the street in New York City at Christmas © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

See:

A Dickens of a Christmas

Migrants and End of Covid Restrictions Fuel Jump in U.S. Homelessness

Elon Musk asks voters to brace for economic ‘hardship,’ deep spending cuts in potential Trump Cabinet role

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© 2024 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email editor@news-photos-features.com. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin Threads: @news_and_photo_features

House Republicans Release Budget Plan Targeting Medicare, Social Security, and Affordable Care Act, Raising Costs While Cutting Taxes for Wealthy; Biden Vows to Protect Social Safety Net

The House Republican Study Committee – which represents 100% of House Republican leadership and nearly 80% of their members – just proposed yet another budget that would cut Medicare, Social Security, and the Affordable Care Act , as well as increase prescription drug, energy, and housing costs – all while forcing tax giveaways for the very rich onto the country. Their plan would even raise the Social Security retirement age.  © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

This fact sheet analyzing the House Republicans’ proposed 2025 budget that would target Medicare, Social Security, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), repeal caps on drugs and cut taxes for the wealthy, is provided by the White House:

In his State of the Union Less than two weeks ago, President Biden laid out his vision for an economy that gives the middle class a fair shot. He also warned that congressional Republicans “will cut Social Security and give more tax cuts to the wealthy,” that they continue to oppose the Affordable Care Act, and that they are siding with Big Pharma over hardworking families.     
 
On Wednesday, Republican Study Committee – which represents 100% of House Republican leadership and nearly 80% of their members – just proposed yet another budget that would cut Medicare, Social Security, and the Affordable Care Act , as well as increase prescription drug, energy, and housing costs – all while forcing tax giveaways for the very rich onto the country. Their plan would even raise the Social Security retirement age.
 
Like President Biden promised in the Capitol, “If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age I will stop them.”
 
He’s keeping that promise by standing against this new House Republican budget. He knows the last thing we should do is raid Medicare and Social Security while giving more giant tax cuts to the wealthy and big corporations.
 
What’s more, House Republicans’ plan would raise energy costs and send our new manufacturing jobs back overseas by gutting other crucial elements of the Inflation Reduction Act, raise housing costs, and allow big companies to rip off consumers with junk fees.  
 
President Biden has a different vision for how we move into the future: make the wealthy, big corporations, and special interests pay their fair share while protecting and strengthening Medicare and Social Security. Extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits he delivered to lower health care costs and cover more Americans than any time in history. Making the economy work for the middle class by investing in America and the industries of the future, while lowering key costs that working families face. And expanding Medicare’s ability to negotiate lower drug costs.
 
80% of House Republicans released a Budget that:
 
Cuts Medicare and Social Security while putting health care at risk for millions
 

  1. Calls for over $1.5 trillion in cuts to Social Security, including an increase in the retirement age to 69 and cutting disability benefits.
  2. Raises Medicare costs for seniors by taking away Medicare’s authority to negotiate prescription drug costs, repealing $35 insulin, and the $2,000 out-of-pocket cap in the Inflation Reduction Act
  3. Transitions Medicare to a premium support system that CBO has found would raise premiums for many seniors.
  4. Cuts Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program by $4.5 trillion over ten years, taking coverage away from millions of people, eroding care for seniors, children, and people with disabilities, and taking us back to the days where people could be denied care for pre-existing conditions and charged more for health insurance simply for being a woman.   

 
Rigs the economy for the wealthy and large corporations against middle class families
 

  1. Passes $5.5 trillion in tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and large corporations, including permanently extending tax cuts in the Trump tax law, repealing the minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations the President signed into law, eliminating the estate tax for the wealthiest Americans, providing a massive tax cut for billionaire investors, and making it easier for the wealthy and large corporations to get away with cheating on their taxes.
  2. Kills jobs and investment in communities throughout the country – including Red States – by eliminating the clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act.
  3. Makes it easier for companies and banks to rip consumers off with unfair and hidden junk fees by eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
  4. Raises housing costs by cutting funding for rental assistance, cutting funding for programs that help build housing, and raising mortgage costs for first-time homebuyers.

In response to the Republican budget plan, President Biden issued a statement : “My dad had an expression, ‘Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.’ The Republican Study Committee budget shows what Republicans value. This extreme budget will cut Medicare, Social Security, and the Affordable Care Act. It endorses a national abortion ban. The Republican budget will raise housing costs and prescription drugs costs for families. And it will shower giveaways on the wealthy and biggest corporations. Let me be clear: I will stop them.
 
“My budget represents a different future. One where the days of trickle-down economics are over and the wealthy and biggest corporations no longer get all the breaks. A future where we restore the right to choose and protect other freedoms, not take them away. A future where the middle class finally has a fair shot, and we protect Social Security so the working people who built this country can retire with dignity. I see a future for all Americans and I will never stop fighting for that future.”

See:

FACT SHEET: PRESIDENT BIDEN’S PROPOSED 2025 BUDGET PROTECTS PROGRESS, SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, INVESTS IN AMERICA, REDUCES DEFICIT

BIDEN LAYS OUT VISION FOR FUTURE, BATTLE TO SAVE DEMOCRACY AND SOUL OF NATION & DRAWS CONTRASTS TO ‘MY PREDECESSOR” IN FIERY STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

FACT SHEET: President Biden’s Proposed 2025 Budget Protects Progress, Social Security, Medicare, Invests in America, Reduces Deficit

Budget Details Vision to Protect Progress, Lower Costs, Protect and Strengthen Social Security and Medicare, Invest in America and the American People, and Reduce the Deficit 

President Biden delivers the State of the Union Address outlining his priorities for the next term © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com via cspan.org.

From Day One of this Administration, President Biden has tackled challenges head-on while delivering long-lasting results. Over the past three years, he has overseen a strong economic recovery, amassed one of the most successful legislative records in generations, grown the economy from the middle out and bottom up, and delivered important progress for the American people.

Since the President and Vice President took office, the economy has added about 15 million jobs, the unemployment rate has remained below 4 percent for two years in a row—a more than 50-year record—while inflation has fallen by two-thirds. Our strong labor market has meant higher paychecks for working Americans, with inflation-adjusted wages and wealth higher now than before the pandemic. The President’s top economic priority remains lowering costs for hardworking Americans. Under his leadership, the Administration is working to bring down prescription drug costs, health insurance premiums, utility bills, and costs for everyday goods and services—all while taking on junk fees that some banks, airlines, and other big corporations use to rip off Americans. At the same time, he has also restored U.S. leadership on the world stage while keeping Americans safe and promoting democracy at home and abroad. 

The President has delivered this progress while fulfilling his commitment to fiscal responsibility. The deficit is over $1 trillion lower than when President Biden took office, thanks in large part to the strength of our economic recovery. In addition, the President has also enacted another roughly $1 trillion in savings over the next decade through the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and through Inflation Reduction Act provisions that empower Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, cap insulin at $35 per month for seniors, and make our tax system fairer by making billion-dollar corporations pay a minimum tax and enabling the IRS to crack down on wealthy and corporate tax cheats.

The Budget details the President’s vision to protect and build on his Administration’s progress by continuing to lower costs for working families, protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, invest in America and the American people to make sure the middle class has a fair shot and we leave no one behind, and reduce the deficit by cracking down on fraud, cutting wasteful spending, and making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. Building on the President’s record of fiscal responsibility, his Budget reduces the deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years—on top of paying for new investments.

The President’s vision of progress, possibilities, and resilience is in stark contrast to Congressional Republicans, who have repeatedly fought to slash critical programs the American people count on and increase the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, including by attempting to repeal the parts of the Inflation Reduction Act that take on special interests like Big Pharma, big corporations, and wealthy tax cheats. The President’s Budget:

Lowers Costs for the American People

The President has made lowering costs for hardworking families his top domestic priority. Under his leadership we have seen significant progress bringing down inflation. Inflation is down by more than two-thirds, and costs have fallen for key household purchases from a gallon of gas to a gallon of milk. While Congressional Republicans have consistently taken actions that would raise costs for working families, the President’s Budget would continue lowering costs for families.

Lowers Drug Prices and Expands Access to Prescription Drugs. Thanks to action taken by the Administration, millions of seniors and people with disabilities are saving money on their drug costs, and the Administration announced the first ten drugs for which prices will be negotiated as it continues implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act. The Budget builds on this success by significantly increasing the pace of negotiation, bringing more drugs into negotiation sooner after they launch, expanding the Inflation Reduction Act’s inflation rebates and $2,000 out-of-pocket prescription drug cost cap beyond Medicare and into the commercial market, and other steps to build on the Inflation Reduction Act drug provisions. In addition, the Budget extends the $35 cost-sharing cap for a month’s supply of insulin to the commercial market. The Budget also includes proposals to ensure Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are prudent purchasers of prescription drugs and limits Medicare Part D cost-sharing for high-value generic drugs, such as those used to treat hypertension and hyperlipidemia, to no more than $2 per month for Medicare beneficiaries. These reforms will not only cut costs for the Federal government by $200 billion; they will also save billions of dollars for seniors.

Cuts Taxes for Families with Children and American Workers. President Biden’s tax cuts cut child poverty in half in 2021 and are saving millions of people an average of about $800 per year in health insurance premiums today. Going forward, in addition to honoring his pledge not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 annually, President Biden’s tax plan would cut taxes for middle- and low-income Americans by $765 billion over 10 years. The Budget restores the full Child Tax Credit enacted in the American Rescue Plan, which helped cut child poverty nearly in half in 2021 to its lowest level in history and narrowed racial disparities in access to the credit. The President’s Budget would restore the expanded Child Tax Credit, lifting 3 million children out of poverty and cutting taxes by an average of $2,600 for 39 million low- and middle-income families that include 66 million children. This includes 18 million children in low-income families who would be newly eligible for the full credit, and 2 million children living with a caregiver who is at least 60 years old. It would also provide breathing room for day-to-day expenses by allowing families to receive their tax credit through monthly payments. And by strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-paid workers who aren’t raising a child in their home, the President’s Budget would cut taxes by an average of $800 for 19 million working individuals or couples. That includes 2 million older workers age 65 and older and 5 million young adults age 18 to 24 who would be newly eligible for the credit.

Lowers Child Care Costs for Hard-Working Families. The President is committed to providing relief to hard-working families. His Budget creates a historic new program under which working families with incomes up to $200,000 per year would be guaranteed affordable, high-quality child care from birth until kindergarten, with most families paying no more than $10 a day, and the lowest income families paying nothing—providing a lifeline to the parents of more than 16 million children. The Budget also includes $8.5 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) which will help states expand child care assistance to serve over 2 million low-income children.

Increases Affordable Housing Supply to Reduce Housing Costs. The President believes that all Americans should be able to afford a quality home, which is why the Budget includes a historic investment of more than $258 billion that would build or preserve over 2 million units. The Budget builds on previous investments and actions by this Administration to boost housing supply and lower housing costs, particularly for lower- and middle-income households. The Budget expands the existing Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and proposes a new Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit. To further address the critical shortage of affordable housing in communities throughout the Nation, the Budget provides $20 billion in mandatory funding for a new Innovation Fund for Housing Expansion. The Budget invests $1.3 billion in the HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME) to construct and rehabilitate affordable rental housing and provide homeownership opportunities. The Budget also provides $7.5 billion in mandatory funding for new Project-Based Rental Assistance contracts to incentivize the development of new climate-resilient affordable housing. Together these proposals would expand the supply of safe and affordable housing, bring new units to market, and ultimately help curb cost growth across the broader rental market.

Expands Access to Homeownership and Affordable Rent and Reduces Down Payments for First-Time and First-Generation Homebuyers. The Budget proposes a new Mortgage Relief Credit to help increase access to affordable housing. The proposal includes a new tax credit for middle-class first-time homebuyers of up to $10,000 over two years to ease affordability challenges. In addition, to unlock starter home inventory and allow middle-class families to move up the housing ladder and empty nesters to right size, the President is calling on Congress to provide a one-year tax credit of up to $10,000 to middle-class families who sell their starter home. The Budget also provides $10 billion in mandatory funding for a new First-Generation Down Payment Assistance program to address homeownership and wealth gaps. For renters, the Budget proposes $32.8 billion in discretionary funding for the Housing Choice Voucher Program to maintain and protect critical services for all currently assisted families and support an additional 20,000 households. The Budget also provides $9 billion to establish a housing voucher program for all 20,000 youth aging out of foster care annually, and provides $13 billion to incrementally expand rental assistance for 400,000 extremely low-income veteran families, paving a path to guaranteed assistance for all who have served the Nation and are in need.

Reduces the Cost of College and Lifts the Burden of Student Debt. From Day One of his Administration, President Biden vowed to fix the student loan system and make sure higher education is a pathway to the middle class—not a barrier to opportunity. Already, the President has cancelled more student debt than any President in history, approving debt cancellation for nearly 4 million borrowers through more than two dozen executive actions. The Budget includes a $12 billion mandatory Reducing the Costs of College Fund that will fund strategies to lower college costs for students, including a new Classroom to Career Fund that will enable students to more affordably obtain postsecondary degrees by increasing access to career-connected dual enrollment opportunities. The Budget also builds on the President’s historic actions to reduce student debt and the cost of college by eliminating the origination fees charged to borrowers on every new federal student loan, which costs families billions. In addition, to help low- and middle-income students overcome financial barriers to postsecondary education, the Budget proposes to increase the discretionary maximum Pell Grant by $100 and thereby expand the reach of the program to help over 7.2 million students attend a public or non-profit college. The Budget builds on successful bipartisan efforts to increase the maximum Pell Grant award by $900 over the past two years—the largest increase in more than 10 years. The Budget also expands free community college through a Federal-State partnership and provides two years of subsidized tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 enrolled in a four-year Historically Black College and University (HBCU), Tribally Controlled College and University (TCCU), or Minority-Serving Institution (MSI). 

Lowers Health Care Costs. The President believes that healthcare is a right, not a privilege. With enrollment in Marketplace coverage at an all-time high, the Budget builds on the incredible success of the Affordable Care Act by making permanent the expanded premium tax credits that the Inflation Reduction Act extended, and providing Medicaid-like coverage to individuals in States that have not adopted Medicaid expansion, paired with financial incentives to ensure States maintain their existing expansions. For Medicaid and CHIP, the Budget allows States to extend the existing 12-month continuous eligibility for all children to 36 months, and allows States to provide continuous eligibility for children from birth until they turn age 6. Further, the Budget prohibits enrollment fees and premiums in CHIP.

Reduces Home Energy and Water Costs. The Budget provides $4.1 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), helping families access home energy and weatherization assistance—vital tools for protecting families from extreme weather and climate change. In addition, the Budget proposes to allow States the option to use a portion of their LIHEAP funds to provide water bill assistance to low-income households.

Protects and Strengthens Social Security and Medicare

Social Security and Medicare are more than government programs, they’re a promise—a rock-solid guarantee that generations of Americans have counted on—that after a life of hard work, you will be able to retire with dignity and security. As the President has made clear, he will reject any efforts to cut or undermine the Medicare or Social Security benefits that seniors and people with disabilities have earned and paid into their entire working lives. The Budget honors that ironclad commitment by firmly opposing benefit cuts to either program and by embracing reforms that would protect and strengthen these programs. The President remains committed to working with the Congress to protect and strengthen Medicare and Social Security for this and future generations and strongly rejects Congressional Republicans’ attempts to cut benefits for hardworking Americans.

Protects and Strengthens Medicare. The Budget strengthens Medicare by extending the solvency of the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund indefinitely by modestly increasing the Medicare tax rate on incomes above $400,000, closing loopholes in existing Medicare taxes, and directing revenue from the Net Investment Income Tax into the HI trust fund as was originally intended. The Budget closes the loophole that allows certain business owners to avoid paying Medicare taxes on these profits and raises Medicare tax rates on earned and unearned income from 3.8 percent to 5 percent for those with incomes over $400,000. In addition, the Budget directs an amount equivalent to the savings from the proposed Medicare drug reforms into the HI trust fund.

Protects the Social Security Benefits that Americans Have Earned. The Administration is committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security. In particular, the Administration looks forward to working with Congress to responsibly strengthen Social Security in a way that ensures no benefit cuts; extends solvency by asking the highest-income Americans to pay their fair share; and improves financial security for seniors and people with disabilities, especially those who face the greatest challenges making ends meet.

Ensures That Americans Can Access the Benefits They’ve Earned. The Budget also invests in staff, information technology, and other improvements at the Social Security Administration (SSA), which will improve customer service at SSA’s field offices, State disability determination services, and teleservice centers for retirees, individuals with disabilities, and their families.

Cuts the Deficit by Promoting Tax Fairness

The President has demonstrated that we can invest in America while achieving meaningful deficit reduction. The deficit is over $1 trillion lower than when President Biden took office, and the President has enacted roughly $1 trillion in additional deficit reduction, including through provisions that empower Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, cap insulin at $35 per month for seniors and people with disabilities, and establish a minimum tax for large corporations. The Administration looks forward to building on this progress with responsible investments that continue to grow America’s economy from the middle out and bottom up while improving the long-term budget outlook. The Budget proposes another roughly $3 trillion in savings over the next 10 years by making the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share and closing tax loopholes and cutting wasteful spending on Big Pharma, Big Oil, corporate jets and other special interests, and cracking down on wealthy tax cheats. The President’s proposals to reduce the deficit are in sharp contrast to Congressional Republicans plans for tax giveaways skewed to wealthy and big corporations.

Requires Billionaires to Pay at Least 25 Percent of Income in Taxes. Billionaires make their money in ways that are often taxed at lower rates than ordinary wage income, or sometimes not taxed at all, thanks to giant loopholes and tax preferences that disproportionately benefit the wealthiest taxpayers. As a result, many of these wealthy Americans are able to pay an average income tax rate of just 8 percent on their full incomes—a lower rate than many firefighters or teachers. To finally address this glaring inequity, the President’s Budget includes a 25 percent minimum tax on the wealthiest 0.01 percent, those with wealth of more than $100 million.

Raises Tax Rates for Large Corporations. Corporations received an enormous tax break in 2017. While their profits soared, their investment in their workers and the economy did not. Their shareholders and top executives reaped the benefits, without the promised trickle down to workers, consumers, or communities. The President’s Budget would set the corporate tax rate at 28 percent, still well below the 35 percent rate that prevailed prior to the 2017 tax law. In addition, the Budget would raise the Inflation Reduction Act’s corporate minimum tax rate on billion-dollar corporations that the President signed into law from 15 percent to 21 percent, ensuring the biggest corporations pay more of their fair share. These policies are complemented by other proposals to incentivize job creation and investment in the United States to help ensure broadly shared prosperity.

Cracks Down on Tax Avoidance by Large Multinationals and Big Pharma. For decades, countries have competed for multinational business by slashing tax rates, at the expense of having adequate revenues to finance core services. Thanks in part to the Administration’s leadership, more than 130 nations signed on to a global tax framework to finally address this race to the bottom in 2021. Many of our international partners, including many of the world’s largest economies, have implemented or will soon implement this transformational agreement. The President’s Budget proposes to do the same by reforming the international tax system to reduce the incentives to book profits in low-tax jurisdictions, stopping corporate inversions to tax havens, and raising the tax rate on U.S. multinationals’ foreign earnings from 10.5 percent to 21 percent. These reforms would ensure that profitable multinational corporations, including Big Pharma pay their fair share.

Denies Corporations Deductions for All Compensation Over $1 Million Per Employee. Executive pay has skyrocketed in recent decades, with CEO pay averaging more than 300 times that of a typical worker in 2022. The 2017 tax law’s corporate tax cuts only made this problem worse, producing massive boosts to executive compensation while doing nothing for low- and middle-income workers. While corporations can choose to give huge pay packages to their executives, President Biden believes that they don’t deserve a tax break when they do. His Budget proposes new policy to deny deductions for all compensation over $1 million paid to any employee of a C corporation, which would discourage companies from giving their executives massive pay packages and help level the playing field across C corporations.

Ends Capital Income Tax Breaks and Other Loopholes for the Very Wealthy. The President’s Budget will end one of the most unfair aspects of our tax system—the fact that the tax rate the wealthy pay on capital gains and dividends is less than the tax rate that many middle-class families pay on their wages. Households making over $1 million—the top 0.3 percent of all households—will pay the same 39.6 percent marginal rate on their income just like a high-paid worker pays on their wages. Moreover, the Budget eliminates the loophole that allows the wealthiest Americans to entirely escape paying taxes on their wealth by passing it down to heirs.

Ensures That the IRS Can Continue to Collect Taxes Owed by Wealthy Tax Cheats. The Inflation Reduction Act addressed long-standing IRS funding deficiencies by providing stable, multi-year funding to improve tax compliance by finally cracking down on high-income individuals and corporations who too often avoided paying their lawfully owed taxes, and to improve service for the millions of Americans that do pay their taxes. Already, the IRS is using these resources to crack down on tax evasion by the wealthy and big businesses. It has collected more than $500 million in unpaid taxes from fewer than 2,000 delinquent millionaires, is recouping taxes from thousands of millionaires who did not fulfill their basic civic duty by filing a tax return, and is cracking down on high-end tax evasion like deducting personal use of corporate jets as a business expense. At the same time, the IRS is improving customer service and modernizing IT infrastructure. The President’s Budget would restore the full Inflation Reduction Act investment and provide new funding over the long-term to continue cutting the deficit by making sure that wealthy Americans and big corporations pay the taxes they owe through tax compliance initiatives and to continue improving service for taxpayers who are just trying to pay what they owe.

Invests in America and the American People

Expands and Protects Access to Health Care

Supports Family Planning Services, Maternal Health, and Health Equity. Americans deserve access to the healthcare they need, including maternal healthcare, contraception, and family planning services, which are essential to ensuring control over personal decisions about their own health, lives, and families. The Budget includes $390 million for the Title X Family Planning program to increase the number of patients served to 3.6 million. The Budget also builds on a nearly 200 percent funding increase for key programs that address maternal mortality over the course of the Administration, including $376 million to support the ongoing implementation of the White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity rates, and address the highest rates of perinatal health disparities.

Saves Lives by Advancing Behavioral Healthcare. In 2022, almost a quarter of adults had a mental illness, 13 percent of adolescents had serious thoughts of suicide, and overdose deaths continued near record highs. As a core pillar of his Unity Agenda, the President released a national strategy to transform how we understand and address mental health in America—and the Budget makes progress on this agenda by improving access to care for individuals and communities. The Budget requires all health plans to cover mental health and substance use disorder benefits, ensures that plans have an adequate network of behavioral health providers, and improves the Department of Labor’s (DOL) ability to enforce the law. The Budget builds on historic investments to improve access to mental health services, and makes significant investments in expanding the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline that is projected to respond to 7.5 million contacts from individuals in distress in 2025 alone and expands mental health care and support services in schools. Additionally, the Administration has made historic advances in expanding access to treatment for opioid use disorder, including signing into law a bipartisan provision to expand the number of medical providers who can initiate treatment for opioid use disorder from 129,000 to nearly 2 million. The Budget increases funding for the State Opioid Response grant program, which has provided treatment services to over 1.2 million people and enabled States to reverse more than 500,000 overdoses with over 9 million purchased overdose reversal medication kits.

Drives Healthcare Innovation to Discover New Treatments and Improve Health Outcomes. Investing in health care innovation and new treatments is a direct investment in the American people. The President’s Budget advances progress toward Biden Cancer Moonshot Goals and the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, enhances biodefense and public health infrastructure, and directly invests in treatment and prevention of infectious diseases. The Budget makes significant investments to work toward the President and First Lady’s signature Cancer Moonshot goals of reducing the cancer death rate by at least 50 percent over 25 years and improving the experience of people and families who are living with or who have survived cancer. The President and the First Lady launched the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, recognizing that women have been understudied and underrepresented in health research for far too long. The Administration proposes to transform the way the government funds women’s health research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including by increasing interdisciplinary research at NIH and creating a new nationwide network of centers of excellence and innovation in women’s health—and the Budget would double existing funding for the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH, to improve women’s health outcomes. Additionally, over the past three years, substantial progress has been made toward developing and implementing transformational capabilities to increase the Nation’s ability to respond to and prepare for emerging health threats. Building upon this progress, the Budget invests $9.8 billion to bolster public health capacity that will enable the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to better serve and protect the American public. The Budget also invests in the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases, including Hepatitis C, HIV, and vaccine-preventable diseases.

Expands Healthcare, Benefits, and Services for Environmental Exposures. The Honoring our PACT Act of 2022 (PACT Act) represents the most significant expansion of veterans’ healthcare and disability compensation benefits for veterans exposed to toxins and other environmental exposures, including burn pits and Agent Orange, in 30 years. As part of the PACT Act, Congress authorized the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund (TEF) to fund increased costs above 2021 funding levels for healthcare and benefits delivery for veterans exposed to certain environmental hazards—and ensure there is sufficient funding available to cover these costs without shortchanging other elements of veteran medical care and benefits delivery. The Budget continues this commitment and includes $24.5 billion for the TEF in 2025, through funds appropriated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which is $19.5 billion above the 2023 enacted level.

Prioritizes Veterans’ Mental Health Services and Suicide Prevention for Veterans and Military Servicemembers. The Budget invests $135 million within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) research programs, together with $17 billion within the VA Medical Care program, to increase access to quality mental healthcare, with the goal of helping veterans take charge of their treatment and live full, meaningful lives. In addition, the Budget provides funding to further advance the Administration’s veteran suicide prevention initiatives and to support the Department of Defense’s efforts on Suicide Prevention and Response.

Supports America’s Workforce and Prepares America’s Economy for 21st Century Challenges

Continues Implementation of the President’s Investing in America Agenda. The Budget provides a total of $78.4 billion for highway, highway safety, and transit formula programs, supporting the amounts authorized for year four of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Budget also reflects an additional $9.5 billion in advance appropriations provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for bridge replacement and rehabilitation, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and other programs to improve the safety, sustainability, and resilience of America’s transportation network.

Provides National, Comprehensive Paid Family and Medical Leave and Calls for Paid Sick Days. The Budget proposes a national, comprehensive paid family and medical leave program, providing up to 12 weeks of leave to allow eligible workers to take time off to care for and bond with a new child; care for a seriously ill loved one; heal from their own serious illness; address circumstances arising from a loved one’s military deployment; or find safety from domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. The President also calls on Congress to require employers to provide seven job-protected paid sick days each year to all workers.

Empowers, Protects, and Invests in Workers. Workers power America’s economic prosperity, building the economy from the middle out and bottom up. To ensure workers are treated with dignity and respect in the workplace and are paid the wages they’re owed, the Budget invests $2 billion in the Department of Labor’s worker protection agencies. The Budget also proposes funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to support implementation and enforcement of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and advancement of pay equity through the collection and analysis of employer pay data. Additionally, the Budget includes funding to strengthen the National Labor Relations Board’s capacity to enforce workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions.

Confronts the Climate Crisis While Spurring Clean Energy Innovation, Increasing Resilience, and Protecting Natural Resources

Lowers Energy Costs and Catalyzes Clean Energy and Economic Growth in Rural Communities. The Budget builds on the President’s historic Inflation Reduction Act to reduce energy bills for families, expand clean energy, transform rural power production, and create thousands of good-paying jobs for people across rural America. The Budget provides funding for loan guarantees for renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements for farmers and rural small businesses, and authority for rural electric loans to support additional clean energy, energy storage, and transmission projects that would create good-paying jobs.

Invests in Clean Air and Reduces Health and Environmental Hazards for At-Risk Communities. The Budget provides a total of $1.5 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation to continue the development of national programs, policies, and regulations that control air pollution and radiation exposure. The Budget provides $8.2 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE) to address legacy waste and contamination in communities, as well as funding for EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act enforcement. The Administration will ensure the investments for the management of toxic chemicals, including per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, cleanup of legacy pollution, and long-term stewardship of these sites align with the Justice40 Initiative to benefit disadvantaged communities.

Creates Jobs by Building Clean Energy Infrastructure. The Budget invests $1.6 billion through the DOE to support clean energy workforce and infrastructure projects across the Nation, including funding to weatherize and retrofit homes of low-income Americans, create good jobs and ensure reliable supply chains by manufacturing clean energy components here at home, electrify Tribal homes and transition Tribal colleges and universities to renewable energy, and support utilities and State and local governments in building a grid that is more secure, reliable, resilient, and able to integrate electricity from clean energy sources. These investments, which complement and bolster the historic funding in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, will create good-paying jobs and revitalize American manufacturing while driving progress toward the Administration’s climate goals, including 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035.

Strengthens Climate Resilience in Communities and Ecosystems. Building on the National Climate Resilience Framework, the Budget invests $23 billion in climate adaptation and resilience across the federal government to address the increasing severity of flood, wildfire, drought, and other extreme weather events fueled by climate change, including funding to support the wildland firefighting workforce through permanent and comprehensive pay reform. The Budget also provides funding to help farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners meet production goals in the face of a changing climate while conserving, maintaining, and restoring natural resources on their lands. The Budget complements the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, which dedicate more than $50 billion across the Federal government to advance climate resilience strategies in every community in America.

Supports and Expands the American Climate Corps. Last year, the Administration announced the launch of the American Climate Corps (ACC) to mobilize a new, diverse generation of more than 20,000 clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience workers, and this year, the first cohort of ACC members will begin their service. The Budget would provide mandatory funding to expand the ACC over the next decade by supporting an additional 50,000 ACC members annually by 2031. The ACC will provide job training and service opportunities on a wide range of projects that tackle climate change in communities around the country.

Doubles Down on America’s Global Climate Leadership. Beyond leading by example through domestic investments, the Budget provides a path to achieving the President’s $11 billion commitment for international climate finance. The Budget also supports $3 billion contribution through mandatory funding to finance the Green Climate Fund. The Budget builds on historic international climate finance progress made over the course of this Administration, in which estimated 2023 levels of $9.5 billion represent a near-sixfold increase from 2021.

Invests in America’s Families

Supports a Strong Nutrition Safety Net. The Budget provides $8.5 billion for critical nutrition programs, including $7.7 billion to fully fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to serve all eligible participants, which is critical to the health of pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young children. By investing in outreach and modernization, WIC would reach 800,000 more women, infants, and children each month, providing vital nutrition assistance to nearly 7 million individuals, up from 6.2 million in 2021. In addition, the Budget includes an emergency contingency fund that would provide additional resources when there are unanticipated cost pressures.

Builds a Strong Foundation for Families with Universal Pre-K and Head Start. The Budget funds voluntary, universal, free preschool for all four million of America’s four-year-olds and charts a path to expand preschool to three-year-olds. High-quality preschool would be offered in the setting of the parent’s choice—from public schools to child care providers to Head Start. The Budget also increases Head Start funding by $544 million to support the Administration’s goal to reach pay parity between Head Start staff and public elementary school teachers with similar qualifications over time. Together these proposals would support healthy child development, help children enter kindergarten ready to learn, and support families by reducing their costs prior to school entry and allowing parents to work.

Expands Opportunity and Advances Equity

Advances Efforts to End Homelessness. The Budget provides $4.1 billion for Homeless Assistance Grants to continue supporting approximately 1.2 million people experiencing homelessness each year and to expand assistance to approximately 25,000 additional households, specifically survivors of domestic violence and homeless youth. These new resources build on Administration efforts that have expanded assistance to roughly 140,000 additional households experiencing homelessness since the President took office. The Budget further reflects the Administration’s commitment to make progress toward ending homelessness by providing $8 billion in mandatory funding for the acquisition, construction, or operation of housing to expand housing options for people experiencing or at-risk of homelessness, as well as $3 billion in mandatory funding for grants to provide counseling and emergency rental assistance to older adult renters at-risk of homelessness.

Honors Commitments to Support Tribal Communities. Incorporating feedback from Tribal consultations, the Budget continues to provide robust support for Tribal Nations and Native communities in keeping with our federal trust and treaty responsibilities. For example, the Budget invests $4.6 billion for the Department of Interior’s (DOI) Tribal programs. This investment in DOI’s Tribal programs build on historic investments in Indian Country under the American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act, and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and promote long-term success by addressing critical infrastructure and climate adaptation needs in Native communities.

Expands Access to Capital for Small Businesses. Building on the historic growth in small business applications under the President and Vice President’s leadership, the Budget supports historic lending levels across the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) business lending programs. The over $58 billion in lending provided in the Budget would address the need for greater access to affordable capital, particularly in underserved communities. The Budget proposes a new direct 7(a) lending program, which would further enable SBA to address gaps in access to small dollar lending.

Promotes Equity in Education and Builds a Diverse, Capable STEM Workforce. The Budget increases institutional capacity at HBCUs, TCCUs, MSIs, and under-resourced institutions, including community colleges, and doubles funding by providing $100 million for four-year HBCUs, TCCUs, and MSIs to expand research and development infrastructure. In support of the CHIPS and Science Act’s priority of building a diverse, STEM-capable workforce, the Budget provides $1.4 billion for STEM education and workforce development programs at the National Science Foundation that have an emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The Budget also includes funding for programs focused on increasing the participation of groups historically underrepresented in science and engineering fields, including women and girls and people of color.

Protects Americans at Home and Abroad

From taking action to combat hate in America’s communities, tackle gun violence, and strengthen trust in the Nation’s democratic institutions, to defending freedom around the globe, and rebuilding key alliances, the Administration has taken decisive action to strengthen America at home and abroad, all with the goal of keeping Americans safe. The Budget builds on this progress with proposals to continue investing in State, local, Tribal, and Federal law enforcement, reducing gun violence and crime, securing the border and strengthening the immigration system, and revitalizing U.S. alliances and partnerships while confronting global threats and strengthening America’s military.

Secures the Border and Strengthens the Immigration System. In October 2023, the Administration transmitted an emergency supplemental request for managing the southwest border and migration totaling $13.6 billion. The Budget includes, and therefore reiterates the need for, the unmet needs from the October supplemental request. The Budget includes investments to build longer-term capacity in the areas of border security, immigration enforcement, and countering illicit fentanyl. This amount includes funding to hire 1,300 additional Border Patrol Agents to secure the border, 1,000 additional Customs and Border Protection Officers to stop illicit fentanyl and other contraband from entering the U.S., an additional 1,600 Asylum Officers and support staff to facilitate timely immigration dispositions, as well as $849 million for cutting-edge detection technology at ports of entry. The Budget also reiterates the ask for funding to hire 375 new immigration judge teams to help reduce the immigration case backlog. Taken together, these long-term capacity building investments equip the Nation’s border security and immigration system to more effectively respond to challenges present along the border.

Tackles Crime, Reduces Gun Violence, and Makes America’s Communities Safer. The Budget makes significant investments to bolster Federal law enforcement capacity to strengthen public safety and it also pursues new mandatory investments to combat violent crime and support victims. The Budget includes $17.7 billion for Department of Justice law enforcement, including $2 billion, an increase of over 30 percent since 2021, for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to effectively investigate and prosecute gun crimes. To support state, local, and Tribal law enforcement efforts, the Budget proposes $31.8 billion in mandatory funding to support President Biden’s Safer America Plan, and complements this plan with proposed discretionary investments of $270 million for the COPS Hiring Program and $100 million for community violence intervention and prevention. The Budget also builds upon the Safer America Plan by investing an additional $1.2 billion over five years to launch a new Violent Crime Reduction and Prevention Fund to give law enforcement the support they need to focus on violent crime, including support to hire 4,700 detectives to help drive down the high rate of unsolved violent crimes. In support of victims of crime, the Budget also requests $7.3 billion to replenish and reform the Crime Victims Fund to ensure a stable and predictable source of funding is available to support critical victim service and compensation programs over the next decade.

Prioritizes Efforts to End Gender-Based Violence. The Administration has prioritized funding for programs under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA). These programs have seen funding increased by over 35 percent since 2021 and the Budget proposes further expansion to $800 million for programs under VAWA, including key investments in sexual assault services, transitional housing, and legal assistance for survivors. The Budget also makes clear the Administration’s priority to strongly support underserved and Tribal communities by providing $15 million for culturally-specific services, $5 million for underserved populations, $25 million to assist enforcement of Tribal special domestic violence jurisdiction under VAWA 2022’s expansions, $3 million to support Tribal Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys, and $10 million for a new special initiative to address Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP).

Combats Narcotics Trafficking. The Budget provides $3.3 billion to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to combat drug trafficking, including $1.2 billion to combat opioid trafficking, save lives, and make our communities safer. The Budget invests an additional $18 million in Domestic Counter-Fentanyl Threat Targeting Teams at the Drug Enforcement Administration to enhance America’s fight against the transnational criminal networks pushing deadly illicit fentanyl in America’s communities. The Budget also provides $494 million in grants supporting efforts to address substance use. The Budget includes funding to disrupt the international synthetic drug trade which would counter the worldwide flow of fentanyl and other synthetics that endanger public safety and health, and contribute to tens of thousands of drug-overdose deaths in the United States annually.

Reiterates the Administration’s Request for Immediate Funding for Urgent National Security Priorities Related to Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific. In October 2023, the Administration transmitted an emergency supplemental request totaling $92 billion to Congress for urgent national security needs. This request included funding to support Ukraine as it continues to defend itself against Russian aggression, Israel’s defense against terrorism, the Indo-Pacific’s regional security, life-saving humanitarian assistance, including for the Palestinian people, and other national security priorities. The request would also make significant and much needed investments in the American defense industrial base, benefitting U.S. military readiness and helping to create and sustain jobs in dozens of states across America. Absent congressional action on this emergency request, the United States will not be able to continue to provide support to Ukraine to meet their battlefield needs as they defend against Russian attacks every day, provide urgently needed military support to allies and partners, make critical DIB investments, or sustain life-saving assistance and development in some of the world’s most vulnerable areas. The Administration appreciates the bipartisan supplemental legislation that passed the Senate, which would address these urgent needs and advance our own national security.

Supports Ukraine, European Allies, and Partners. The Budget continues critical support for Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, and other European partner states by prioritizing funding to enhance the capabilities and readiness of U.S., allied, and partner forces in the face of continued Russian aggression. However, this Budget cannot address the critical support to Ukraine that requires congressional action on the Administration’s October 2023 National Security Supplemental request.

Promotes Integrated Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and Globally. To sustain and strengthen deterrence, the Budget prioritizes China as America’s pacing challenge in line with the 2022 National Defense Strategy. The Department of Defense’s 2025 Pacific Deterrence Initiative highlights some of the key investments the Federal government is making, focuses on strengthening deterrence in the region, and demonstrates the Administration’s long-term commitment to the Indo-Pacific. DOD is building the concepts, capabilities, and posture necessary to meet these challenges, working to integrate deterrence efforts across the U.S. Government and with U.S. allies and partners.

Ensures Readiness Across America’s Armed Forces. The Budget continues to ensure that U.S. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and Guardians remain the best trained and equipped fighting forces in the world. The Budget places additional emphasis on foundational investments to sustain current weapon systems and support increased training across DOD.

Invests in the Submarine Industrial Base. DOD conducted the 2025 Submarine Industrial Base (SIB) study to determine how to complete the once-in-a-generation recapitalization of the Submarine Force needed to increase the United States’ ability to build and sustain attack submarines to meet U.S. military requirements. These investments will also support the Administration’s commitments under AUKUS, the first major deliverable of which was the historic decision to support Australia acquiring conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines. In line with the results on this study, the Budget includes $3.4 billion for the SIB in 2025.

Provides Life-Saving Humanitarian Assistance and Combats Global Food Insecurity. The Budget provides $10.3 billion in life-saving humanitarian and refugee assistance to support more than 330 million people in need in more than 70 countries in addition to the emergency supplemental request of $10 billion to address unprecedented global humanitarian needs, including the dire humanitarian situation facing Palestinians in Gaza. The Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development will have to reduce life-saving assistance around the globe without the additional $10 billion in humanitarian assistance requested in the Administration’s October 2023 National Security Supplemental Request.

Additional Budget Fact Sheets:

FACT SHEET: The President’s Budget Creates Good-Paying Clean Jobs, Cuts Energy Costs, and Delivers on the President’s Ambitious Climate Agenda 

FACT SHEET: As President Biden Announces Historic Transportation Investments, Extreme House Republicans Try to Slash Infrastructure Funding

This fact sheet from the White House details Biden’s historic investments in transportation, while Congressional Republicans are using the threat of a government shutdown  to slash infrastructure funding.

President Biden wants to invest in America’s infrastructure, including passenger rail, but Republicans would cut funding that would impact making critical investments in improving the safety and efficiency of the Nation’s rail system and airspace, risking increased delays and cancellations due to outages and lost opportunities to improve safety, and undermine the Federal Aviation Administration’s ability to promote innovations that would lower noise and emissions, improve efficiency, and help the industry keep flight costs under control © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Thanks to President Biden’s leadership, the United States is making historic investments in infrastructure needs so people and goods can get where they need to be safely, quickly, and conveniently. Today, the President is announcing $16.4 billion for passenger rail projects from his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which makes the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak.
 
While the Biden-Harris Administration is trying to make travel faster, safer and more reliable, House Republicans are trying to make it slower, harder, and less safe.
 
House Republicans are turning their backs on their communities—both urban and rural—and undermining American infrastructure with an appropriations bill that guts funding for Amtrak and makes draconian cuts to transportation and infrastructure programs. As outlined in a Statement of Administration Policy, the President would veto this extreme bill that would slash support for infrastructure in communities across the country, while at the same time adding billions to the deficit with give-aways to wealthy tax cheats.
 
Extreme House Republicans’ bill to defund infrastructure is just the latest example of their brutal cuts that would hurt the American people—following failed attempts to cut investments in infrastructure in MarchMayJune, and September and to eliminate hundreds of border patrol officers and tens of thousands of Head Start slots for kids. Rather than putting forward these devastating cuts, House Republicans need to follow the lead of the Senate and get to work on a bipartisan funding agreement—and act immediately on the Administration’s supplemental funding requests for urgent national security and domestic needs.
 
Extreme House Republicans’ draconian infrastructure defunding bill would:

  • Severely reduce Amtrak service and undermine critical maintenance work by slashing Amtrak funding by $1 billion. This reduction in funding would require Amtrak to reduce most, if not all, long-distance services, reduce certain Northeast Corridor regional train frequencies, and reduce or defer nearly 400 capital projects across the country. The Northeast Corridor is the most heavily traveled rail corridor in the United States, supporting 800,000 trips per day in a region that represents 20 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product.
     
  • Cut transit programs across the country with an 85% cut to the Capital Investment Grant program. This critical program funds projects that provide transformative benefits for communities across the Nation by expanding convenient and accessible transportation options—while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality.
     
  • Fail to make critical investments in improving the safety and efficiency of the Nation’s airspace, including by funding National Airspace System technology $500 million below the President’s Budget request, risking increased delays and cancellations due to outages and lost opportunities to improve safety.
     
  • Cut aviation research funding by over 20 percent, which would undermine the Federal Aviation Administration’s ability to promote innovations that would lower noise and emissions, improve efficiency, and help the industry keep flight costs under control.

 
The same extreme bill includes deep cuts to housing programs, which would:

  • Result in 20,000 fewer affordable homes being constructed, rehabbed, or purchased in communities across the Nation due to a nearly 70% cut to the HOME Investment Partnerships Program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
     
  • Put 78,000 children at greater risk of lead exposure due a rescission of over $564 million for programs that mitigate housing-related risks of lead poisoning and other illnesses and hazards to lower income families, especially children.

White House: Impacts of House Republicans’ Extreme CR 8% Cuts

New York City public school. The extremist House Republicans’ extortion demand to cut spending by 8% – or else they will shut down the government – will cost up to 40,000 fewer teachers, aides, or other key staff across the country, affecting 26 million students in schools that teach low-income students and 7.5 million students with disabilities. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

From the White House:

With just a week before the end of the fiscal year, extreme House Republicans are playing partisan games with peoples’ lives and marching our country toward a government shutdown instead of working in a bipartisan manner to keep the government open and address emergency needs for the American people.

The continuing resolution the House Republicans introduced this week makes indiscriminate cuts to programs that millions of hardworking Americans count on—violating the agreement the Speaker negotiated with President Biden and rejecting the bipartisan approach of the Senate. House Republicans have made clear that these cuts are designed to force longer-term cuts, in-line with their extreme and damaging appropriations bills. So what would it mean for the American people if House Republicans’ proposed 8% cuts were extended for the entire year?

IMPACTS OF HOUSE REPUBLICANS’ EXTREME CR:

  • 800 fewer Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and officers
     
  • 50,000 pounds of cocaine, more than 300 pounds of fentanyl, more than 700 pounds of heroin, and more than 6,000 pounds of methamphetamine let into our country due to cuts to CBP
     
  • 110,000 children would lose access to Head Start slots
     
  • 65,000 children would lose access to childcare
     
  • 60,000 seniors would be robbed of nutrition services like Meals on Wheels
     
  • 2.1 million women, infants, and children would be waitlisted for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
     
  • Up to 40,000 fewer teachers, aides, or other key staff across the country, affecting 26 million students in schools that teach low-income students and 7.5 million students with disabilities
     
  • Nearly 70 fewer Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents, who are often some of the first federal law enforcement on the scene of a mass shooting to help local law enforcement identify at-large shooters—and 13 furlough days for ATF’s entire workforce
     
  • 4,000 fewer rail safety inspection days next year alone, with nearly 11,000 fewer miles of track inspected annually—enough track to cross the United States more than 3 times
     
  • 145 fewer members of local law enforcement due to cuts at the Department of Justice
     
  • Nearly 300,000 households—including 20,000 veterans and 90,000 seniors—would lose housing choice vouchers, putting them at greater risk of homelessness
     
  • A roughly $500 reduction to the maximum Pell Grant for 6.6 million students
     
  • 4,000 fewer FBI personnel, including agents who investigate crimes
     
  • 250,000 American workers would be denied job training and employment services—resulting in 35,000 fewer workers gaining the opportunity of a Registered Apprenticeship
     
  • 50,000 workers would lose an average of $1,000 in back wages they are owed
     
  • People applying for disability benefits would have to wait months longer

State by State: House Republicans Renege on Budget Deal, Push Funding Bills that Would Have Devastating Impact Across America

Congressional Republicans are holding the nation hostage, threatening a government shutdown unless the Biden Administration makes massive cuts that will impact every state. The White House produced a report detailing the impact by state. In New York, for example, the Republicans want to slash funding for schools with low-income students. House Republicans’ 80 percent cut to Title I funding would impact 1,535,500 students in schools that teach low income students by forcing a reduction of up to 18,500 teachers, aides or other key staff © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

House Republicans’ are proposing appropriations bills would raise a host of costs for families, hurt students, seniors, and rural communities, slash support for law enforcement, and undermine our economy—while Congressional Republicans fight separately for multi-millionaires and big corporations to get massive tax cuts. Basically going back on the deal that was negotiated just months ago, with Biden saved the nation from its first ever credit default, they are now using extortion, threatening a government shutdown, if they don’t get these cuts, along with policy changes to undermine women’s rights. This fact sheet from the White House details the impacts on individual states.–Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

See also: Speaker McCarthy Capitulates to MAGA, Orders Baseless Biden Impeachment Inquiry as Shutdown Looms

Earlier this year, the President and Congressional leaders reached a bipartisan budget agreement that averted a first-ever default and protected our historic economic progress. The President, House Democrats, Senate Democrats, and Senate Republicans all stand by this promise. Unfortunately, Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans are ignoring the bipartisan budget agreement they passed and instead advancing extreme, partisan appropriations bills that break their public promise and gut key investments in the American people.

House Republicans claim these cuts are about fiscal responsibility—but they aren’t. Not only would their bills add at least $100 billion to deficits over 10 years by making it easier for the wealthy and big corporations to cheat on their taxes, but House Republicans are separately pushing corporate tax giveaways that would cost over $500 billion if made permanent—including at least $30 billion in retroactive tax breaks for investments companies made last year. These retroactive tax cuts alone would erase the savings from their deep cuts to education, health, and labor programs.1

Today, the Office of Management and Budget released 51 fact sheets highlighting the devastating impacts of these extreme cuts on states and the District of Columbia. Below are some of the most harmful elements of House Republicans’ appropriations bills that they will begin to consider this week.

The cuts in the House appropriations bills would:

  • Slash Funding for Schools with Low-Income Students: House Republicans’ 80 percent cut to Title I funding would impact 26 million students in schools that teach low-income students by forcing a reduction of up to 226,000 teachers, aides or other key staff. 
    • Eliminate Tens of Thousands of Preschool Slots: House Republicans’ cut to Head Start would mean as many as 82,000 children would lose access to high-quality preschool—undermining their education, leaving fewer children ready to enter kindergarten ready to learn, and making it more difficult for parents to join the workforce.
    • Slash Funding for Law Enforcement: The proposed cut to the FBI would eliminate up to 1,850 personnel, including up to 673 agents, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would be forced to eliminate approximately 400 positions, including more than 200 agents. The House bill also cuts funding for U.S. Attorneys by roughly 12 percent, which would eliminate approximately 1,400 positions. 
    • Raise Housing Costs for Tens of Thousands: The proposed cuts would raise housing costs by eliminating funding for Housing Choice Vouchers for 20,000 households, including approximately 6,000 households headed by seniors. In addition, a nearly 70 percent cut to the HOME Investment Partnerships Program would result in 20,000 fewer affordable homes being constructed, rehabbed, or purchased in communities across the country.
    • Slash Critical Job Training and Workforce Development Programs: The proposal would result in half a million fewer people receiving job training and employment services. These harmful cuts would deprive businesses of the skilled workforce they need to thrive, and would cut off workers’ pathways to good jobs.
    • Undermine Critical Health Research: House Republicans’ cuts would undermine critical research efforts to find treatments and cures for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s by cutting $3.8 billion for the National Institutes of Health. They would also eliminate funding for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which would end the Long COVID research at the agency and delay other priority health services research.

In addition to demanding these draconian cuts, House Republicans are also fighting to rescind vital funding that is helping make our tax code fairer, rebuilding America’s infrastructure, lowering costs for families, and tackling the climate crisis. Their proposals would:

  • Increase Risks of Lead Exposure: The proposal would rescind over $564 million in funding for programs that mitigate housing-related risks of lead poisoning and other illnesses and hazards to lower income families, especially children, resulting in 55,000 fewer homes safe of hazards and adversely impacting approximately 78,000 children.
    • Protect Wealthy Tax Cheats: While House Republicans separately lay the groundwork for more than $3 trillion in tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and big corporations, they are also fighting to make it easier for wealthy tax cheats to avoid paying what they owe—proposing to rescind $67 billion dollars in funding for the IRS enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act, which would increase the deficit by more than $100 billion.
    • Increase Energy Costs for Rural Americans: Rescinding $2 billion in funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act for programs at USDA would undermine programs that help agricultural producers and rural small businesses convert to renewable energy systems, and that help rural Americans to build clean, affordable, and reliable energy by working with approximately 900 electric cooperatives in 47 States.
    • Shortchange Home Electrification Projects: Rescinding $4.5 billion in funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act for the High-Efficiency Electric Home Rebate Program would impact at least 250,000 home electrification and appliance upgrade projects in low- and medium-income homes across all States, territories, and tribes.
    • Undermine Clean Technology Investments and Pollution Reduction: Rescinding $20 billion in funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act for programs at EPA would take away funds designed to help communities access grant opportunities to reduce pollution and mobilize private capital into clean technology projects, especially in low-income and disadvantaged communities. These programs will spur investment in clean technology projects and expand economic opportunities in communities, helping to cut harmful pollution and protect people’s health while tackling the climate crisis.
    • Slash Support for Teachers: Rescinding $1.7 billion—or 77 percent—in the Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants (Title II) program would severely undermine the program’s ability to improve the effectiveness of teachers in the classroom.

A deal is a deal. The President and the Speaker already made a bipartisan budget agreement—one that would result in $1 trillion of deficit reduction over the next decade. Every party to that agreement except House Republicans—House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans, and President Biden—are honoring their word. It is a balanced deal that protects critical investments while ensuring fiscal responsibility. We urge House Republicans to follow the law they helped enact and the Senate’s bipartisan approach to funding the government according to the deal.

State Fact Sheets:

White House Memo: Extreme MAGA House Republicans Holding Hostage Jobs, State by State

The Congressional Republicans show extreme lack of concern over the number of jobs that will be lost if they push the US into the brink of defaulting on debts. As Trump said in his CNN Town Hall, “I say to the Republicans out there – if they don’t give you massive cuts, you have to do a default” and this person who actually served as president, presided over three increases to the debt ceiling without Democrats holding the economy hostage, growing the national debt accrued over its entire history by 40 PERCENT, said that America’s first default in history, violating the 14th amendment’s requirement to meet its debt obligations, would result in “maybe a bad week or a bad day.” © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Memo

RE: The jobs extreme MAGA House Republicans’ are holding hostage in every state  

Date: 5/10/2013

From: Deputy Press Secretary and Senior Communications Adviser Andrew Bates

A new report from Moody’s Analytics shows how many jobs would be killed in every state if House Republicans follow through on their threat to single-handedly trigger the only debt default in American history.

That is, unless they are allowed to force a radical agenda that the American people reject into law.

That radical agenda includes the most draconian cuts to veterans services in American history, shipping the manufacturing jobs we are bringing back from overseas to China, firing thousands of Border Patrol agents, taking health care from millions, and laying off teachers across the country. Keep in mind that they still intend to follow those cuts with enormous, wasteful tax giveaways to billionaires and multinational corporations.

In Speaker McCarthy’s home state of California, even a short-term default would kill over 300,000 jobs. And that a prolonged default would kill nearly a million.  

President Biden is in New York today, which would lose almost half a million jobs, calling on Republicans to stop their economic hostage-taking.  

In addition to threatening to sabotage the American economy and subject countless innocent Americans to financial pain, House Republicans have manufactured a political and credibility crisis for themselves.

House Republicans are more and more isolated in their willingness to trigger a default. As President Biden mentioned last night, Senate Republican leader underlined that the United States cannot ever default.

Last night even Speaker McCarthy himself acknowledged, “A budget is different than a debt ceiling.”

That’s true and consistent with the Speaker’s voting record. He voted, without conditions and on a bipartisan basis, to avoid default for the entire Trump Administration AND for the majority of the Obama presidency.

House Republicans are effectively holding a gun to the head of millions of jobs, small businesses, and retirement savings, while simultaneously shouting at everyone else, ‘don’t pull this trigger.’ Meanwhile, all their constituents look on and see how much it would cost every state. No one’s making you do it. Put the gun down.   

StateJob Loss in Prolonged Default Scenario (thousands, peak to trough)
Alaska11.3
Alabama109.5
Arkansas68.8
Arizona188.1
California841.6
Colorado139.3
Connecticut75.6
DC28.5
Delaware21.4
Florida474.7
Georgia249.4
Hawaii16.9
Iowa73.9
Idaho44.4
Illinois290.6
Indiana164.8
Kansas72.5
Kentucky113.9
Louisiana69.4
Massachusetts175
Maryland119.7
Maine31.7
Michigan239.4
Minnesota138.8
Missouri163.7
Mississippi64
Montana23.5
North Carolina236.1
North Dakota18.8
Nebraska45.7
New Hampshire34.8
New Jersey193.4
New Mexico37.5
Nevada90
New York398.3
Ohio296.5
Oklahoma77.3
Oregon104.2
Pennsylvania269
Rhode Island23.2
South127.5
South22.1
Tennessee179
Texas561.7
Utah80.4
Virginia195.4
Vermont14.1
Washington187.8
Wisconsin153.6
West Virginia34.4
Wyoming14.4
Total7405.6

STATE x STATE FACT SHEETS: MAGA House Republicans’ Default on America Act Would Have Devastating Impacts Across America

Air traffic control limitations are already forcing airline companies to reduce schedules ahead of the busy summer travel season. The House Republicans’ Default on America Act would shut down services at 375 federally-staffed and contract Air Traffic Control Towers across the country—undermining safety at two thirds of all U.S. airports—and increase wait times at TSA security check points by over 2 hours at large airports across the country.  © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

The MAGA Republicans’ extreme bill would cut veterans’ health care, jeopardize public safety, and raise costs for families—even as House Republicans separately push for trillions in tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and big corporations. Essentially the Republicans are holding the economy, and millions of families hostage. It comes down to: “Pretty nice economy you got here. Terrible if something bad would happen to it.” This fact sheet is supplied by the White House: 

Congressional Republicans are holding the nation’s full faith and credit hostage in an effort to impose devastating cuts that would hurt veterans, raise costs for hardworking families, and hinder economic growth. The Default on America Act would cut veterans’ health care, education, Meals on Wheels, and public safety, take away health care from millions of Americans, and send manufacturing jobs overseas. Outside economists say that if enacted, the Default on America Act would “increase the likelihood” of a recession and result in 780,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2024. And House Republicans are demanding these cuts while separately advancing proposals to add over $3 trillion to deficits through tax cuts and giveaways skewed to the wealthy and big corporations.
 
The Default on America Act stands in sharp contrast with President Biden’s Budget, which invests in America, lowers costs for families, protects and strengthens Medicare and Social Security, and reduces the deficit by nearly $3 trillion over 10 years, while ensuring no one making less than $400,000 per year pays a penny more in new taxes.
 
Today, the White House released 51 fact sheets highlighting the devastating impacts of the Default on America Act on states and the District of Columbia. Nationally, the Default on America Act would have devastating impacts on the American people. It would:
 

Jeopardize Transportation Safety and Infrastructure

  • Cut Nearly 7,500 Rail Safety Inspections. At a time when train derailments are wreaking havoc on community safety, The Default on America Act would lead to nearly 7,500 fewer rail safety inspection days and over 30,000 fewer miles of track inspected annually—enough track to cross the United States nearly 10 times. Since the Norfolk Southern train derailment, bipartisan Senators have called for more rail inspections, not fewer.
     
  • Jeopardize Air Safety by Shutting Down at Least 375 Air Traffic Control Towers. The Default on America Act would shut down services at 375 federally-staffed and contract Air Traffic Control Towers across the country—undermining safety at two thirds of all U.S. airports—and increase wait times at TSA security check points by over 2 hours at large airports across the country.  
     
  • Withhold Vital Transportation Infrastructure Funding. Under the Default on America Act, the United States would stand to lose nearly $5.2 billion in funding for transit and highway infrastructure projects all across the country.
     

Raise Costs for Families

  • Eliminate Preschool and Child Care Slots. The Default on America Act would mean 200,000 children lose access to Head Start slots and 180,000 children lose access to child care—undermining our children’s education and making it more difficult for parents to join the workforce and contribute to our economy.
     
  • Strip Nutrition Assistance from Women and Children. The Default on America Act would also mean 1.7 million women, infants, and children would lose vital nutrition assistance through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), increasing child poverty and hunger.
     
  • Raise Housing Costs for Americans. Under the Default on America Act, more than 600,000 families would lose access to rental assistance, including older adults, persons with disabilities, and families with children, who without rental assistance would be at risk of homelessness.

 
Harm Seniors, Older People, and Veterans

  • Threaten Medical Care for Veterans. The House Republicans’ Default on America Act would mean 30 million fewer veteran outpatient visits, and 81,000 jobs lost across the Veterans Health Administration, leaving veterans unable to get appointments for care including wellness visits, cancer screenings, mental health services, and substance use disorder treatment.
     
  • Worsen Social Security and Medicare Assistance Wait Times for Seniors. Under the House Republicans’ Default on America Act, people applying for disability benefits would have to wait at least two months longer for a decision. With fewer staff available, seniors would also be forced to endure longer wait times when they call for assistance for both Social Security and Medicare, and as many as 240 Social Security field offices could be forced to close or shorten the hours they are open to the public.
     
  • Jeopardize Food Assistance for Older Adults. House Republicans are threatening food assistance for up to 900,000 older adults with the Default on America Act’s harsh new eligibility restrictions in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
     

Jeopardize Health Coverage and Access to Care

  • Jeopardize Health Coverage and Access to Care for Americans. The Default on America Act would put health insurance coverage—and health—at risk for 21 million Americans. Only one state has ever fully implemented similar policies, and nearly 1 in 4 adults subject to the policy lost their health coverage—including working people and people with serious health conditions—with no evidence of increased employment.
     
  • Deny Americans Access to Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder. The Default on America Act would deny access to opioid use disorder treatment for more than 28,000 people through the State Opioid Response grant program—denying them a potentially life-saving path to recovery. 

 
Hurt Children and Students and Undermine Education and Job Training

  • Gut Funding for Low-Income Students. The Default on America Act would cut approximately $4 billion in funding for schools serving low-income children—equivalent to removing more than 60,000 teachers and specialized instructional support personnel from classrooms, impacting an estimated 26 million students.
     
  • Reduce Support for Students with Disabilities. Under the Default on America Act, as many as 7.5 million children with disabilities would face reduced supports—a cut equivalent to removing more than 48,000 teachers and related services providers from the classroom.
     
  • Slash Mental Health Support for Students. The Default on America Act would limit educators’ abilities to address student mental health issues and prevent suicide and drug use by cutting funding dedicated to creating healthy learning environments in schools by about $300 million.
     
  • Eliminate Student Debt Relief. The Default on America Act would eliminate the President’s one-time student debt relief plan, denying much needed emergency student loan relief of up to $20,000 for more than 40 million Americans recovering from the effects of the pandemic. It would also block the creation of new, more affordable student loan repayment plans such as the President’s proposal to cut undergraduate loans payments in half.
     
  • Make College More Expensive. The Default on America Act would reduce the maximum award for Pell Grants by nearly $1,000, likely eliminating it altogether for 80,000 students while making it harder for the remaining 6.6 million recipients to attend and afford college.
     
  • Cut Off Access to Workforce Development Services. The Default on America Act would result in nearly 700,000 fewer workers receiving job training and employment services provided through the Department of Labor’s workforce development funding. These harmful cuts would deprive businesses of the skilled workforce they need to thrive, and would cut off worker pathways to good jobs.

 
State Fact Sheets:

This analysis assumes an across-the-board reduction of roughly 22% compared to currently enacted FY 2023 levels for non-defense discretionary accounts. That aligns with Congressional Republicans’ Default on America Act, which would return discretionary spending to FY 2022 levels on an ongoing basis while exempting defense spending.

Biden’s Budget: Extending Medicare Solvency by 25 Years or More, Strengthening Medicare, and Lowering Health Care Costs

President Joe Biden’s FY 2024 Budget lays out his plan to invest in America, lower costs for families, protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, and reduce the deficit. ©Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

President Joe Biden’s FY 2024 Budget lays out his plan to invest in America, lower costs for families, protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, and reduce the deficit.

Hardly an “entitlement” – as if some sort of charity – millions of Americans have been working their whole lives, paying into Medicare with every working day –more like an annuity – and want to know that they can count on Medicare to be there for them when they turn 65. The President’s Budget extends the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by at least 25 years. It achieves these gains with no benefit cuts—indeed, while lowering costs for Medicare beneficiaries. This fact sheet is from the Whit eHouse:


Extending Medicare Solvency

The proposals in the President’s Budget would extend the solvency of Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund by at least 25 years, the Medicare Office of the Chief Actuary estimates. While the most recent Medicare Trustees Report projected that the HI Trust Fund would be insolvent in 2028, the President’s Budget would extend solvency at least into the 2050s.

The Budget extends the life of Medicare by:

  • Modestly increasing the Medicare tax rate on income above $400,000. The Budget proposes to increase the Medicare tax rate on earned and unearned income above $400,000 from 3.8 percent to 5 percent. Since Medicare was passed, income and wealth inequality in the United States have increased dramatically. By asking those with the highest incomes to contribute modestly more, we can keep the Medicare program strong for decades to come.
     
  • Closing loopholes in existing Medicare taxes and dedicating the Medicare net investment income tax to the HI Trust Fund. High-income people are supposed to pay a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on all of their income, but some high-paid professionals and other wealthy business owners have managed to shield some of their income from tax by claiming it is neither earned income nor investment income. The Budget would ensure that Medicare taxes apply to incomes over $400,000 per year, without loopholes. It would also dedicate the revenue from the Medicare net investment income tax to the HI Trust Fund, as originally intended.
     
  • Crediting savings from prescription drug reforms to the HI Trust Fund. Building on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which gave Medicare the authority to negotiate prices for high-cost drugs, the Budget strengthens this newly-established negotiation power by allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for more drugs and bringing drugs into negotiation sooner after they launch. It also strengthens the IRA requirement that drug companies pay rebates to Medicare when they increase prices faster than inflation by extending this rule to commercial health insurance. The Budget credits the savings from these additional prescription drug reforms, amounting to $200 billion over 10 years, to the HI Trust Fund.


Lowering Costs for Beneficiaries

Not only does the President’s Budget extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund without benefit cuts, it does so while lowering costs for beneficiaries in key areas.

  • Lower out-of-pocket costs for drugs subject to negotiation. By reducing prices for high-cost drugs, the Budget’s expansion of Medicare drug negotiations will not only save money for the federal government, it will also cut beneficiary’s out-of-pocket costs by billions of dollars.
     
  • $2 cost-sharing for generic drugs for chronic conditions. The Budget proposes capping Part D cost-sharing on certain generic drugs, such as those used to treat chronic conditions like hypertension and high cholesterol, to $2 per prescription per month.
     
  • Lowering behavioral health care costs in Medicare. The Budget eliminates cost-sharing for three mental health or other behavioral health visits per year and requires parity between physical health and mental health coverage in Medicare. It also requires coverage and payment for new types of Medicare providers, such as peer support workers and certified addiction counselors, and evidence-based digital applications and platforms that facilitate delivery of mental health services, while removing unnecessary limitations on beneficiary access to psychiatric hospitals.