Still time to shut it down in the House
Today, the Senate passed the federal budget mega-bill by the narrowest margin possible.
It’s telling that the last hold-out vote, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), did not switch to a Yes until she had secured special carve-outs to lessen the bill’s impact on her state.
That’s because she, and most everyone else in Congress, knows this bill will irreparably harm their constituents.
No one in America should have to beg politicians to fund basics like health care, jobs, food assistance and functioning hospitals that we rely on to make our lives work. But this budget process is making us do just that.
While the Senate-passed bill was revised right up through its final passage, here are some key ways it will hurt Americans. The bill:
- Dramatically cuts federal health care spending by $1.1 trillion through 2034, with over $1 trillion of these being cuts to Medicaid. These cuts have triggered deep concern among leaders across the country about how (and if) hospitals, health care providers and state budgets can absorb such massive losses in revenue.
- Takes health care coverage away from 17 million Americans — 436,000 in Ohio alone.
- Increases costs of health care for the over 20 million Americans who are covered by Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans.
- Cuts food assistance (SNAP) funding by $186 billion, threatening to end SNAP entirely in some states and cutting revenues for food retailers across the country.
- Stands as the largest upward transfer of wealth in U.S. legislative history from
low-to-middle income Americans into the hands of America’s wealthiest. - Raises the national deficit by at least $3.3 trillion, a $1 trillion increase from the version initially passed by the House.
This new version of the bill must now pass the House, and will likely continue moving at warp speed this week.
Now’s the time to call your representatives to demand they vote No on this budget bill, because Ohioans cannot afford it!
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