Your Follow Through Needed on Federal Budget

This week, the Senate is expected to vote on a budget resolution that is necessary to pass tax cuts legislation. The Senate budget resolution proposes raising the nation’s deficit in order to provide $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, primarily benefiting wealthy individuals and corporations. The budget resolution also calls for over $4.3 trillion cut in unspecified mandatory spending over the next ten years. These cuts would most likely come from Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, and income support programs like Social Security Income and TANF.

The next step will be for the Senate and House to meet and reconcile differences between their two budgets. There are big differences between these budgets but architecturally they are on the same exact page: tax cuts that are heavily skewed towards the wealthiest individuals and corporations combined with deep cuts to programs and services that primarily help low and middle-income individuals and families. Both the House and Senate are motivated to pass a budget agreement in order to fast track legislation to pass these tax cuts with just a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate.

The cuts to safety net services would jeopardize fragile supports for struggling families. The result will be deeper need for charitable services, but the need may be too great for charity to sustain. For example, the House proposes cutting SNAP by $150 billion over the next ten years, yet the annual operating budget of every single private food pantry in our country is $5 billion.

House members have returned to districts this week. Now is the time to keep up the pressure, thanking those who rejected harmful cuts in the budget, and letting them know the impact of these proposed cuts in our communities.

WHAT YOU CAN DO