Ok, so. The Trump budget. It has already passed the House and now just needs 51 senators to pass it and send it to Trump for signature.
There are 53 Republican senators, 45 Democratic ones, and 2 Independents that vote with the Democrats. VP Vance is a tiebreaker vote.
So to block the bill, at least four Republican senators need to find their spines and the Democrats and Independents all need to keep their spines. This will not happen without direct action from voters.
They are only going to resist this bill if they hear from voters in their states. They do not care if some person from California calls them.
It's really fucking bad for everyone except the ultra-wealthy, surprise surprise.
At the center of the sweeping bill is trillions in tax cuts, which Republicans aim to partially offset through changes to safety net program
I'm going to go through some of the features of this budget in reblogs, but trust and believe that it's horrible for the vast, vast majority of Americans, including you.
Highlights include:
Extends the Trump tax cuts passed in 2017. This continues $3.7 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. If this budget does not pass, these tax cuts will expire and go back up without any action.
$150 billion in additional military spending
Work requirements for Medicaid. "childless adults without disabilities would be required to work 80 hours per month to qualify for benefits.". They expect millions of people to fail to meet work requirements and lose Medicaid.
Planned Parenthood and trans care. "Bans Medicaid from providing funding to Planned Parenthood as long as the organization continued to provide abortions, and would bar Medicaid from covering gender affirming health care to any beneficiaries. "
Reduces SNAP food stamp access that 40 million people use. "mandates work requirements for able-bodied SNAP enrollees who don't have dependents.".
Clean energy "dramatically scaling back many of the tax credits for clean energy."
Border walls and ICE. "$46.5 billion toward completing Trump's border wall. It also allots $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities and more than $6 billion to hire and retain more agents and officers"
Student loans. "cut $330 billion from the student loan system by scrapping several existing repayment options, including the Biden-era SAVE program that based payments on income and household size.". Does anyone want to have student loan payments that you cannot afford?
Guts Obamacare. "Saves $100 billion, but will result in millions of Americans becoming uninsured if they fail to adhere to new paperwork requirements or can no longer afford insurance premiums."
Weakens federal courts that keep using orders that his actions are illegal and unconstitutional. It prohibits courts from enforcing contempt citations for violations of injunctions or temporary restraining orders unless the plaintiff pays a bond. Bonds can be EXTRAORDINARILY EXPENSIVE and are not currently required in these cases. The provision "would make most existing injunctions—in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases, and others—unenforceable," says the god of constitutional law, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.
So, you folks in red states and you folks in wobbly blue states (PA, NC, etc), you need to call your senators and save us all.
Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.
Call every day. Call after hours so you can leave a voicemail and not talk to anyone.
For real y'all, millions of people are going to starve, go broke, and be without medical care if this bill passes. Which is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration.
And it will balloon the national debt to pay for these tax cuts for the wealthy.
Excellent infographic. Yes, paywall. Working on it.
We highlighted the substantive changes made by House Republicans to secure the support of several holdout members.
Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.
Green means things they're cutting, which reduces federal spending.
They're cutting health care and food access and student loan relief and green energy.
Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.
Here's a good post (without melodramatic misinformation) if you want a detailed rundown of what is in the budget bill. As you can see, it's absolutely bad enough without additions, and needs to be resisted on those grounds alone.
Quick bonus media literacy/reading comprehension question: what position is the New York Times coaching you to take on these cuts by putting them in green (the go/"good" color) instead of say, red, which would make more sense for budget cuts? How does this connect to the way the NYT has been repeatedly criticized for soft-pedaling its coverage of Trump in the past? What overall impression does this give you about how you're supposed to feel about this budget and whether it's a good or bad thing?
