Today, Congress voted to pass a sweeping budget bill that will massively defund public services and devastate communities — all to give tax breaks to billionaires.
In response, AFSCME President Lee Saunders said our union’s members will hold every elected official who supported the bill accountable for their betrayal of working families.
“To satisfy the greed of their mega-donors, anti-worker elected officials voted to rob working families of their health care and life-sustaining public services to hand over trillions in tax cuts to the richest people on earth,” Saunders said.
The bill makes sweeping, dangerous cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance and other essential programs Americans rely on. It also triggers a massive cut to Medicare.
Children will go hungry, seniors will lose access to long-term care, and 17 million Americans — including veterans and their families — will lose health care. Because of this bill, people will die from preventable causes and hundreds of thousands of workers will lose their jobs.
Saunders described the chaos that will ensue as this bill’s provisions are implemented.
“This debt-exploding budget will wreak havoc,” he said. “States, cities, towns and schools will face a fiscal crisis due to these extreme cuts, putting all public services on the chopping block. Hospitals and nursing homes will close, depriving entire communities of care, especially in rural areas.”
While the wealthiest Americans will grow even wealthier, this bill will deal a severe financial blow to working Americans. Health care costs for families of four with employer-provided coverage will increase by $2,000. And cuts to clean energy investments will kill good union jobs and raise energy bills.
“During a time of rising costs, this budget doesn’t just fail the middle class; it pushes families out of it, trapping millions in cycles of poverty,” Saunders warned.
AFSCME members will continue organizing with even greater purpose to defend our jobs, our dignity and our safety at work.
“And we will organize to hold every elected official accountable who voted to betray working families and hurt our communities,” Saunders said.