Today, in an effort organized by AFSCME, nearly 900 state and local elected officials from 36 states signed a bipartisan letter to the U.S. Senate with a stark warning.
They told senators not to cut vital programs and public services to pay for billionaire tax cuts.
They expressed their opposition to the House-passed budget bill, which would severely hurt states, cities, towns and schools nationwide.
The letter detailed how significant cuts at the federal level and added administrative costs will cause massive budget shortfalls. That would put an impossible burden on states to meet.
As a result, deeper cuts would have to be made at the state and local levels, hurting local economies and hurting every sector from health care to public safety.
The letter, sent to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Shumer, read in part:
“As government leaders, we understand the importance of rooting out fraud, waste and abuse to keep public services strong, but this plan fails to do that. Instead, it would rip the very fabric of our nation's social safety net wide open to give the wealthiest people tax breaks they don’t need. Meanwhile, veterans, seniors, children, people with disabilities, and all working people will suffer.”
The letter described how the proposed budget would lead to severe cuts to Medicaid. That would rip health care away from tens of millions of Americans, forcing long-term care facilities to close, and lead to other harmful consequences.
At the same time, the budget would shift $300 million of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food assistance costs onto states. That would result in food insecurity for 40 million Americans and force critical cuts to public services.
And it would also trigger automatic cuts to Medicare. That would spell disaster for seniors and create a dangerous ripple effect for our economies, as families are taken out of the workforce to care for their loved ones.
“Taken together, the cuts that are included in H.R. 1 will place an impossible burden on states,” the letter reads.
The full text of the letter can be found below, and a copy of the letter with signers is linked here.