January, 20 2021, 11:00pm EDT
NEA Applauds Biden's Plan to Reopen School Buildings in First 100 Days
President is willing to put in place the protections, significant resources needed for safe and equitable return to in-person instruction.
WASHINGTON
In his first full day in office, President Joe Biden is pledging to sign an Executive Order that provides the supports needed to reopen most K-8 schools within 100 days, an ambitious goal as COVID-19 cases surge.
The following statement can be attributed to NEA President Becky Pringle:
"From day one of his administration, President Joe Biden is demonstrating he is listening to educators and proving that he understands the complexities of providing students with safe and equitable learning environments during the COVID-19 pandemic. No one wants to return to in-person learning more than the educators who have dedicated their lives to helping their students succeed, but reopening school buildings must be done safely and equitably. Educators are encouraged not only by President Biden's leadership, but also by knowing that there is finally a true partner in the White House who will prioritize students by working with educators in the decision-making process.
"This Executive Order is an important first step to ensure the protections and significant resources are in place to support the safe and just return to in-person instruction in school buildings and on campuses. President Biden also recognizes the needs of students in distance or hybrid learning settings and provides critical tools and resources -- especially for our most vulnerable populations as these crises have disproportionately impacted Black, Brown and Indigenous communities -- to deliver a just and high-quality public education.
"President Biden's plan provides great reason for sorely-needed optimism, but we cannot forget that, right now, the reality in far too many schools and institutions of higher education is that effective distancing, mask-wearing, ventilation, COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, and other crucial mitigation strategies are not in place.
"President Biden has shown a strong commitment to undoing the damage caused by the previous administration -- from freezing student loan payments to restoring civil rights for LGBTQ students, educators and their families. He also has taken steps to reverse the racist policies championed by the prior administration, like ending the 1776 commission, and is committed to setting up systems to combat racist programs and schemes. There is much work that needs to be done, and the path will not be easy, but there is now a new dawn in America."
Follow on twitter at @NEAmedia and @BeckyPringle
The National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest professional employee organization, is committed to advancing the cause of public education. NEA's 3 million members work at every level of education--from pre-school to university graduate programs. NEA has affiliate organizations in every state and in more than 14,000 communities across the United States.
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'There Will Be Many More': Citing GOP Medicaid Cuts, Rural Nebraska Clinic Announces Closure
"Republicans haven't passed their bill yet, but if you live in Nebraska you can thank them for making you less healthy," wrote Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.).
Jul 03, 2025
The devastating cuts to Medicaid contained in Republicans' budget bill have not yet gone into effect but are already having negative consequences for American healthcare.
Nebraska Public Media reports Thursday that the Curtis Medical Center, a clinic located in a rural Nebraska community with a population of under 1,000 residents, will soon shut down thanks in part to the expected impact the GOP's cuts to Medicaid will have on its finances.
Troy Bruntz, the president and CEO of Curtis Medical Center owner Community Hospital, said in a news release that the coming Medicaid cuts are tipping many financially challenged health clinics into insolvency.
"The current financial environment, driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid, has made it impossible for us to continue operating all of our services, many of which have faced significant financial challenges for years," he explained.
Nebraska Public Media notes that the Curtis clinic is likely just the first domino in the state's rural healthcare system to fall thanks to the Medicaid cuts and it speaks to recent warnings from people like Jed Hansen, executive director for the Nebraska Rural Health Association, about how many other hospitals are in real danger.
"We currently have six hospitals that that we feel are in a critical financial state, three that are in an impending kind of closure or conversion over to the rural emergency hospital model," Hansen said earlier this week during an online forum about the state's crisis. "We would likely see the closures within a year to two years of once [the Medicaid cuts are] fully enacted."
Other experts have sounded similar alarms on the budget bill's impact on rural hospitals. Sharon Parrott, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), wrote earlier this week that Senate Republicans' efforts to create a fund of money earmarked for rural hospitals would prove woefully inadequate to the problems these institutions will face in the coming years.
"Senate Republicans know the bill would hurt rural hospitals—that's why they added a face-saving temporary fund, but it won't rescue rural providers when the funding runs dry and the permanent cuts to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace coverage remain," explained Parrott. "This is particularly true because the revised Senate fund gives the Health and Human Services secretary significant discretion in how the funds would be allocated. Rural providers need people in their communities to have health coverage they can count on. Without that, more rural hospitals will close and more people with and without coverage will be cut off from care they need."
In an analysis released last month, the American Hospital Association (AHA) estimated that 1.8 million individuals in rural communities would lose their Medicaid coverage under the Republican Party's plan while rural hospitals would receive $50.4 billion less in Medicaid funds over the next decade, putting many of them at severe risk of shutting down completely.
"The Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would devastate rural hospitals across the country" if the bill became law, warned AHA president and CEO Rick Pollack. "Many rural hospitals would be forced to choose between maintaining services, keeping staff and possibly closing their doors. Patients would be forced to travel hours for basic or emergency care, and communities would suffer."
Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) cited the story about the Nebraska clinic on X Thursday morning and predicted it was just the beginning of bad things to come for rural hospitals.
"Republicans haven't passed their bill yet, but if you live in... Nebraska you can thank them for making you less healthy," he wrote. "There will be many more."
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the GOP budget bill would slash spending on Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program by more than $1 trillion over a ten-year-period and would result in more than 10 million Americans losing their health insurance coverage.
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Trump White House Lies About Budget Bill's Tax Cuts as US Public Opposes Giveaway to Rich
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt misleadingly touted tax deductions for overtime and tips—while neglecting to mention the bill's much larger tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.
Jul 03, 2025
As the Republican reconciliation bill barrels toward final passage in Congress, the Trump White House is misrepresenting the measure's tax provisions in an attempt to paint the unpopular legislation as a boon for workers and ordinary seniors rather than a massive handout to the wealthiest Americans.
In an X post late Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared that any lawmaker who opposes the 887-page bill is voting against "no tax on tips," "no tax on overtime," and "no tax on Social Security" benefits.
Leavitt's post was sufficiently misleading as to draw a "community note" on the Elon Musk-owned platform, which clarified that the Republican bill "does not fully eliminate taxes on tips, overtime, or Social Security as claimed; it offers limited deductions with caps (e.g., $25,000 for tips, $12,500 for overtime) and excludes high earners, with no provision to remove taxes on Social Security."
As Axios reported Thursday, the Republican legislation does include "an increased tax deduction for tax filers age 64 and older," but the benefit "leaves out the poorest seniors" and expires in 2028, when President Donald Trump is set to leave office.
The tax deductions for overtime and tips also expire in 2028.
That's unlike the major tax breaks for the wealthy that are included in the legislation, which extends soon-to-expire provisions of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law. For example, the new Republican bill would permanently raise the estate tax exemption, allowing ultrawealthy individuals and married couples to give their heirs up to $15 million or $30 million without paying any federal taxes.
"A married couple worth $30 million where both spouses die in 2026 would pay some $6 million less under the bill compared with current law," The Wall Street Journal observed.
Brendan Duke, senior director for federal budget policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, estimates that the GOP reconciliation bill's tax breaks for the richest 1% are roughly 10 times larger than the tax deductions for tips and overtime combined.
You left something out. https://t.co/LwMFX2nbyM pic.twitter.com/9Dn2FoBZNH
— Brendan Duke (@Brendan_Duke) July 3, 2025
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) noted in a recent analysis that the Senate-passed legislation also "includes permanent corporate tax breaks (involving more generous versions of tax rules for bonus depreciation, research, and limits on interest deductions) that lawmakers have attempted to enact in recent years."
Contrary to the Trump White House's characterization of the reconciliation bill as a historic "middle- and working-class tax cut," ITEP found that "the richest 1% of Americans would receive a total of $117 billion in net tax cuts in 2026."
By contrast, according to ITEP, "the middle 20% of taxpayers on the income scale, a group that has 20 times the number of taxpayers as the richest 1%, would receive less than half that much, $53 billion in net tax cuts that year."
"The effects of President Trump's tariff policies alone offset most of the tax cuts for the bottom 80% of Americans," the group added. "For the bottom 40% of Americans, the tariffs impose a cost that is greater than the tax cuts they would receive under this legislation."
Survey data released Wednesday by Data for Progress shows that the Republican legislation is unpopular with a majority of likely U.S. voters. The new poll, conducted between June 27 and July 1, found that 62% of Americans are either somewhat or very concerned about the bill's "cuts to income taxes on wealthy Americans."
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Abrego Garcia’s Attorneys Say He Faced Beatings and ‘Psychological Torture’ in El Salvador Prison
While the prisoners were kneeling, guards allegedly kept watch over them and would physically strike anyone who fell over from exhaustion, allege attorneys representing Abrego Garcia.
Jul 03, 2025
Attorneys representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant whom the Trump administration wrongly sent to El Salvador's infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), are alleging that he and other detainees at the site were subjected to physical abuse and psychological torture.
In a court filing published on Wednesday evening, Abrego Garcia's attorneys write that their client "was subjected to severe mistreatment upon arrival at CECOT, including but not limited to severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture."
The filing describes Abrego Garcia and approximately 20 other inmates "being struck with wooden batons" after arriving at the facility as they were frogmarched to their cell, where guards would subsequently force them to kneel from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am While the prisoners were kneeling, guards allegedly kept watch over them and would physically strike anyone who fell over from exhaustion. The complaint adds that "during this time... Abrego Garcia was denied bathroom access and soiled himself."
The complaint alleges officials at the prison would repeatedly threaten to transfer Abrego Garcia to cells that contained gang members who would "tear" him apart. These threats were made more menacing, the attorneys state, because "Abrego Garcia repeatedly observed prisoners in nearby cells who he understood to be gang members violently harm each other with no intervention from guards or personnel. Screams from nearby cells would similarly ring out throughout the night without any response from prison guards on personnel."
During Abrego Garcia's first two weeks at the facility, the attorneys write, he lost approximately 31 pounds.
The Trump administration last month complied with a Supreme Court order to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to United States after it acknowledged months earlier that he had been improperly deported to El Salvador. Upon his return, the United States Department of Justice promptly hit him with human smuggling charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.
President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi have also accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the gang MS-13, although they have produced no evidence to back up that assertion.
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