May, 02 2025, 03:10pm EDT
Trump Demands Cuts to Child Care, Housing Assistance as Economy Implodes
As Americans brace for a recession, Trump takes aim at programs millions depend on during economic downturns
Today, President Trump unveiled his draconian wish list of budget cuts to child care, health research, education, housing assistance, community development, and more. After spending his first months in office gutting federal agencies, the Trump Administration’s FY2026 Budget targets an additional $163 billion in funding for programs relied on by working families.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are scrambling to defund Medicaid, food assistance, and other vital programs that millions of Americans depend on during economic downturns so the GOP can pass another round of tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. Groundwork Collaborative’s Chief of Policy and Advocacy Alex Jacquez reacted with the following statement:
“Budgets reveal priorities, and it’s clear that President Trump doesn’t care about making life more affordable for working families. He is driving the economy into a recession and gutting the programs that Americans will need to weather the storm. Americans want relief from Trump’s economic doom-loop, not another billionaire tax giveaway.”
Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with a Groundwork expert about today’s jobs report and President Trump’s handling of the economy.
THIS WEEK IN THE TRUMP SLUMP: New polling and economic indicators continue to show that President Trump is deliberately engineering a recession.
Economic Indicators:
- GDP showed a 0.3% decrease in the first quarter of 2025, landing below expectations. This is the first negative GDP reading since Q2 of 2022.
- Consumer confidence, measured by the Conference Board, showed a fifth straight month of decline, the worst since the COVID-19 pandemic, with consumer expectations at a 13-year low. Additionally, the Expectations Index dropped to 54.4, the lowest level since October 2011, and well below the threshold of 80 that usually signals a recession. Expectations of inflation over the next year have climbed to 7.0%, the highest since November 2022.
- The latest Manufacturing ISM report found the manufacturing sector contracted in April for the second month in a row. The ISM Manufacturing PMI® registered 48.7% this month, down 0.3 points from March.
- Exports declined by 6.5 points (the largest drop since 2020), imports dropped by 3 points, and production fell by 4.3 points compared to last month. Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs are sending prices through the roof. The ISM Prices Index registered 69.8%, the highest reading in nearly three years, driven mostly by increases in steel and aluminum prices.
Polling
- 72 percent — including 51 percent of Republicans — say it’s at least “somewhat” likely that Trump’s economic policies will lead to a recession, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll.
- Polling from Reuters/Ipsos found that Trump’s economic approval rating dropped to 36%, the lowest point of either of his presidencies.
- Navigator Research found that Trump’s economic approval ratings are 16 points underwater, after being +1 at his inauguration. This is below even his overall approval.
- Navigator also found that nearly 70 percent of Americans view the current state of the economy negatively, and a majority believe Trump’s policies are contributing to the rising cost of living.
- A CNN poll found that almost 6 in 10 Americans think Trump’s policies are making the economy worse.
Expert Commentary
- Mark Zandi, Chief Economist for Moody’s Analytics, warned of a “recession dead ahead” if Trump continued his trade war. He tweeted, “The Conference Board consumer confidence survey fell sharply to 86 in April. It is off 19.3 points in the past 3 months. Just shy of the recession threshold of 20. Unless the trade war cools off very (very) soon, recession appears dead-ahead.”
- Goldman Sachs said that Trump’s tariffs will increase inflation and halt economic growth. “We continue to believe the risk from April 2 tariffs is greater than many market participants have previously assumed,” they wrote.
- Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist for Nationwide, warned that the economy will slow down in the upcoming months as tariffs kick in and businesses are hesitant to spend. Bostjancic said, “Once everything kicks in, we’ll have a slower economy, the labor market slowing. Hiring has already stalled, and we expect the unemployment rate to start to rise.”
- According to Bloomberg, economists are projecting a 45% chance of a recession, up 30% from March.
- Jamie Dimon reportedly told investors that a mild recession would be the “best-case” scenario from Trump’s trade war.
The Groundwork Collaborative is dedicated to advancing a coherent and persuasive progressive economic worldview and narrative capable of delivering meaningful opportunity and prosperity for everyone. Our work is driven by a core guiding principle: We are the economy. Groundwork Collaborative envisions an economic system that produces strong, broadly shared prosperity and power for all people, not just a wealthy few.
LATEST NEWS
ICE Goons Pepper Spray Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva During Tucson Raid
"If federal agents are brazen enough to fire pellets directly at a member of Congress, imagine how they behave when encountering defenseless members of our community," Grijalva said.
Dec 05, 2025
In what Arizona's attorney general slammed as an "unacceptable and outrageous" act of "unchecked aggression," a federal immigration officer fired pepper spray toward recently sworn-in Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva during a Friday raid on a Tucson restaurant.
Grijalva (D-Ariz.) wrote on social media that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers "just conducted a raid by Taco Giro in Tucson—a small mom-and-pop restaurant that has served our community for years."
"When I presented myself as a member of Congress asking for more information, I was pushed aside and pepper sprayed," she added.
Grijalva said in a video uploaded to the post that she was "sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent, pushed around by others, when I literally was not being aggressive, I was asking for clarification, which is my right as a member of Congress."
The video shows Grijalva among a group of protesters who verbally confronted federal agents over the raid. Following an order to "clear," an agent is seen firing what appears to be a pepper ball at the ground very near the congresswoman's feet. Video footage also shows agents deploying gas against the crowd.
"They're targeting small mom-and-pop businesses that don't have the financial resources to fight back," Grijalva told reporters after the incident. "They're targeting small businesses and people that are helping in our communities in order to try to fill the quota that [President Donald] Trump has given them."
Mocking the incident on social media, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin contended that Grijalva "wasn’t pepper sprayed."
"She was in the vicinity of someone who *was* pepper sprayed as they were obstructing and assaulting law enforcement," she added. "In fact, two law enforcement officers were seriously injured by this mob that [Grijalva] joined."
McLaughlin provided no further details regarding the nature of those injuries.
Democrats in Arizona and beyond condemned Friday's incident, with US Sen. Ruben Gallego writing on social media that Grijalva "was doing her job, standing up for her community."
"Pepper spraying a sitting member of Congress is disgraceful, unacceptable, and absolutely not what we voted for," he added. "Period."
Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said on social media: "This is unacceptable and outrageous. Enforcing the rule of law does not mean pepper spraying a member of Congress for simply asking questions. Effective law enforcement requires restraint and accountability, not unchecked aggression."
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) also weighed in on social media, calling the incident "outrageous."
"Rep. Grijalva was completely within her rights to stand up for her constituents," she added. "ICE is completely lawless."
Friday's incident follows federal agents' violent removal of Sen. Alexa Padilla (D-Calif.) from a June press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Congresswoman LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) was federally indicted in June for allegedly “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal officers" during an oversight visit at a privately operated migrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey and subsequent confrontation with ICE agents outside of the lockup in which US Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, both New Jersey Democrats, were also involved.
Violent assaults by federal agents on suspected undocumented immigrants—including US citizens—protesters, journalists, and others are a regular occurrence amid the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.
"If federal agents are brazen enough to fire pellets directly at a member of Congress, imagine how they behave when encountering defenseless members of our community," Grijalva said late Friday on social media. "It’s time for Congress to rein in this rogue agency NOW."
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Gavin Newsom Wants a 'Big Tent Party,' But Opposes Wealth Tax Supported by Large Majority of Americans
"A wealth tax is a big tent policy unless the only people you care about are billionaires," said one progressive organizer.
Dec 05, 2025
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, considered by some to be the frontrunner to be the next Democratic presidential nominee, said during a panel on Wednesday that he wants his party to be a “big tent” that welcomes large numbers of people into the fold. But he’s “adamantly against” one of the most popular proposals Democrats have to offer: a wealth tax.
In October, progressive economists Emmanuel Saez and Robert Reich joined forces with one of California's most powerful unions, the Service Employees International Union's (SEIU) United Healthcare Workers West, to propose that California put the nation’s first-ever wealth tax on the ballot in November 2026.
They described the measure as an "emergency billionaires tax" aimed at recouping the tens of billions of dollars that will be stripped from California's 15 million Medicaid recipients over the next five years, after Republicans enacted historic cuts to the program in July with President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which dramatically reduced taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
Among those beneficiaries were the approximately 200 billionaires living in California, whose average annual income, Saez pointed out, has risen by 7.5% per year, compared with 1.5% for median-income residents.
Under the proposal, they would pay a one-time 5% tax on their total net worth, which is estimated to raise $100 billion. The vast majority of the funds, about 90%, would be used to restore Medicaid funding, while the rest would go towards funding K-12 education, which the GOP has also slashed.
The proposal in California has strong support from unions and healthcare groups. But Newsom has called it “bad policy” and “another attempt to grab money for special purposes.”
Meanwhile, several of his longtime consultants, including Dan Newman and Brian Brokaw, have launched a campaign alongside “business and tech leaders” to kill the measure, which they’ve dubbed “Stop the Squeeze." They've issued familiar warnings that pinching the wealthy too hard will drive them from the state, along with the critical tax base they provide.
At Wednesday's New York Times DealBook Summit, Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Newsom about his opposition to the wealth tax idea, comparing it to a proposal by recent New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who pledged to increase the income taxes of New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million per year by 2% in order to fund his city-wide free buses, universal childcare, and city-owned grocery store programs.
Mamdani's proposal was met with a litany of similar warnings from Big Apple bigwigs who threatened to flee the city and others around the country who said they'd never move in.
But as Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein explained in October for the American Prospect: "The evidence for this is thin: mostly memes shared by tech and finance people... Research shows that the truth of the matter is closer to the opposite. Wealthy individuals and their income move at lower rates than other income brackets, even in response to an increase of personal income tax." Many of those who sulked about Mamdani's victory have notably begun making amends with the incoming mayor.
Moreover, the comparison between Mamdani's plan and the one proposed in California is faulty to begin with. As Harold Meyerson explained, also for the Prospect: "It is a one-time-only tax, to be levied exclusively on billionaires’ current (i.e., 2025) net worth. Even if they move to Tasmania, they will still be liable for 5% of this year’s net worth."
"Crucially, the tax won’t crimp the fortunes of any billionaire who moves into the state next year or any later year, as it only applies to the billionaires living in the state this year," he added. "Therefore... the horrific specter of billionaire flight can’t be levied against the California proposal."
Nevertheless, Sorkin framed Newsom as being in an existential battle of ideas with Mamdani, asking how the two could both represent the Democratic Party when they are so "diametrically opposed."
"Well, I want to be a big-tent party," Newsom replied. "It's about addition, not subtraction."
Pushed on the question of whether there should be a "unifying theory of the case," Newsom responded that “we all want to be protected, we all want to be respected, we all want to be connected to something bigger than ourselves. We have fundamental values that I think define our party, about social justice, economic justice.”
"We have pre-distribution Democrats, and we have re-distribution Democrats," he continued. "Therein lies the dialectic and therein lies the debate."
Polling is scarce so far on the likelihood of such a measure passing in California. But nationally, polls suggest that the vast majority of Democrats fall on the "re-distribution" side of Newsom's "dialectic." In fact, the majority of all Americans do, regardless of party affiliation.
Last year, Inequality.org examined 55 national and state polls about a number of different taxation policies and found:
A billionaire income tax garnered the most support across party identification. On average, two out of three (67%) of Americans supported the tax including 84% of Democrats, 64% of Independents, and 51% of Republicans.
In national polls, a wealth tax had similarly high levels of support. More than three out of five Americans supported the tax including 78% of Democrats, 62% of Independents, and 51% of Republicans.
That sentiment only seems to have grown since the return of President Donald Trump. An Economist/YouGov poll released in early November found that 72% of Americans said that taxes on billionaires should be raised—including 95% of Democrats, 75% of independents, and 48% of Republicans. Across the board, just 15% said they should not be raised.
Support remains high when the proposal is more specific as well. On the eve of Mamdani's election, despitre months of fearmongering, 64% of New Yorkers said they backed his proposal, including a slight plurality of self-identified conservatives, according to a Siena College poll.
Many observers were perplexed by how Newsom proposes to maintain a “big tent” while opposing policies supported by most of the people inside it.
"A wealth tax is a big tent policy unless the only people you care about are billionaires," wrote Jonathan Cohn, the political director for Progressive Mass, a grassroots organization in Massachusetts, on social media.
"Gavin Newsom—estimated net worth between $20 and $30 million—says he's opposed to a billionaire wealth tax. Color me shocked," wrote the Columbia University lecturer Anthony Zenkus. "Democrats holding him up as a potential savior for 2028 is a clear example of not reading the room."
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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case That Could Bless Trump's Bid to End Birthright Citizenship
"That the Supreme Court is actually entertaining Trump’s unconstitutional attack on birthright citizenship is the clearest example yet that the Roberts Court is broken beyond repair," said one critic.
Dec 05, 2025
The United States Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether US President Donald Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship—as guaranteed under the 14th Amendment for more than 150 years—is constitutional.
Next spring, the justices will hear oral arguments in Trump's appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down parts of an executive order—titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship—signed on the first day of the president's second term. Under the directive, which has not taken effect due to legal challenges, people born in the United States would not be automatically entitled to US citizenship if their parents are in the country temporarily or without legal authorization.
Enacted in 1868, the 14th Amendment affirms that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
While the Trump administration argues that the 14th Amendment was adopted to grant US citizenship to freed slaves, not travelers or undocumented immigrants, two key Supreme Court cases have affirmed birthright citizenship under the Constitution—United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) and Afroyim v. Rusk (1967).
Here is the question presented. It's a relatively clean vehicle for the Supreme Court to finally decide whether it is lawful for the president to deny birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants. www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...
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— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Several district court judges have issued universal preliminary injunctions to block Trump's order. However, the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority found in June that “universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts."
In July, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit unanimously ruled that executive order is an unconstitutional violation of the plain language of the 14th Amendment. In total, four federal courts and two appellate courts have blocked Trump's order.
“No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,” Cecillia Wang, national legal director at the ACLU—which is leading the nationwide class action challenge to Trump's order—said in a statement Friday. “We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.”
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at the advocacy group Stand Up America, was among those who suggested that the high court justices should have refused to hear the case given the long-settled precedent regarding the 14th Amendment.
“This case is a right-wing fantasy, full stop. That the Supreme Court is actually entertaining Trump’s unconstitutional attack on birthright citizenship is the clearest example yet that the Roberts Court is broken beyond repair," Edkins continued, referring to Chief Justice John Roberts.
"Even if the court ultimately rules against Trump, in a laughable display of its supposed independence, the fact that fringe attacks on our most basic rights as citizens are being seriously considered is outrageous and alarming," he added.
Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, said that “it’s deeply troubling that we must waste precious judicial resources relitigating what has been settled constitutional law for over a century," adding that "every federal judge who has considered this executive order has found it unconstitutional."
Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund, asserted, “The attack on the fundamental right of birthright citizenship is an attack on the 14th Amendment and our Constitution."
"We are confident the court will affirm this basic right, which has stood for over a century," Mays added. "Millions of families across the country deserve and require that clarity and stability.”
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