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budget
Trump’s Budget Breaks His Campaign Promise to Help Those Struggling to Make Ends Meet
His partial budget fails to propose a serious agenda for the U.S. economy or for people who haven’t been included enough in the country’s overall prosperity.
May 03, 2025
The Trump administration’s partial budget plan released Friday is just its latest repudiation of the Trump campaign’s promises to help people struggling at the margins of the economy—an economy that President Donald Trump’s misguided tariff policies are threatening to tank.
This partial budget does not discuss the president’s intended tax breaks—tilted to the well off—or policies he will include (like those he supports as part of the reconciliation bill) to take food assistance and health coverage away from people who need them to meet their basic needs and to make college more expensive. The full budget will come later. But while the administration’s partial plan is limited to the part of the budget that Congress funds through the annual appropriations process, its proposal to cut that funding by nearly one-quarter is plenty bad enough, harming people, communities, and the economy.
During the campaign, President Trump said, “As soon as I get to office, we will make housing much more affordable.” But his budget proposes a devastating cut to rental assistance—which makes rent affordable for 10 million people—reducing funding by $27 billion below the amount provided in 2025 across five programs. This would cause millions of people to lose assistance they need to pay the rent each month, placing them at risk of eviction and homelessness.
Policymakers of both parties in Congress need to see this budget, and this entire agenda, for what it is—a direct assault on people, communities, and the economy.
These cuts would likely grow even deeper over time, since the budget would also consolidate multiple rental assistance programs into to a block grant that would be more vulnerable to cuts in the future. The budget also would impose a two-year time limit on rental assistance (apparently except for seniors and people with disabilities), a policy that would abruptly evict or end assistance for many low-paid workers and others who aren’t able to afford market rents after that period.
In addition, the budget proposes severe cuts to other housing programs, such as sharply reducing funding for housing and other services for people experiencing homelessness, cutting housing resources for Indigenous people, and eliminating funding for local agencies protecting people from housing discrimination and other fair housing violations, and block grants that fund affordable housing and community development at the local level.
The president also said “your heating and air conditioning, electricity, gasoline—all can be cut down in half,” but this budget eliminates LIHEAP, the program that helps low-income households afford to heat and cool their homes; reduces availability of the most affordable sources of energy—solar and wind—by cutting efforts to bring these sources online and make them available in low-income communities; and cuts programs that reduce energy waste.
As the President’s ill-conceived trade policies threaten to tip the country into a recession later this year, the budget disinvests from key sources of long-run economic growth. The budget cuts the National Science Foundation (NSF) by more than half and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by about 40%. This is short-sighted: NSF and NIH funding supports foundational research that spurs innovation, leading to greater economic growth. The private sector will not support this work because there is no financial incentive to do so.
The budget also disinvests from America’s future workers, cutting $4.5 billion from K-12 education despite the Trump campaign’s statement that “we are going to keep spending our money” on education.
Most fundamentally, the budget fails to propose a serious agenda for the U.S. economy or for people who haven’t been included enough in the country’s overall prosperity. The budget presents no agenda for addressing housing or childcare affordability, improving educational outcomes for those our education system doesn’t serve well, maintaining and strengthening innovation, or broadening opportunity.
And today’s funding request again breaks President Trump’s repeated promises to protect Social Security, including “Save Social Security. Don’t destroy it.” On paper, the administration provides the same amount of funding next year as this year, but this is not enough to keep up with inflation, fixed expenses, and growing demand as the number of Social Security recipients grows as the population ages. The administration has already pushed out 7,000 Social Security Administration staff despite having the money to pay them, and it has already made it harder for seniors and people with disabilities to get the Social Security benefits they’ve earned. This is not what Congress intended when it passed this year’s budget.
The administration is claiming these massive cuts are necessary under the guise of fiscal responsibility, but the proposed $2.5 billion cut to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) funding—primarily for tax enforcement—reveals that any commitment to fiscal responsibility is limited. Funding for IRS enforcement pays for itself multiple times over: It provides the staff and technology to catch wealthy tax cheats and encourage everyone to pay the taxes they legally owe.
The administration justifies many cuts by saying that states are better positioned to cover the costs of various public services and infrastructure needs. This ignores the federal government’s important role in ensuring adequate investment nationwide, including in states and communities that face more economic challenges. The problems would be compounded by potentially large cost shifts in Medicaid and SNAP being considered in Congress. States would face even greater challenges—and the impacts on people and communities would grow—in a recession when state revenues fall but they still have to balance their budgets.
The president’s budget counts on funding in the emerging tax and budget bill for immigration enforcement. With that, it continues to prioritize a mass deportation apparatus that has gone too far already by disappearing people without due process and ending lawful immigration status for hundreds of thousands of people.
Since taking office, the Trump administration, often acting through DOGE, has unilaterally frozen congressionally approved funding, implemented large-scale staffing reductions that are harming public services, and threatened the security of people’s personal information. Having frozen funding in contradiction to enacted funding laws, the president’s budget now asks Congress to codify and continue these unilateral cuts next year, including through the proposed cuts to NIH, NSF, and the Department of Education. Codifying these cuts would make congressional supporters accomplices in this administration’s endeavor to make government less effective in finding cures for diseases, maintaining American technological leadership, and getting a good education.
The president’s harmful agenda goes well beyond what was released today. The president and his congressional allies are moving forward on a budget and tax bill that deeply cuts health coverage through Medicaid, food assistance through SNAP, and college aid to partially pay for expensive tax cuts skewed to the wealthy.
At the same time, the president’s chaotic, indiscriminate, and steep tariffs have sharply increased the risk of recession, which could lead to a rise in unemployment and the number of people who need help to afford the basics, just as those supports are slated for cuts.
Policymakers of both parties in Congress need to see this budget, and this entire agenda, for what it is—a direct assault on people, communities, and the economy—and plan a better course for the country.
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Tell Congress to Stop Spending Your Tax Dollars on Nuclear Weapons
We have the answer to realize significant cost savings, while simultaneously promoting sound fiscal policies that benefit us all and don’t threaten the survival of the human race.
Apr 16, 2025
This week was the week that our 2024 taxes were due in order to fund the fiscal year 2025 federal budget and thus our nation’s priorities. This year’s budget represents the final Biden budget. It comes at a time when our country is in a deliberate state of chaos instituted by the current administration. Under the non-elected efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency and current cabinet, we find punitive and seemingly random disjointed cutting of essential services and vital programs in addition to international aid that cuts to the core of who America is.
U.S. Congress has just passed a budget resolution requiring $1.5 trillion in savings to be realized over the next 10 years. Ultimately, budgets are moral documents. How do the current cuts, in addition to planned cuts in entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, address our needs and follow a moral compass? How does funding nuclear weapons factor in when addressing our needs and priorities?
This year’s federal tax expenditure for all nuclear weapons programs will be $110,344,000,000. This figure was released on Tax Day in this year’s U.S. Nuclear Weapons Community Cost Project. That amounts to $3,499 per second. This year will see an increase of roughly $15.8 billion over FY 2024. Congress prides itself in being fiscally responsible. Yet when cities like Detroit are spending over $114 million on nuclear weapons programs, Atlanta over $245 million, Chicago over $961 million, and the impoverished Navajo nation of roughly 113,000 people are spending over $18 million, where is the rationale, fiscal responsibility, and sanity?
Unlike a nuclear missile that cannot be recalled after launch, the nuclear arms race and existing arsenals can be reversed and nuclear weapons can be eliminated.
The continuation of this out-of-control escalation is fueled by the myth of deterrence with dramatic increases in weapons delivery systems and missile defeat and defense expenditures. The latter is the present day version of former President Ronald Reagan’s “Strategic Defense Initiative” or “Star Wars.” Today’s version continues the elusive and easily outfoxed goal of hitting a bullet with a bullet to defend us coupled with a complex early detection system. With roughly 12,331 nuclear weapons in today’s global arsenals, the world remains closer to nuclear war than at any point in the past 80 years since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists puts our current risk at 89 seconds to midnight and nuclear Armageddon. That risk assessment comes from the current geopolitical turmoil; climate change; and evolving disruptive technologies that increase the risk of nuclear war either by intent, miscalculation, or accident presenting a very real and present danger. Everything and everyone we care about is threatened with the distinct possibility of ending the human race.
Ultimately, the only way to prevent a nuclear war is to abolish these weapons. Unlike a nuclear missile that cannot be recalled after launch, the nuclear arms race and existing arsenals can be reversed and nuclear weapons can be eliminated. What is needed is the political will. The people need to speak, and when the people lead, the leaders will follow.
Fortunately, there is a U.S. grassroots movement, Back From the Brink, bringing diverse communities together to eliminate nuclear weapons. This movement calls on the United States to take a leadership role in bringing together the world’s nuclear powers to negotiate a time-bound, verifiable, and complete elimination of all nuclear weapons. It includes four precautionary measures to safeguard against nuclear war until that goal is achieved. These include renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first; ending the sole, unchecked authority of any U.S. president to launch a nuclear attack; taking U.S. weapons off of hair-trigger alert; and canceling the plan to replace the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons.
Anyone can endorse this campaign. Presently 495 organizations, 78 municipalities and counties, eight state legislative bodies, 430 municipal and state officials, and 44 members of Congress have endorsed this campaign.
Last week Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) introduced U.S. House Res. 317, which lays out how we can fundamentally reform U.S. nuclear weapons policy and achieve a world free of nuclear weapons. In addition to supporting the policy points of Back From the Brink, this resolution supports: the maintenance of a de facto global moratorium on nuclear testing, protecting communities and workers affected by nuclear weapons by fully remediating their deadly legacy of environmental contamination past and current, and actively pursuing a just economic transition for the civilian and military workforce involved in this entire nuclear cycle.
We have the answer to realize significant cost savings, while simultaneously promoting sound fiscal policies that benefit us all. With life itself hanging in the balance we all must demand a meeting with our legislative leaders, urging them to endorse this legislation. If they refuse, we must ask why they are willing to put everything at risk?
Correction: An earlier version of this article said that taxpayers would pay $3,498,985.29 per second for nuclear weapons this year. The actual figure is $3,499 per second. The piece has been updated to reflect this.
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Well, That Was Quick: Trump's Total Betrayal of Working People Is Now Complete
Think the House GOP's budget bill endorsed by the president is harmful to low-income families, working people, and the overall health of our society? You probably don't know even the half of it.
Feb 26, 2025
The House Republican budget passed Tuesday night calls for massive cuts in health coverage, food assistance, and help paying for college, among some other areas, to pay for huge tax giveaways for wealthy households and businesses. This betrays President Trump’s campaign promises to protect families who struggle financially, as well as his specific pledge to not cut Medicaid, which provides health coverage for 72 million people. While raising costs for families and increasing both poverty and the number of people without health coverage, the budget would swell deficits — all to further Republicans’ expensive and skewed tax agenda.
Both the House and Senate budgets significantly miss the mark on what should be their basic goals: lowering costs, increasing opportunity, and responsibly addressing our nation’s long-term priorities, including reducing future economic risks associated with high deficits. But the enormity of program cuts called for by the House budget stand as a singular threat to the well-being of people in every state, city, and rural community, threatening to take away their health coverage, make health care more expensive, and make it harder to afford food and college.
The Senate should reject the House cuts both now and if Congress ultimately moves ahead with a second budget plan and reconciliation bill this year.
The quick math on the House budget shows a stark equation: the cost of extending tax cuts for households with incomes in the top 1 percent — $1.1 trillion through 2034 — equals roughly the same amount as the proposed potential cuts for health coverage under Medicaid and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The House Republican budget’s path of higher costs for families, more people without health coverage, increased poverty and hardship, and higher debt — all in service to tax cuts for the wealthy and profitable business interests — is the wrong direction for our nation.
Under what set of values does a budget target those who struggle to pay their bills for severe cuts, while giving an annual tax cut averaging $62,000 for those who make $743,000 or more a year? The tax cut for these wealthy households is greater than the annual family incomes for most of the 72 million people — 1 in 5 people in the U.S. — who have health coverage through Medicaid. And the $62,000 figure doesn’t account for the likelihood that this budget would shower large corporations with more tax breaks, given that it allocates $900 billion more than extending the existing tax cuts would cost.
The enormous cuts this budget calls for would increase costs, hardship, and poverty for individuals and families across the country. To be clear, the specific proposals that House Republicans have been considering for weeks to make these program cuts are largely not about curbing fraud and abuse, as some claim. For example, proposals to cap federal funding, shift costs to states, or impose harsh work requirements that trip people up with red tape are aimed at cutting health coverage and food assistance for honest people who need help, not reducing fraud.
And the impact of these cuts could be grave: think of a person who loses health coverage through Medicaid and can’t get cancer treatment, an older and frail adult who loses the home-based care they need to stay out of an institution, a young adult who can’t get insulin to control their diabetes, a parent who skips meals so their children can eat, or an older worker who loses their job and has no way to buy groceries. Make no mistake, these cuts would affect people in every state and of all races and ethnicities. At the same time, the impacts would often be especially severe in poorer states with less ability to fill in for federal cuts and among Black, Latino, and Indigenous people and people in rural communities, who have lower incomes and thus are more likely to qualify for food assistance and health coverage.
The House budget would require the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut at least $880 billion; the Agriculture Committee to cut at least $230 billion; the Education and Workforce Committee to cut at least $330 billion; and other committees to also cut programs to reach a cumulative target of at least $1.5 trillion in cuts through 2034. The magnitude of these reductions would force congressional committees to make enormous cuts in Medicaid, SNAP, student loan assistance and other vital sources of support when they develop the “reconciliation” spending and tax bill that follows the budget resolution.
But as massive as these cuts are, they don’t show the full picture of the overall program cuts that the House budget may generate. The committee targets are minimums or “floors” — meaning the committees must cut at least that amount and may cut more. And a provision included by the House Budget Committee during its consideration of the resolution pushes the committees to cut more, by requiring the overall level of program cuts to reach $2 trillion to retain the full $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.
Beyond this budget’s basic effects of taking away health, food, and other vital assistance from people who struggle to afford the basics and making student loans more expensive to partially offset tax cuts for the wealthy, it would have at least three other harmful impacts.
First, the House budget resolution and the proposals House Republicans are considering could result in enormous cost shifts to state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, which are already facing tougher fiscal conditions than in recent years. For example, some of the proposed cuts in Medicaid and SNAP would force states to pick up a much larger share of the programs’ costs or leave people without needed help. In reality, states will not make up for all or even most of the federal cuts, and families will lose health coverage and food assistance.
Second, while this budget aims to extend all of the tax cuts skewed to the top, it fails to call for extending a tax cut that is well targeted to people who need it: the improved premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act. Failure to extend this tax cut would raise health care premiums for more than 20 million people, including at least 3 million small business owners and self-employed workers.
And third, even with the budget’s huge cuts in assistance, and the suffering those cuts would inflict on individuals and families, it would still increase our nation’s debt because of the enormous cost of its tax cuts. When you strip away this budget’s fuzzy math with its $2.6 trillion macroeconomic gimmick — which is far beyond expert organizations’ estimates (including estimates of conservative organizations) of possible economic effects from extending the tax cuts from President Trump’s first term and enacting potential new tax cuts — the federal debt under the House budget would increase over the next ten years compared to Congressional Budget Office projections of current law.
Even with the budget calling for a $4 trillion increase in the statutory debt limit, we calculate this limit would be reached in November 2026, only 21 months from now, under the policies assumed under this budget.
The House Republican budget’s path of higher costs for families, more people without health coverage, increased poverty and hardship, and higher debt — all in service to tax cuts for the wealthy and profitable business interests — is the wrong direction for our nation. It is also directly at odds with the recent election in which so many people expressed concern about their ability to afford food, housing, health care, and other necessities — and at odds with the promises made to them by President Trump.
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