Kids & communities need solutions - not cuts

Americans are still recovering from the ripple effects of the pandemic, particularly our most vulnerable populations. Students are entering schools with a vast array of social, emotional and academic needs. Workers are re-entering a changing workplace and health care needs have not diminished.  

Now is not the time for Congress to make massive cuts to the programs we depend on. It's up to us to spread the word.

• The Republican bill not only makes devastating cuts to public K-12 education, it cuts $63.8 billion overall, representing a 28 percent decrease from 2023 funding levels. It represents the lowest funding allocation for the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill since 2008 and would decimate pre-K, elementary and secondary education; higher education; public health programs; and worker protection programs.
• Title I is the foundational federal investment in public K-12 education and focuses on sending support to low-income students and communities. This cut could force a nationwide reduction of 220,000 teachers from classrooms serving low-income students, reflecting a callous disregard for high-need students.
• The bill includes billions of dollars in additional cuts to public K-12 education programs like community schools, and it completely eliminates important programs like funding for English learners (Title III), support for teachers (Title II-A), Social and Emotional Learning grants, Promise Neighborhoods and Magnet Schools.
• The bill cuts funding for early childhood education programs. It hurts students who need help paying for higher education, cutting federal financial aid and including poison-pill policy riders that would prohibit the Biden administration from reforming the student loan system to make student debt more manageable for the 46 million student loan borrowers in the country. The bill also makes huge cuts to workforce training programs and worker protection agencies at the Department of Labor.
• This bill will undercut our nation’s public health by cutting funding for research, along with abandoning efforts to address ongoing public health crises in mental health, opioid use, HIV/AIDS and health disparities.
• The bill also continues the Republican attacks on women’s health by cutting programs that support maternal and child health, eliminating programs that provide access to health services and contraception, and adding numerous partisan and poison-pill riders related to abortion and reproductive health.