John,

The House passed Speaker McCarthy’s cut and default proposals last Wednesday, which amount to slashing human needs programs and inflicting cruel suffering on millions of people. Now it’s up to the Senate to defend these critical programs by putting a stop to Rep. McCarthy’s craven wishlist.

The Senate has the power to stop this and they need to use it to prevent additional pain and suffering. Send a direct message to your senators, urging them to block Rep. McCarthy’s cruel cuts.

Two of the most egregious items in the proposal are the imposition of bureaucratic hurdles for recipients of Medicaid and SNAP. SNAP already has these harmful hurdles for 19-49 year-olds without children; if they can’t prove 80 hours of work per month, they can only get 3 months of SNAP every 3 years. The House-passed bill would expand SNAP work reporting requirements to include people aged 50-55 -- people who are most likely to experience major obstacles to work, such as age discrimination and health-related issues that prevent them from being hired. Meanwhile, at least 10 million people receiving Medicaid would newly be subject to these rules. When they were tried in Arkansas, one in four of those subject to the requirements lost coverage; most of those were really eligible either because they were working or were exempt.

In addition to that, the legislation would also:

• Eliminate 200,000 Head Start slots for children in families with low incomes.

• Cut at least 101,000 child care slots.

• Drop meals for more than 1 million older adults -- in many cases their only meal of the day.

• Eliminate rental housing vouchers for 640,000 families (out of the 2.3 million households now using vouchers); other cuts in affordable housing programs would affect hundreds of thousands of additional households.

• End many of the renewable energy tax breaks that were enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act.

• Cause massive staff layoffs in Social Security offices around the country, leading to office closures and limiting access for those who receive Social Security and disability benefits.

The House bill makes trillions of dollars in damaging cuts, reverses hard-won gains in clean energy, and makes it easier for tax cheats to evade payment as the price of raising the debt limit. To make it clear: they’re demanding an extremist wishlist in exchange for allowing the federal government to pay its bills. That’s reckless hostage-taking. The Senate must say NO.

Speaker McCarthy’s bill should be dead-on-arrival. We must let senators know that this bill is not a starting point for negotiations; it’s unacceptable in every way imaginable. Click here to send a direct message to your senators, urging them to vote “no” on McCarthy’s proposals.

Thank you for all you do to defend human needs programs,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs