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Budget Cuts

Labor Fights Back Against Trump’s Medical Care And Research Cuts

April 12, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
Hundreds of organized workers, representing a variety of unions including the United Auto Workers (UAW), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the National Educational Association (NEA), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Communication Workers of America (CWA), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), among other groups, took to the streets in demonstrations across the country opposing planning Trump administration cuts to the National Institutes of Health.

Resistance Grows As Proposed Cuts Threaten Health Care For Millions

April 7, 2025 Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout. , , , ,
Kelly Smith, a 57-year-old New York City resident, is part of the Nonviolent Medicaid Army (NVMA), a growing national movement of poor people who are organizing to stop proposed cuts to Medicaid and promote health care as a human right. “The need for health care unites us all,” Smith told Truthout. “Right now, I’m terrified of losing Medicaid and being unable to get injections for pain control. They’re the only thing that makes it possible for me to be on my game.” Nonetheless, she says that her health is somewhat fragile. Not only is she a breast cancer survivor, but she also has severe scoliosis and takes medication for hypertension, high cholesterol and depression — all covered by Medicaid.

Columbia University Medical Staff Protests Cuts In Health Care

April 2, 2025 Monica Moorehead, Workers World. , , ,
Members of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) in New York City held a solidarity gathering on March 27 to protest proposed cuts of grants to universities and colleges in the area of health care by the Trump administration. The main demands were: “Protect our patients! Protect our research! Protect our teaching! Protect our students!” The motivation for this protest reads in part: “Several CUIMC researchers will share their stories about their terminated grants, and we hope to build a community who want to raise our voices against the assaults on higher education and especially on health research from the federal government.”

Minneapolis Parents And Teachers Protest Cuts To Special Education

March 31, 2025 Unicorn Riot. , , ,
Minneapolis, MN — Dozens of teachers and parents interrupted a school board meeting to demand the Minneapolis Public Schools not cut special education department staff or funding. As special education teachers are beginning to be laid off and the Minneapolis Public School district faces a $75M budget deficit with plans for wide cuts, protesters are calling for the most vulnerable students in the district not to be on the chopping block. With chants of “Who’s schools? Our schools,” and “inclusion is for everyone,” the large crowd of protesters interrupted the School Board meeting on Tuesday, March 25, by standing and chanting in unison before several speakers shared their stories.

Hegseth Orders Pentagon To Make Sweeping Budget Cuts

February 20, 2025 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. , , ,
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered Pentagon leaders to develop plans to make sweeping cuts to the Defense Department’s budget, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. According to a memo obtained by the Post, Hegseth’s order calls for an 8% cut to the Pentagon budget each year for five years. The Pentagon budget for 2025 is about $850 billion, and an 8% cut for five years would bring it down to roughly $560 billion, a reduction of $290 billion. Hegseth wants the proposed cuts to be drawn up by February 24, and the memo included a list of 17 categories that would be exempt from the spending cuts.

US Higher Education Is Being Gutted, But We Can Fight Back

February 29, 2024 Olivia Wood, Left Voice. , , , ,
In January 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis overhauled the Board of Trustees of the New College of Florida, replacing several members with conservative activists, including Christopher Rufo. New College of Florida was known as a hippie college, a queer college, but Rufo aimed to change all that, saying, “We will be shutting down low-performing, ideologically-captured academic departments and hiring new faculty.” He added, “The student body will be recomposed over time: some current students will self-select out, others will graduate; we’ll recruit new students who are mission-aligned.”

A Strike Is Coming To The Nation’s Largest Public University System

January 22, 2024 Matthew Ford, Jacobin. , , , ,
For over a decade, the administration at California State University (CSU) has been disinvesting in the United States’ largest public university system. The result has been the destruction of the institution’s academic integrity and the undermining of its basic goal: to serve the public good. Thankfully, a formidable opposition is growing among the faculty. This came to a head when, after a recent breakdown in negotiations with CSU management, the California Faculty Association (CFA) pledged to strike at all twenty-three campuses beginning this Monday, January 22. The twenty-nine thousand striking teachers are officially walking out over a bargaining impasse, but the conflict has roots far deeper than the recent breakdown in negotiations.

Punching Down On Libraries

May 17, 2023 Katie Pruden, The Indypendent. , , ,
New York City, New York - There’s a public library in every single neighborhood in the city, across all five boroughs. More than 200 locations ­altogether. Whether it be Queens (QPL), Brooklyn (BPL) or New York (NYPL), which encompasses The Bronx and Staten Island, the library’s employees, resources and physical spaces serve the public beyond providing books, free wifi and nice architecture. If you fill out a form, librarians at BPL will personally pick out recommendations for you based on what you like. Using the new Queens Name Explorer, you can find out about the history behind the names of local parks, streets and schools.

New Round Of Trump Budget Cuts Could Force More Californians Into Homelessness, Advocates Say

February 19, 2020 David Lightman and Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks, Mcclatchydc.com , , ,
The Trump administration is proposing a cut in homeless assistance funding next year, frustrating advocates who say the crisis in Sacramento and other cities is worsening. The White House budget plan for fiscal 2021, which begins Oct. 1, proposes $2.773 billion for homeless assistance grants, slightly less than the current year. The administration also wants to cut funding for affordable housing programs as well as Community Development Block Grants, which help revive and improve neighborhoods.

UN’s 75th Anniversary Shadowed By Right-Wing Nationalism, Widespread Authoritarianism And Budgetary Cuts

October 24, 2019 Thalif Deen, Human-wrongs-watch.net , , ,
And civil society organizations (CSOs), who were mostly disappointed with the results, are now gearing themselves for two upcoming key climate summit meetings: COP25 in Santiago, Chile in December and COP26 in Glasgow, UK in late 2020, along with the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Women’s Conference scheduled to take place in September 2020 in New York. But perhaps the most politically-significant event in 2020 will be the 75th anniversary of the United Nations which will take place amidst continued threats against multilateral institutions, rising right-wing nationalism, growing authoritarianism and widespread disinformation.

Trump’s Tax Cuts, Budget And Deficits: Recession 2019?

February 17, 2018 By Jack Rasmus, Telesurtv.net , , , ,
Trump tax cuts and Trump’s budget will exacerbate U.S. budget deficits and debt and cause the central bank to raise interest rates even faster and higher. Lies and misrepresentation of facts have become the hallmark of U.S. politics in recent years more than ever before. Not just lies of commission by U.S. President Donald Trump and his crew, but lies of omission by the mainstream media as well. In Trump’s recent package of tax cuts for corporations, investors and millionaires, the lie is that the total cuts amount to US$1.5 trillion — when the actual amount is more than US$5 trillion and likely even higher. And in his most recent announcement of budget deficits the amounts admitted are barely half of the actual deficits — and consequent rise in U.S. national debt — that will occur. Even his US$1.5 trillion so-called infrastructure spending plan, that Trump promised during his 2016 election campaign, and then throughout 2017, amounts to only US$200 billion.

Prosperity Through Keystrokes: Understanding Federal Spending

November 18, 2017 Steve Grumbine, www.popularresistance.org , , , ,
By Steve Grumbine. It has long been known that our electoral system and methods of voting are corrupt, untrustworthy, and easily manipulated by less than savvy politicians, state actors, and hackers alike. The answers to many of these issues is the same answer that we would need to push for any progressive reforms to take place in the United States: namely, we need enlightened, fiery, peaceful, and committed activists to propel a movement and ensure that the people rise, face their oppressors, and unify to demand that their needs be met. What is not as well-known, however, is how a movement, the government, and taxes work together to bring about massive changes in programs, new spending, and the always scary “National Debt” .

Big Tax Cuts Will Lead To Big Federal Budget Cuts

October 30, 2017 Sharon Parrott, www.cbpp.org , , ,
By Sharon Parrott for CBPP - Many Republican policymakers are already talking about using the same fast-track process (“budget reconciliation”) next year to push large cuts in entitlement programs as they plan to use this year to push the tax cuts. Reconciliation bills can’t be filibustered, and they require only a simple majority to pass the Senate, unlike most legislation that requires 60 Senate votes. Roll Call reports that it “interviewed half a dozen House Budget Committee members, as well as a few other fiscal hawks in the GOP conference, and they all said that they anticipate mandatory spending cuts [i.e., cuts in entitlement programs] being a priority for the fiscal 2019 budget reconciliation process.” Indeed, some Republican lawmakers weren’t shy about their two-step strategy. “We dream those big dreams here,” Budget Committee member Rob Woodall said. “I’ll take half of that dream in tax reform, and then I’ll come back next spring for the other half.” Budget Committee Chair Diane Black similarly promised “some real attention on [deficit reduction] next year,” based on “the acknowledgement of our leadership,” Roll Call reports. Congressional Republicans could have chosen to write a single bill with both tax cuts and the program cuts (or tax increases) to pay for them.

#TheseCutsHurt Day Of Action

October 23, 2017 Staff, www.witnessestohunger.blog , , ,
By Staff of Witnesses to Hunger - On October 30th, 2017, people from around the country will be speaking out to raise awareness about how proposed budget cuts will hurt their families, children, communities, and this country as a whole. By sharing their personal experiences and ideas for change, Americans can stand up together and say that THESE CUTS HURT and that they have had enough of the government refusing to prioritize our children and our families. Programs that feed millions, that house people, that provide health care – among so many others – are on the chopping block. Our country can and must do better to support families – the majority of whom are working or want to work – to make ends meet.

Cost Of Cuts: Arizona Tax Carve-Outs Last Year Hit $13.7B

June 7, 2017 Jim Small and Evan Wyloge, www.azcir.org , ,
By Jim Small and Evan Wyloge for Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting - PHOENIX – Teachers who marched on the Capitol this past week in support of doubling the salary boost that lawmakers were considering went home empty handed, as Republican lawmakers backed a budget proposal that grants them a two-percent increase over the next two years, saying there simply wasn’t money available. The cost of doing so would have been an additional $34 million per year in the first year and $68 million in the second, a tiny fraction of the $9.8 billion spending plan approved May 5. But that figure is dwarfed by how much tax revenue the state doesn’t collect each year: In fiscal year 2016, state law allowed $13.7 billion in taxes to go uncollected through a litany of exemptions, deductions, allowances, exclusions or credits. And that number is likely to grow by another $1-to-2 billion once individual income tax deductions are tallied. According to data compiled by the Arizona Department of Revenue, more than half of all state taxes haven’t been collected for at least the past ten years. Called “tax expenditures,” they amount to $136.5 billion since fiscal year 2007 – roughly equivalent to sum of state budgets spanning the past 15 years.
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