If you are feeling like me as you read this horror of a budget then you can’t help but look at our right-wing friends and say “I told ya so!” This reads like a Stephen King horror novel for families all across the nation. We here in rural Alabama will feel that kick in our gut when this takes effect.
For several years now we have seen hospitals close all over the rural areas of District 4 and other areas of Alabama. In some parts of our area people have to drive miles to the nearest hospital. This is a life threatening situation in cases of heart attacks and accidents. Many of these hospitals closed because Gov Kay Ivey refused the Medicaid expansion during the Obama Administration. We are about to see more of this coming from the 2025 Budget that has been proposed by the Republicans. This is a copy read out of Project 2025. You remember Project 2025, right? That “thing” that Trump didn’t know anything about? Yeah that thing.
This budget is designed to hurt the elderly, middle class, poor and Veterans all across the nation. It is especially damaging to rural areas in already struggling states like Alabama. This will end Medicaid as we know it. It will eliminate the Affordable Care Act and mortgage interest deduction and raise the costs of working class and middle class Americans.
This GOP plan will gut Social Security benefits for over 250 million people. It will force Americans to work longer hours for less money, slashes food assistance for children while lavishing the ultra rich with even more massive new tax cuts. These policies will create significant economic and health insecurity for millions of people while increasing poverty, hardship, and the number of people lacking health coverage. They will shortchange children’s futures, make it harder for millions of seniors to afford prescription drugs, and take away help that households need to afford food, housing, and child care. Many of the proposals would shift large costs onto states, forcing them to either kick in far more money or cut benefits to their residents This is a particular hardship for states like Alabama with lower per capita incomes.
There are millions of real people who will see health coverage, food assistance, and other forms of support taken away. This will make it even harder for them to afford the basic day to day needs that will lead to serious hardships such as homelessness, food insecurity, hunger, and untreated health conditions.
How will this personally affect people living in our areas who already have a shortage of affordable housing and are struggling to pay their bills and feed their families? Millions will lose their healthcare. Those who are still covered will lose the “pre-existing” disease benefit that they have with the Affordable Care Act.
Alabama is already near the bottom in education. This budget will gut the funding for preschoolers by eliminating Head Start. SNAP benefits that help feed toddlers and infants will be eliminated. There are over seven million senior citizens and disabled people who will lose their cash assistance that help pay for food and medicine. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) will be converted into a block grant. The money will be cut by 50% in public health, and medical research. The national safety from disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, and earthquakes will be handed down to individual states to provide help for victims. In poor states such as Alabama, where does this money come from without FEMA?
The Party who likes to boast about their family values is also cutting our resources to help families to afford child care, rent, and to expand the Child Tax Credit. They have no plans to ensure workers will still have access to paid family or medical leave, take care of a health issue or care for a family member in need.
There is also a provision that health care providers that also include the Department of Health and Human Services and insurance companies will have the option to discriminate against LGBTQ+, pregnant women, and women who have had a miscarriage or an abortion.
This will greatly have an effect on low income households who use the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to help pay for heating bills in their homes. It will eliminate federal funds for Legal Service Corporation which provided financial support for legal assistance to those who cannot afford it. There will be significant reduction in funding for environmental programs that reduce pollution, hazardous waste and finance the facilities for drinking water treatments.
While our new administration makes all of these harmful changes they will also be adding substantial tax cuts for corporations, wealthy shareholders and large estates while raising taxes on middle and low income households.
We have heard the hate filled dialog from Trump on immigration. President Obama said “Unless you are a Native American, someone brought you here.” Immigrants and their families are important parts of our communities. They bring vitality to our neighborhoods, they do important and often difficult work, they are business owners, and they contribute to the fabric of our nation in countless ways. Immigration has boosted our nation’s labor force at a time when the native-born population is aging, providing critical energy to our economy and helping to improve the financing of Social Security and Medicare over the coming decades. A recent Congressional Budget Office report highlights these economic contributions, showing that over a ten-year period (2024-2034), increased immigration would result in an increase of $8.9 trillion and a decrease in the federal deficit by $900 billion.
This is not all of the budget. There are 50 pages of it that was the promise of the Republican Party during the campaign. They tried to deny Project 2025, and Trump vowed he knew nothing about it. Now we see as we always knew that this is their game plan for the future of our country.
We must write to the Democrats in our Congress and ask them to stand up against this and fight like hell to protect the vulnerable citizens who will be put into hard times and poverty. We are the voice of the people who need Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security. We stand up for the innocent children who will go without food and a warm bed to sleep in. We have to look after the disabled and the elderly that they will continue to receive the necessary day to day meds that they need to live. We are the working people’s Party to protect their rights to a fair wage, benefits and healthcare. Our Veterans were there for us and now it’s time for us to be there for them. They deserve the same Gold Star healthcare that Congress has given to themselves. We knew this was coming. We tried to tell the voters. They didn’t believe it and would not listen. But, it’s here, and we have to continue to fight against it. Stand up. Speak out. We will be heard.
Lynda Kirkpatrick
Marion County Democratic Party Chair
HD 17 Elected SDEC Alabama Democratic Party