Today, the US House of Representatives passed the Senate’s version of a devastating budget reconciliation bill that will rip away health care and food access from tens of thousands of Nebraskans in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires and sweeping deportations of everyday working people that will separate families. The bill will now head to the President’s desk to be signed into law.
All five members of Nebraska’s delegation – Sen. Ricketts, Sen. Fischer, Rep. Flood, Rep. Bacon, and Rep. Smith – voted to advance the President’s destructive agenda, failing the people of this state and the country.
This bill contains over $1 trillion in cuts to programs that keep communities healthy and strong, while drastically increasing overall costs and the deficit through tax cuts for the extremely wealthy and corporations. It will:
Increase harmful immigration enforcement that damages local communities by:
- Providing unprecedented funding totalling approximately $126 billion for family detention and jailing on an unimaginable scale, and for sweeping and unproductive enforcement of long-outdated immigration laws – separating local neighbors and families, and destabilizing whole communities.
Dismantle SNAP by:
- Shifting huge, unmanageable costs to states to cover SNAP, risking loss of benefits or eligibility for the 150,000 Nebraskans currently utilizing the program.
- Implementing additional overly restrictive SNAP work requirements on older Nebraskans up to age 64, parents of young children, former foster youth, people experiencing homelessness and veterans who are already struggling to keep food on the table and were previously exempt from these red-tape reporting barriers.
Take away health care from Nebraskans by:
- Slashing Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, resulting in nearly 17 million people losing health insurance coverage and costs going up for the rest.
- Attacking Nebraska’s voter-approved Medicaid expansion – which provides more than 65,000 Nebraskans with life-saving health care coverage – by imposing unnecessary work requirements that put up to 40,000 Nebraskans at risk of losing their health care.
- Ending Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage for Nebraska children and families who are refugees, asylees, certain victims of domestic violence and trafficking, and people granted humanitarian protection.
Weaken the Child Tax Credit by:
- Taking the Child Tax Credit away from U.S. citizen children with parents who are stuck in immigration limbo.
- Increasing the Child Tax Credit for higher income families – while leaving out at least 17 million of our lowest-income children.
Since January, Nebraskans like you have continuously voiced opposition, sharing what this bill will cost our communities. The fight now moves to the Nebraska Legislature. Nebraskans across the state will need to work together to ensure that our state mitigates as much harm as possible caused by this sweeping piece of legislation.
Thank you for making your voice heard and pushing back against this generational threat to the health of our state and the safety of our neighbors. But our work together is not done.
In the coming weeks, we’ll continue to dissect the impact of this bill and let you know how to ensure that our Governor and state legislature protect the critical programs that are at risk. In the meantime, you can:
- Make sure you’re signed up for our Legislative Update email list here.
- Contact Governor Pillen and ask him to commit to NOT cutting SNAP or Medicaid in Nebraska.