Medicaid Cuts Near, State Revenue Drops: Action Needed

Anti-worker extremists in Congress are pushing to cut $700 billion from Medicaid, SNAP or Medicare to pay for billionaire tax breaks by July 4th. (how patriotic🙄)

On June 29, the Senate passed a key procedural hurdle in enacting the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, voting 50-49 to move forward and begin debating the bill.

What's at stake:

20,000 WFSE members' jobs are funded by federal dollars. Working families would suffer nationwide, but we as public servants would be directly impacted:

• Drastic cuts at the state and federal level would slash the pot of money we'll have to negotiate for when we enter contract negotiations in the spring of 2026, severely limiting any chance of economic gains.

More immediately,

• The attacks on our pay and healthcare we just defeated would return tenfold as our state budget craters
• Mass cuts and layoffs to state government and higher education would dwarf the painful cuts we're experiencing right now

Take Action

• If you haven't sent a letter to Congress yet using this link, do it today.(the action above targets both your state and federal officials; an explanation for why this is important is below)
• If you already sent a letter, contribute to PEOPLE or increase your contribution— and ask others to join you.

What's PEOPLE?

Billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk think they can buy our elections. PEOPLE, your union's political action committee (PAC), is how we defeat them.

It's how we take an active role in electing politicians who advocate for issues that are important to working families, like the need to balance the economy, defend workers’ rights, secure workers’ benefits, invest in public services, and ensure a secure retirement for all. Plus you get cool AFSCME swag.

The Status of Federal Cuts as Target Date for Vote Nears

The U.S. House Already Voted to Cut Your Pay

Last month, the U.S. House successfully voted to cut Medicaid by just one vote. If passed by the Senate, it would rip healthcare away from over 10 million Americans.

Republican state lawmakers in Washington asked Congress to stop Medicaid cuts

Because they understood the terrible impact it would have, 23 Washington state Republican lawmakers took the extraordinary step of directly asking their federal counterparts NOT to cut Medicaid in this letter.

Because this is bigger than party affiliation. This is about rural hospitals and nursing homes closing. Mass cuts to vital services and the folks who protect vulnerable children, keep the environment clean, and make our highways and communities safe.

That didn't stop two members of Congress, Rep Baumgartner ( Sunnyside) and Rep Newhouse (Spokane), from voting for the cuts anyway.

Amazingly, they represent the two districts with the highest Medicaid usage in Washington. They voted for their constituents, friends, families and neighbors to suffer.

If the Senate passes the federal cuts, the bill will go back to the House. Rep Baumgartner and Newhouse, and all our elected officials, need to hear from us.

Send a message here to save public services (targets both federal and state officials!).

Resources

• Learn more about how you can fight federal cuts here
• See how federal cuts would impact our next union contract
• Get the latest from AFSCME here. To sign up for updates text GO to 237263.

In Washington, the lowest 20% of income earners pay about %14 of their income in state and local taxes, while the top 1% pay only about 4%. It's unfair, and it's a big driver of recurrent budget crises that lead layoffs and attacks on our benefits.

State Revenue Projections Take a Dive; Billionaire Profits Don't

The latest revenue forecast has been released. It's not pretty.

Projections for the next four years were just reduced by -$1.1 billion. In other words, three months ago the state based its budget on the idea it would have $1 billion more than its currently projected to have.

That's what happens when you have the second-most unfair tax system in the United States—when your tax system is based on the spending habits of poor and working class families.

50% of our budget depends on sales tax. It's uniquely sensitive to things like tariffs and inflation.

When working people spend a little bit less, revenue takes a dive and then the services these same folks depend on are also on the chopping block.

Throughout this past legislative session, we stood up to elected officials who tried to balance the budget on public workers' backs and told them to fix our tax code instead.

They made big strides, adopting $9 billion in new revenue, which puts us in a much better position to weather the economic damage from tariffs and federal cuts, but they didn't go far enough.

Cuts and layoffs are rippling throughout state agencies and higher education. At Seattle Colleges, a reduction in state funding was exacerbated by financial mismanagement and led to furloughs and layoffs.

The Early Learning Center at Everett Community College was closed after a long fight by WFSE members to save the precious community resource, which is a lifeline for families in a childcare desert.

The next revenue forecast is in September. Absent of any federal cuts, we still may be forced to defend our pay, jobs and services in a special session if the situation worsens. But we'd also have the opportunity to push for more progressive revenue.

Until our elected officials fix our tax system, we'll continue to see needed services and jobs go away for no better reason than rich folks aren't paying for them like the rest of us are.

Send a message to your federal and state officials here.

Our state officials must create a #WashingtonForAll and choose working families over big business and corporations, and our federal officials must reject devastating cuts that would make the current shortfall ten times worse.