Federal cuts: Three ways you can fight back

AFSCME members Stephanie Teachman and Jeanne Weaver stood up for their communities on Capitol Hill today and lobbied members of Congress to say no cuts to Medicaid to pay for billionaire tax breaks.

This week, Congress has begun some of the biggest markups to decide how much and what to cut in the federal budget.

These budget proposals would deal a devastating blow to working families and to the public services that WFSE members provide.

Here's the facts:

• Anti-union extremists are planning to make the largest cuts to Medicaid in history.

Their plan proposes cutting at least $715 billion from health programs and taking away health care insurance from 13.7 million people, including mothers, children, seniors, low-income working people and people with disabilities.

Medicaid cuts of this magnitude would crater state budgets and pave the way to a special legislative session where the harmful cuts we just defeated could return tenfold.

Over 20k WFSE members' jobs are funded by federal dollars. Even if Medicaid doesn't directly fund your position, the loss of Medicaid dollars would result in cuts to all areas of state government and higher ed.

• Massive cuts to food assistance for children and families

At the same time, anti-worker lawmakers want to cut almost $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), shifting costs onto states. The result? Food assistance for millions of families will be in jeopardy, as states like ours buckle under the financial strain of these and other cuts.

• Largest transfer of wealth to the rich in history

Though the specifics of their plans may change slightly over the next week, one thing is clear: the only winners in this cruel budget scheme are billionaires like Elon Musk. They would reap trillions in tax breaks in what is shaping up to be the largest transfer of wealth from a single law in U.S. history.

We have to fight back. See three ways you can take action below.

Here are three ways you can take action:

1. Call Congress at (202)-559-1165 and tell them: no gutting public services to fund billionaire tax breaks!
2. Join your union if you aren’t already a WFSE/AFSCME member. The more workers join our union, the more power we have to negotiate strong contracts and stop harmful budget cuts. It's how we fought off furloughs, healthcare takeaways and funded our raises despite a historic budget crisis here in Washington.
3. Contribute to PEOPLE — and ask others to join you. Billionaires like 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.

We've faced challenges before and overcome them.

We just prevented our own Governor and state legislature from balancing the budget on public workers' backs. If we join with fellow AFSCME members nationwide in protesting these cuts, we can defeat them. 

Learn more about the AFSCME GO campaign here.