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Write a Letter to Congress: Don’t hurt families receiving Medicaid and SNAP to give tax cuts to billionaires!
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s radical spending cuts will disproportionately harm rural communities across the United States—all just to pay for another corporate giveaway. Here’s a look at how these proposals will impact you and your community:
Cuts to education will hurt over 9.8 million kids in rural schools.
- Federal Title I funds offset costs for our school districts, so every public school receives adequate funding, and (IDEA) funds help our kids who receive things like speech services, reading support or other assistance, and ensure accessibility for kids with disabilities.
- Over $215 million in dedicated federal funding goes directly to our rural schools to address the teacher shortage by hiring more teachers and support staff, continuing to train current employees, and keeping those who already serve our kids.
- Workforce development would suffer because federal funding cuts would get rid of programs that ensure our kids have access to the skills necessary to succeed in a variety of fields including healthcare, advanced manufacturing, traditional trades and auto repair.
- Rolling back federal student loans or access to Pell grants would make it too expensive for students in rural communities to access and succeed in trade schools or two- or four-year colleges—including students who are the first in their family to attend.
The bottom line: These cuts put our kids’ futures at risk.
Cuts to food benefits impact rural kids and workers the most.
- Increased and expanded work requirements to qualify for Medicaid, food assistance or other social supports disproportionately affect rural communities because our unemployment rates tend to be higher than the national average, work can be more seasonably dependent, and jobs often are farther away.
- Proposed cuts to the SNAP would put more than 40 million people at risk of losing help with food and groceries, including our kids who receive free or reduced-cost meals at their schools.
- Combining the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP would severely affect the ability of women, infants and children to qualify for the federal supplemental nutrition program known as WIC, increasing the chances of high-risk pregnancies, premature births and infant mortalities.
- After-school nutrition programs fill the hunger gap for millions of children in rural communities, serving meals at schools, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs and after-school programs, helping parents who work full time.
The bottom line: These cuts will take food off our tables.
Cuts to Medicaid will increase wait times and costs, reduce access and lower quality.
- 47 percent of kids in rural communities have healthcare through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, meaning cuts to these programs would increase our costs for doctors’ visits, dental visits and regularly occurring treatments for things like cancer and diabetes.
- Over 12 million people in rural communities have Medicaid as their primary health coverage option, meaning these payments directly fund our hospitals, clinics and primary care physicians, and without these payments, many medical offices will be forced to close.
- 2.9 million people in rural communities obtained affordable healthcare coverage because of improvements to the Affordable Care Act, and allowing these improvements to expire in 2025 will increase our costs and mean more people can’t get insurance.
- Less money distributed to Medicaid would mean fewer healthcare jobs available, longer wait times to be seen, and burned-out, overworked healthcare professionals to treat you, all worsening the staffing crisis we are already seeing.
The bottom line: These cuts put our health at risk.
Cuts to the federal government hurt rural economies and farmers.
- With the looming possibility of tariffs threatening access of U.S.-produced goods to foreign markets, $2 billion of U.S.-produced corn, grains, rice and soy sit undistributed and rotting in warehouses across the country due to the eradication of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
- Thousands of family-owned farms, which were guaranteed federal contracts, paid out of pocket to front the costs of things like seeds and equipment but are now being told contracts will not be honored and their costs will not be reimbursed due to spending cuts.
- Demolishing the federal workforce weakens rural economies by affecting federal grant distribution for our businesses, restricts the building of more affordable housing, and hurts seasonal economies by creating worker shortages for positions maintained by the U.S. Forest Service and on our farms.
- Firing more than 550 U.S. Department of Agriculture rural development workers and half of the workers at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reduces new construction of affordable housing, meaning fewer short- and long-term jobs and increased housing costs in our communities.
The bottom line: These cuts put our livelihoods and businesses at risk.