U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative:
On behalf of our 3 million members and the 50 million students they serve, we strongly urge you to VOTE NO on H.R. 1, the budget reconciliation bill. Votes on this issue WILL BE SCORED in NEA’s report card for the 119th Congress.
As a whole, the bill transfers wealth from working families to the ultra-rich—ultimately at the expense of our students. It extends tax breaks created by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, large corporations, and other big businesses. Simultaneously, it shreds the social safety net and adds at least $3.3 trillion to the national debt—far more than the $2.4 trillion the version previously passed by the House would add.
Working families will find it even harder to make ends meet. The bill slashes support for education, health care, and nutrition aid for students, seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans at a time when prices for food, clothing, and other daily necessities are rising and expected to stay high.
As an elected representative, you have a responsibility to listen to your constituents and consider how this bill would impact their lives. The nature and impact of specific provisions are discussed below.
Voucher scheme weakens public schools
The push to divert taxpayer dollars from public to private schools has a long and sordid history. After the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, some districts closed their public schools. Then, to get around the court’s ruling against segregation, states used the money to provide vouchers for private, white-only schools. To this day, private schools can—and do—limit admission based on any number of factors. Public schools, in contrast, admit and serve all manner of students.
The bill threatens a nationwide tax-credit voucher scheme that would divert $25 billion to private and religious schools, weakening public education at a time when the administration has cut—and proposed billions more—in funding cuts for the public schools that educate 9 out of 10 students. Entire communities will suffer, especially in rural areas where 20 percent of our students live and public schools are economic centers.
Individuals could receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit—far more valuable than the usual deduction for charitable contributions—in exchange for giving money to an intermediary organization, which then funnels the money to private schools as tuition. Individuals who donate stocks instead of money would get an even bigger tax credit representing both the value of the stock and realized gains.
Private schools do not provide the same protections public schools are required to provide by law—Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Special needs students lose important legal rights and protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Every time voucher schemes are on state ballots—17 times in total, including three states last November—voters have overwhelmingly rejected them. America cannot afford to fund two education systems, one private and one public. Taxpayer dollars should go to public schools open to all students, not private schools that can pick and choose their students.
17 million lose health coverage
Over the next decade, 17 million people will lose health coverage due to the impact of the budget reconciliation bill on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The fourth-largest source of support for K-12 public schools, Medicaid covers over 80 million Americans, including nearly half our students and 1 in 10 education support professionals.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), 11.8 million people lose coverage due to new Medicaid “work requirements”—burying applicants in a monthly avalanche of paperwork to document they’ve spent 80 hours on “community engagement” (work, education, job training or volunteering). The rest lose coverage due to the expiration of enhanced ACA premiums and ACA marketplace cuts.
According to a recent study by the Commonwealth Fund and George Washington University, up to 5.2 million adults could lose Medicaid coverage in 2026 alone—leading in turn to the loss of nearly half a million jobs.
Rural areas would be hit especially hard. Health care providers are already in short supply, and many hospitals have closed or can no longer afford to provide essential—but unprofitable—services like maternity care. Slashing the number of people covered by Medicaid and the ACA would exacerbate these problems.
SNAP cuts cause food insecurity, put school meals at risk
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps feed more than 42 million Americans—40 percent are children and 80 percent are households that include a child, older adult, or disabled individual. All across America, 23.3 million families and students could go hungry due to $186 billion in large-scale cuts and new restrictions on eligibility for SNAP included in the bill. When families lose eligibility for SNAP, students’ access to free school meals is also at risk.
Higher education becomes even less affordable
It is counterproductive to slash investments in our students—America’s future leaders and workforce—yet that is just what this bill does. According to a report from the Student Borrower Protection Center, the average college graduate will pay $2,929 more per year compared to the SAVE plan. It caps or eliminates programs that provide loans to attend graduate and professional schools while imposing new taxes on scholarships, fellowships, and student loan debt. The bill also makes it harder for victims of unscrupulous institutions to escape student loan debt.
Steep fees limit legal immigration
The bill imposes steep fees that would turn legal immigration into a luxury only the wealthy can afford—among other things, a $3,500 sponsorship fee for unaccompanied children and a $550 fee for each work permit. It would also expand mass detention, including the detention of children and family units in unlicensed and unsafe tent cities.
Ramped-up immigration enforcement is already traumatizing students all across America. Every day, educators at all levels from pre-K to postsecondary encounter students terrified by threats of mass deportation. They worry that their loved ones will be targeted and their families broken up. Some refuse to leave their homes, even to go to school.
They are right to be afraid. The administration has repeatedly attacked immigrants, failed to provide them with due process, and violated court orders—actions that threaten the checks and balances central to our Constitution and undermine the rule of law that is the foundation of our democracy.
For all these reasons, we strongly urge you to VOTE NO on H.R. 1.
Sincerely,
Kimberly Johnson Trinca
Director of Government Relations
National Education Association
