The House of Representatives last week passed a Trump-backed budget reconciliation package with several toxic provisions.
The 215-214 vote was mostly along party lines. But over the past few months, AFGE worked hard to fight these cuts, and we successfully prevented some of the worst:
But the bill still retains these toxic provisions that would:
AFGE vows to fight in the Senate
The Senate now must take up the bill and pass it before it can be sent to Trump for signature. We will not know for several weeks just what the Senate does, but the expectation right now is that the Senate will significantly amend the House-passed bill. As we did with the House, AFGE will push the Senate to protect the civil service and drop the remaining FERS provisions in whatever reconciliation bill it passes.
This bill is not only bad for federal workers but also for a majority of the American people, particularly the most vulnerable. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Trump’s tax cuts in Trump-House Republicans’ megabill would enrich the wealthiest Americans while hurting the poorest Americans through cuts to Medicaid, food aid, and other programs. Hundreds of thousands of jobs associated with these programs will also be lost.
“In general, resources would decrease for households in the lowest decile (tenth) of the income distribution, whereas resources would increase for households in the highest decile,” said the CBO.
"If enacted, this would be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history," Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, said in response to the CBO analysis.
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