“Big Beautiful Bill,” Not.
The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” is a misnomer. Narrowly, very narrowly, passed by Republicans in Congress, it makes drastic cuts in worthy federal programs for education, food assistance and health care in effect pushing the costs onto the states, including Connecticut. Connecticut’s congressional delegation was unified in opposing the bill.
Gov. Ned Lamont outlined the impact the federal legislation will have in a recent statement. “This bill is going to have devastating impacts on millions of Americans for years to come and was passed for the sole purpose of giving tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires,” he said. “It will amount to a massive income transfer from the poorest and most vulnerable Americans to the wealthiest.”
He noted that it slashed critical safety net programs, such as Medicaid and SNAP, hard-working American families need for health and survival. “Even worse,” Lamont noted, “there isn’t a single state in the nation that will have the ability to backfill these massive cuts.” Kicking people off health insurance, defunding hospitals and nursing homes and eliminating food and nutrition assistance will ripple throughout the country and economy, with the tax cuts eventually saddling today’s children and grandchildren with trillions in additional federal debt.
Lamont said his administration is dedicated to mitigating some of the bill’s impact, but with the federal administration intent on eliminating safety nets, “it is going to be impossible for any state to backfill the billions in federal budget cuts we are going to face.”
In the coming days, Lamont said his administration will be analyzing the bill to determine how it will affect services in the state and its impact on the state budget, as well as meeting with colleagues in the General Assembly to discuss next steps.
“I urge Connecticut residents and Americans across the nation to continue speaking out against this bill so that Congressional leaders and the Trump Administration understand the damaging impact this is going to cause,” Lamont said.
As a further example of how federal cuts affect state and local governments, The New York Times reported days ago that $7 billion in approved funding for after-school and summer programs, support for students learning English, teacher training and other services was being withheld. The frozen funds are unrelated to the millions of dollars being cut in the domestic policy bill.
“Every day that this funding is held up is a day that school districts are forced to worry about whether they’ll have to cut back on after-school programs or lay off teachers instead of worrying about how to make sure our kids can succeed,” Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat who is the vice chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told the Times.