Editor’s note: The Coalition on Human Needs sent this letter to Congress on Monday, March 10, 2025.

Your organization are welcome to sample the language in your own letter. If you are not affiliated with any organizations, you can still take action by sending a message to members of Congress right now demanding they reject the spending package that cuts funding for human needs.

Dear Representative:

On behalf of the Coalition on Human Needs, I strongly urge you to vote NO on the Continuing Resolution (CR) before you on March 11.

The Coalition on Human Needs is made up of human service providers, faith groups, policy experts, and civil rights, labor, and other organizations concerned with meeting the needs of people with low incomes.  We are deeply concerned about this partisan CR, which will flat-fund and cut services your constituents need. This harms everyone from veterans to children to the elderly, while impacting virtually every aspect of our lives including affordable housing, public education, care for children and adults, taxpayers looking for assistance from the IRS, and the staffing to help Social Security beneficiaries, including the aging and those with disabilities. It would allow drastic increases in funding for detention of immigrants with no oversight to prevent underfunding of efforts to combat illegal drugs or human trafficking. This bill harms our communities by failing to meet people’s increasing needs, and instead gives a blank check to the administration to ignore Congressional directives on spending. Instead of bipartisan government funding legislation that prioritizes investments in human needs, this CR poses grave threats to our communities.

In addition to the cuts, rather than the investments needed for human needs programs, a vote for this partisan six-month continuing resolution is a vote to greenlight Elon Musk’s continued attacks on government agencies, and any member of Congress who votes for this CR is aiding and abetting attacks on civil rights, public health and nutrition, education, affordable housing, substance use treatment, veterans’ care, and rural services. Even if Congress passes a government funding bill, there are no guarantees that the Administration will abide by congressionally approved funding requirements as the law requires. Already this year we’ve seen the administration illegally freeze federal funding and fire thousands of government workers, which impacts everything from care for veterans to public education to the Social Security Administration and more. A vote for this CR is a vote to continue indiscriminate firing of federal workers across the country including 6,000 veterans, entrenching Elon Musk’s attacks on our government and on civil servants.

Congress must not rubber stamp this agenda while providing no guarantees that Elon Musk and the Administration will abide by Congress’ constitutional power of the purse. This CR provides too many blank checks to the Administration by failing to include specific funding allocations for programs with a history of bipartisan support, including those addressing minority and women’s health and college preparation programs. That means that even if Congress were to approve a government funding bill, the administration would continue to ignore longstanding Congressional support for needed services. We urge you to stand firm and not allow these efforts to radically undermine the federal government in ways that hurt people and communities across the country while prioritizing the wealthiest in our society – noting this vote comes on the heels of a partisan vote on a budget resolution that will require deep and harmful cuts to vital programs in order to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and mass detention and deportation for immigrants.

We urge you to reject this partisan CR that both enables the Administration’s attacks and that flat- funds and cuts important programs at a time of our people’s increasing needs. Instead, we urge you to follow the long tradition of bipartisan and bicameral CRs and spending packages, reject harmful policies that take funding from our communities, and look to finalize full-year bipartisan appropriations bills that prioritize human needs.

Sincerely yours,

Deborah Weinstein,
Executive Director – Coalition on Human Needs