Led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-CT and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, advocates gathered earlier this week to warn of the effects of proposed cuts to human needs programs. 

The speakers, including advocates for human needs, education, the environment, labor and public health, among others, warned of both dangerous spending cuts and harmful and discriminatory policy riders sprinkled throughout all 12 fiscal year 2025 House spending bills.  

You can view a video of the event here and read an accompanying news release here. 

Besides Rep. DeLauro, speakers included Deborah Weinstein, Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs, Rob Weissman, Co-President, Public Citizen, Becky Levin, Senior Lobbyist, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Fred Redmond, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO, Mila Becker, Coalition for Health Funding/Endocrine Society, and David Shadburn, Senior Government Affairs Advocate, League of Conservation Voters. These groups and nearly 1,100 more signed a letter to congressional leaders, calling on Congress to provide enough funding in next year’s appropriations bills to “invest the amounts needed to meet the needs of our country and protect American competitiveness, economic strength, security, and services critical to families and individuals”.  

“Like last year, the Republicans’ basket of awful ideas has no chance of becoming law, but their harmful policies are part of MAGA Republicans’ Project 2025 takeover plan that hurts the middle class and favors their billionaire donors,” DeLauro said. “Their policies will make communities less safe and threaten national security.” 

DeLauro added that she will oppose “these funding bills that harm children, working families, seniors, and veterans.” 

CHN’s Weinstein said, “At a time when more than one in ten people are saying they sometimes or often don’t have enough to eat, when evictions are rising, and working families struggle to find and afford child care, it is unconscionable for the House Majority’s appropriators to cut domestic and international appropriations by 6-7 percent below this year’s levels.” 

“They are sticking to a rigid funding cap regardless of our people’s needs, even cutting the IRS so it cannot collect taxes owed by the ultra-wealthy and cutting Census survey funding that is needed to distribute federal funding to low-income communities,” Weinstein added. “These are irresponsible choices. The failure to invest in our people will set our economy back, hurting us all.” 

Public Citizen’s Weissman warned that “Poison pill riders do not represent the will of the American people. They are a cherry-picked list of policies to benefit corporate interests, roll back protections, and create loopholes to benefit big business.” 

In the accompanying news release, AFSCME’s Saunders said that the very programs that some House members are trying to cut “are the resources that enable AFSCME members to respond to emergencies, keep trains and buses running, ensure safe drinking water, and keep our children healthy. The proposed cuts would put additional strain to an already overstretched workforce, hurting communities that depend on these lifesaving public services.” 

AFL-CIO’s Redmond adds, “I don’t care if you’re a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent – if you’re a working person in this country, these cuts will hurt you, your family, your community.” 

And Shadburn of the League of Conservation Voters added that “Nearly all of this year’s House Republican spending bills propose poison pill riders and budget cuts to environmental programs and departments in an effort to not only roll back the climate progress made by the Biden-Harris Administration, but also do the bidding of Big Oil. 

“These poison pill riders are not only a waste of time, but are also harmful to the health and safety of our families and communities and have no place in spending bills,” he concluded. 

Weinstein closed her remarks by noting that “failing to invest in these programs holds back tens of millions of people whose incomes are low – threatening their health, stopping them from getting good jobs and grabbing some economic security. Let no one say we cannot afford to invest in our people.  But… we can’t do it if we stick to rigid partisan caps designed to hurt.” 

You can view a video of the event here and read an accompanying news release here. 

To see a copy of a letter more than 1,100 groups sent to Congress in opposition to spending cuts, go here.