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budget cuts
Cutting Medicaid, SNAP, and Housing Assistance Will Harm Low-Income Americans
Members of House committees must carefully consider the benefits that these programs deliver to U.S. families before making decisions about where and how to make the spending cuts required by the latest budget.
Mar 15, 2025
In late February, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget resolution that calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in federal spending cuts. This resolution provides a framework for a more detailed budget bill to come, mandating certain House committees to reduce spending over the next decade on government programs under their purview—for instance, calling on the Committee on Energy and Commerce to find $880 billion in cuts, $230 billion for the Agriculture Committee, and $1 billion for the Committee on Financial Services, among others. These committees will have to make difficult decisions about where to reduce federal spending and by how much as they draft their actual budgets in the coming weeks.
The implications of their decisions will be far reaching. Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and housing assistance programs are all at risk because they fall under the jurisdiction of the committees subject to large spending cuts and comprise a major share of those committees’ spending. Cutting back on these social infrastructure programs would come at a huge cost for the well-being of U.S. families, given the well-documented benefits these programs bring to the health, education, and financial stability of participating households.
The Impact of Cutting Medicaid
The U.S. private health insurance system does not cover large groups of people—for instance, low-income elderly people who need assistance for expensive long-term care, people with disabilities, and low-income children and adults—all of whom turn to Medicaid for healthcare coverage. The Medicaid program is the second-largest program under the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and appears to be a bigger target for federal spending cuts than Medicare, the largest program in their portfolio. More than half of Medicaid spending supports seniors or people with disabilities, and approximately a quarter supports low-income children and their parents, making these groups particularly vulnerable to Medicaid spending cuts.
Several decades of research show a wide range of positive impacts of past Medicaid coverage expansions. After Medicaid expansions in the 1990s, for example, the uninsurance rate decreased by approximately 11 percentage points to 12 percentage points for low-income children and their parents; it also dropped by 3 percentage points to 5 percentage points for low-income adults after the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act of 2010. These expansions also reduced the probability of personal bankruptcy by 8% and the amount of debt collection balances by an average of $1,140.
If the House Committee on Energy and Commerce turns to Medicaid to satisfy their obligation to cut spending by $880 billion over 10 years, it would reverse these improvements in the well-being of low-income Americans.
In terms of health outcomes, Medicaid expansions have reduced infant mortality by 8.5%, the incidence of low birth weight by 2.6% to 5%, and teen mortality, too. Research even shows that Medicaid coverage for children has positive health effects into adulthood, reducing the presence of chronic conditions later in life by 0.03 standard deviations. Even the health of second-generation children—that is, the offspring of those exposed to Medicaid in utero—has been shown to be positively affected.
Medicaid coverage for children also improves non-health outcomes later in life. For instance, Medicaid expansions to cover children reduced the probability of being incarcerated by 5% and improved high school graduation rates and adult income—which, together, result in higher taxes paid in adulthood. In fact, research shows that a large fraction, including possibly the entire amount, of the cost of child Medicaid coverage is recaptured by the government in terms of higher taxes paid as adults.
If the House Committee on Energy and Commerce turns to Medicaid to satisfy their obligation to cut spending by $880 billion over 10 years, it would reverse these improvements in the well-being of low-income Americans.
The Impact of Cutting Nutrition Assistance
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a joint-run federal and state program that covers 40 million low-income U.S. families per month, with each state setting eligibility requirements based on resource or income constraints of applicants. It is by far the largest spending outlay for the House Committee on Agriculture, with federal spending totaling approximately $112 billion in 2023. As a result, funding for the program is at risk as the committee looks for ways to achieve its target of $230 billion in cuts over 10 years.
Research shows that not only does nutrition assistance dramatically reduce food insecurity—by 12% to 30%—but it also has large benefits for the health, education, and long-term well-being of children in SNAP families. For example, SNAP benefits lower the probability of having a low birth-weight child by 5% to 11% and improve standardized test scores in both reading and math by about 2% of a standard deviation. The long-run impacts of receiving SNAP benefits as a child include a 3% of a standard deviation improvement in economic self-sufficiency, a 1.2-year increase in life expectancy, and a 0.5 percentage point decrease in the probability of being incarcerated.
As a result, a decision by the House Committee on Agriculture to reduce spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program risks increased food insecurity in the short run, while also risking long-term effects for health, education, and economic outcomes of low-income U.S. children.
The Impact of Cutting Housing Assistance
The budget resolution requires the House Committee on Financial Services, which oversees housing assistance programs, to reduce spending by $1 billion over the next 10 years. Federal spending on housing assistance was $67 billion in 2023, with $32.1 billion going toward the Housing Choice Voucher program that provides subsidies for very low-income families to find housing in the private market.
Unaffordable housing is already a serious and well-known issue in the United States, with even minimally adequate housing out of reach for millions of people. Housing vouchers have been shown to reduce the percent of income paid on rent from 58% to 27%, which is within the general definition of affordable housing (no more than 30% of family income). By relieving the financial strain of high housing costs, research shows that the housing assistance program has positive effects in other dimensions as well. Housing vouchers reduce parental stress by 7% and hypertension by 50%, as well as reducing behavioral problems in children and increasing child test scores in school.
If the House Committee on Financial Services decides to reduce spending on housing assistance, many low-income families would not be able to afford decent, safe, and sanitary housing, which would have a negative impact on the overall well-being of parents and children alike.
Conclusion
A number of large social programs that provide support to millions of Americans may get cut as a result of the House-passed budget resolution, with Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and housing assistance particularly at risk. This would have a profound negative impact on the health, education, and financial stability of many low-income Americans—those who need this assistance the most.
Members of these House committees must carefully consider the benefits that these programs deliver to U.S. families before making decisions about where and how to make the required spending cuts. There are no doubt inefficiencies in social programs, just as in all government programs. But across-the-board cuts of this magnitude would inevitably hurt the vulnerable groups receiving these benefits across the United States.
This piece was first published by the Washington Center for Economic Growth.
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Fed Workforce Cuts Leave Formerly Incarcerated Individuals Without a Future
When policymakers strip away funding for education and job training, it is not just setting up individuals for failure—it is ensuring a future where entire communities remain trapped in cycles of poverty and incarceration.
Mar 14, 2025
Imagine being sentenced to prison as a juvenile. You enter a world not designed to rehabilitate you, but to warehouse you alongside adults who have long since given up hope. The promise of education and job training is nonexistent, or at best, a fleeting privilege reserved for a select few.
You serve your time, only to return to a society that has already made up its mind about your worth. You are ready to rebuild your life, but the structures necessary to support that transition—education, employment, and rehabilitation programs—are crumbling around you.
With recent cuts to the federal workforce and over $600 million slashed from vital teacher training grants, that already fragile path to redemption is further dismantled. The reality for those reentering society after incarceration is bleak.
The stakes are clear: Either invest in people, ensuring they have the tools needed to succeed post-incarceration, or continue to sabotage their futures before they even have a chance to rebuild.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2021, there were 2,250 juveniles 17 and younger held in adult jails and prisons. That number has been declining as the Prison Policy Initiative states that as of 2019, on any day there were 48,000 youth detained.
There are distinct disparities in detention as the Sentencing Project reports that in 2021, the white placement rate in juvenile facilities was 49 per 100,000 youth. The Black youth placement rate was 228 per 100,000, tribal youth were at a rate of 181 per 100,000, and Latino youth were a rate of 57 per 100,000.
A steady job is the cornerstone of successful reintegration, yet the opportunities available to newly-released youth are scarce. “The latest available data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that 20% of reentering young people born between 1980 and 1984 were unemployed in the first year following their release” the Center for American Progress found.
“In the 12th full year after release, that number grew to 26%. According to further analysis of these data, young adults with criminal legal histories worked an average of only 35.8 weeks in the first full year after their release,” the survey shows.
Many young people report they are met with application questions that force them to disclose their past, immediately placing them at a disadvantage. For those who manage to find employment, wages are often low, and the stigma of their past follows them like a shadow.
Nonprofit organizations such as The Doe Fund, Homeboy Industries, and Defy Ventures that work tirelessly to provide job training, legal aid, and mentorship are facing funding cuts that threaten their survival. Without these crucial programs, the cycle of recidivism tightens its grip, and the promise of a second chance fades further from reach.
These grants help create educators who specialize in reaching marginalized communities, including those affected by incarceration. Without these resources, the pipeline to education, a key factor in breaking the cycle of incarceration, is severely weakened. If education is the key to opportunity, then these cuts are slamming the door shut on those who need it most.
A recent report on predictions for youth justice funding programs says, “One major hurdle is the inconsistent allocation of funds across different states and communities. Disparities in funding can lead to unequal access to essential services, leaving some youth without the support they need to succeed.”
With federal cuts prompted by an executive order to end all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, youth justice funding may be on the chopping block.
But this issue of resources for youth extends beyond those directly impacted by incarceration. A society that fails to rehabilitate and reintegrate its formerly incarcerated citizens is a society that fosters instability.
Families remain fractured, communities suffer from economic stagnation, and the cost of recidivism far outweighs the investment in successful reintegration. When policymakers strip away funding for education and job training, it is not just setting up individuals for failure—it is ensuring a future where entire communities remain trapped in cycles of poverty and incarceration.
When the pillars necessary for reentry—education, employment, and support—are removed, research shows the fear, anxiety, and hopelessness experienced by those returning home are not just personal struggles; they are systemic failures.
Instead of pulling away crucial funding, policymakers, elected officials, nonprofit funders, philanthropists, advocates, and community leaders must expand access to education and workforce development, particularly for those who have served their time and are ready to contribute to society.
The stakes are clear: Either invest in people, ensuring they have the tools needed to succeed post-incarceration, or continue to sabotage their futures before they even have a chance to rebuild. It’s time to reject policies that leave the most vulnerable behind and instead fight for a future where second chances are more than just empty promises.
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RFK Jr. Will Need a Miracle Cure to Fight Cancer on Trump’s Budget
At the same time Trump is pledging to reverse childhood cancer rates, he and his attack doge Elon Musk are gutting federal health agencies to help pay for huge tax breaks for corporations and the uber rich.
Mar 11, 2025
During his marathon, fact-free speech to Congress last week, President Donald Trump announced that his administration plans to address the growing incidence of childhood cancer.
“Since 1975, rates of child cancer have increased by more than 40%,” Trump said. “Reversing this trend is one of the top priorities for our new presidential commission to make America healthy again, chaired by our new Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. …Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply, and keep our children healthy and strong.”
As usual, Trump got the statistic wrong. In fact, childhood cancer rates increased 33% since 1975, according to a study published in the journal PLOS One in January (and verified by the American Cancer Society), and the uptick in cases can be at least partly attributed to improved detection technology.
What would a major loss of federal scientific expertise mean for HHS Secretary Kennedy’s childhood cancer commission? Given that Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine activist, is not known for paying attention to scientific evidence, it may not matter much.
That said, the PLOS One study did find that some childhood cancers—notably leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumors, liver tumors, and gonadal tumors—are on the rise, so by all means, the federal government should do more to try to reduce them.
But at the same time Trump is pledging to reverse childhood cancer rates and “get toxins out of our environment,” he and his attack doge Elon Musk are gutting federal health agencies to help pay for huge tax breaks for corporations and the uber rich.
Indiscriminate Cuts Across the Board
All of the agencies that protect public health are on the chopping block.
Just a few weeks ago, for example, his administration illegally fired some 5,200 employees at Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including nearly 1,300 staff members at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), roughly a tenth of the agency’s workforce.
Meanwhile, over at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the new administrator, Lee Zeldin, is threatening a budget cut of at least 65%. That would leave the agency with an annual budget of about $3.2 billion, less than a third of its budget in fiscal year (FY) 1970—the year it began—in inflation-adjusted 2024 dollars. Such a meager budget would destroy the agency, exactly what the fossil fuel industry-funded Republican Party has been wanting to do for years.
The Trump administration is also trying to ax a key portion of National Institutes of Health (NIH) biomedical research funding, which would undermine any effort to curtail childhood cancer—not to mention research on other deadly diseases.
On February 7, it announced it will cut an estimated $4 billion from NIH grants by capping funding for “indirect” overhead costs that cover such expenses as facilities, electric utilities, and administrative and janitorial services at 15%, half the current average rate. About $26 billion of NIH’s $35 billion in FY2023 grants that went to more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions covered direct costs—researchers and laboratories. The balance—$9 billion—paid for overhead.
Experts warn that without adequate overhead support, researchers would not be able to do their work.
Three days after the administration announced its intention to cut the NIH budget, five medical associations and 22 states filed lawsuits challenging the plan. Later that day, U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston granted a temporary restraining order. She followed up on March 5, the day after Trump’s speech to Congress, by filing a preliminary injunction that put the cuts on hold while the lawsuits proceed. “The risk of harm to research institutions and beyond,” Kelley wrote in a 76-page order, “is immediate, devastating, and irreparable.”
It’s 2017 all Over Again (With a Major Difference)
Trump’s zeal to hobble federal medical and scientific research should not come as a surprise. To a great extent, his current budget-chopping campaign reflects the FY2018 budget he proposed in May 2017. That radical proposal called for shrinking the budgets of NIH by 18%; EPA by 31%, the Food and Drug Administration by 31%, and the CDC by 17%, which would have been its lowest budget since 1997. It also called for hacking $610 billion from Medicaid over the following decade on top of an $880-billion cut a Republican healthcare plan advocated.
That budget was dead on arrival, despite the fact that Republicans controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate, albeit by only a 51 to 49 margin. Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole, then-chair of the House spending subcommittee that funds NIH, toldScientific American that he did not expect Congress to support Trump’s proposed cuts. Other legislators from both sides of the aisle also rejected the president’s NIH budget proposal. (Nevertheless, Trump’s previous administration did a lot of damage by eliminating or weakening over 100 environmental safeguards.)
Today, Republicans have the White House and slim majorities in both houses of Congress. Unlike 2017, however, congressional Republicans are in lockstep with Trump, and thus far have been cheering him and Musk on from the sidelines as they dismantle the federal government.
What would a major loss of federal scientific expertise mean for HHS Secretary Kennedy’s childhood cancer commission? Given that Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine activist, is not known for paying attention to scientific evidence, it may not matter much. It’s been widely reported that Kennedy has been telling children and adults in Texas to try Vitamin A, cod liver oil, and other dubious treatments if they get measles instead of urging them to get vaccinated, so one could only imagine what he would recommend that parents give their children to protect them from cancer. Aloe? Emu oil? Kombucha? All of the above?
This column was originally posted on Money Trail, a new Substack site co-founded by Elliott Negin.
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