— March 14, 2025
The United States Senate has received a bill from the Republican-controlled House of Representatives that Republican leadership pushed through without any consultation with or inclusion of Democratic members of Congress. The bill, contains a wave of disastrous changes, and yet a shocking number of Democratic Party Senators are indicating their inclination to vote for the bill, under the theory that if they appease Donald Trump and don’t make him angry, he might not act as tyrannically as if they stood up to him.
What you need to know:
- H.R. 1968 can be read and tracked on this Congress.gov page
- Which Democratic Party and Independent Senators are tilting which way on the Continuing Resolution? You can follow the shifting political trends on the C.R. using this regularly updated Google Doc.
- Independent Maine Senator Angus King as recently as February 20 lectured his colleagues that they could not safely appease the newly authoritarian Donald Trump: “What’s it going to take for us to wake up, when I say us, I mean this entire body, to wake up to what’s going on here? Is it going to be too late? Is it going to be when the President has secreted all this power and the congress is an afterthought? What’s it going to take?” But now Senator King is himself going wobbly, indicating he may vote for the bill to appease Donald Trump after all.
As independent media analysis and the office of Senator Bernie Sanders report, the bill would if passed:
- Cut more than $20 billion in funding needed to provide health care for veterans who were injured during their time in the military;
- Pave the way for the Trump administration to slash funding for teachers, schools, student loans, and Pell grants for low-income young adults seeking to improve their lives through college education;
- Cut funding for community health centers (where the most poor and desperate Americans go for health care) by 3.2%;
- Cut the National Health Service Corps, which brings doctors, nurses, dentists, and midwives to regions of our nation with the greatest shortages, by more than 5%;
- Cut funding for Teaching Health Centers — a program which establishes and runs residency programs for health care practitioners in rural and underserved areas — by almost 13%;
- Cut rental assistance to keep struggling low-income families in their homes, preventing the more expensive disaster of eviction and homelessness, by $700 million;
- Cut spending to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons by $185 million’
- Allow the Trump Administration to spend as little as it wants to confront the ongoing disasters caused by climate change, and cutting $1.4 billion from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ budget for projects to help hurricane- and flood-struck areas;
- Pave the way for $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid;
- Cut $230 billion from nutrition programs for hungry children that help them grow up to be strong and capable citizens as adults;
- Eliminate funding for programs that ensure election security;
- Cut rural internet broadband infrastructure by $30 million;
- Let the FEMA budget run empty as new climate disasters unfold by the week;
- End Congress’ constitutional ability to control tariffs through legislation;
- Use these cuts to programs that help struggling Americans to pay for a tax cut for billionaires and the wealthiest 1% of Americans by $1.1 trillion;
- Increase military spending, including in areas that involve lucrative new contracts for private corporations;
- Increase spending by $485 million for ICE agents to rip immigrants from their home and send them to camps where they have no access to legal help and are humiliated, beaten, and even tortured.
Call Senator Angus King’s office if you have a position on this bill. His phone numbers:
AUGUSTA
Phone: (207) 622-8292
BANGOR
Phone: (207) 945-8000
BIDDEFORD
Phone: (207) 352-5216
PORTLAND
Phone: (207) 245-1565
PRESQUE ISLE
Phone: (207) 764-5124
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Phone: (202) 224-5344
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