July 1, 2025
Make no mistake: the reconciliation bill that squeaked through the Senate today is a five-alarm fire for Maine’s working families.
We’re staring at the biggest health-care cuts in U.S. history — over a trillion dollars ripped from Medicaid and the ACA — plus the largest food-aid rollback ever recorded, all to bankroll the single largest upward wealth transfer in modern memory. In one breath, Congress tells rural Mainers their hospitals, maternity wards, and SNAP benefits are too expensive; in the next, it drops more than $1 trillion in tax breaks into the laps of billionaires and multinational corporations. And to top it off, the package balloons the national debt by $4 trillion — the fiscal equivalent of torching the house, then handing the arsonist a platinum card.
We appreciate that Senators Collins and King both voted against the bill; they were right to oppose this economic wrecking ball. But that will be cold comfort in the face of overwhelming Republican indifference to Mainers if this bill becomes law: higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs, decimated rural economies as hospitals shutter, and tens of thousands of Mainers shoved deeper into hunger and poverty.
This budget isn’t ‘responsible’ — it’s callous, reckless, and immoral. It tells nurses, loggers, fishermen, and childcare workers they’re unworthy of our collective care while Congress bends over backwards to serve the whims of the ultrarich. It’s not too late for Senator Collins to use her power and influence to bring others in her caucus along.
Congress must scrap this sham and deliver a budget that lifts working people instead of sacrificing them.
— Garrett Martin, MECEP President & CEO
Additional resources:
I’m not on Medicaid — so why should I care about cuts to Medicaid? – MECEP
Federal budget plan puts Maine’s rural hospitals at grave risk, reports show – MECEP
New federal bill threatens immigrants and Maine’s progress – MECEP
Reporting Work Requirements: Bad at encouraging work, good at making people sick and hungry – MECEP
