What’s On the Chopping Block – and What It Means for North Carolina?
The end of April brought us to the end of the first 100 days of the Trump Administration. But with many court cases challenging the cuts to agencies and personnel we still lack a clear picture of what Federal jobs and resources North Carolina will lose.
The Starting Point
What exactly is at risk? According to Senator Lisa Grafstein the Federal Government provides us with $36 billion annually, more than doubling the $34 billion in the state budget, and supporting disaster relief, roads, bridges and public transportation, healthcare, education, childcare, workforce development, housing and food assistance, and broadband access. Some funding – like the research grants universities receive – come directly to individuals and organizations.
We don’t know how many of these programs will ultimately be on Trump’s chopping block. We offer this article as the first in a series to keep you informed as we learn more.
First they came for the jobs…
So far, the greatest impact is on jobs. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Research Division is based in the Triangle. So are RTI and FHI360, two large nonprofit research and development organizations that coordinate and deliver health care, education and development programs for USAID around the world. More than 2,000 of our neighbors earn their living working in these three organizations. They have already lost their jobs, and those losses will give rise to more jobs lost as supporting businesses are forced to downsize.
More jobs are disappearing across the state as deep cuts are made in budgets to the Veterans Administration, Education, Public Health and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). According to the NC Budget and Tax Center there are 85,400 federal employees in North Carolina, an estimated 35,000 of whom will be terminated. The impact of these losses on the lives of individuals and families was explored in detail by Susan Romane in last month’s On the Issues.
When the jobs are cut, the services these workers provide disappear. Just one instance is the cuts announced by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The abrupt termination of several grants means the state will lose more than 80 jobs and over $100 million in federal funding. Terminated programs include research focused on immunization and disease monitoring, behavioral health, and substance use disorder. Local health departments, hospitals, universities, and social services will all suffer as a result. What’s more, cancellation of research funded by NIH and the CDC at area universities, including UNC Chapel Hill and Duke, will impact our ability to address major health issues, as well as supporting future generations of young scientists.
More cuts to health care are ahead thanks to the decision of the Republican majority in Congress to cut $880 billion from the budget of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Since Medicaid accounts for 93% of the Committee’s non-mandatory budget it will bear the largest percentage of cuts. The impact of these cuts will be eliminating Medicaid expansion entirely in North Carolina: when it was finally approved by the state legislature, they stipulated that any decrease in federal funding would end the program. As a result, the 660,000 adults who gained health care in 2023 will lose it once again, and hospitals will lose essential funding that has enabled them to stay open.
Dismantling the Department of Education
Public education will also continue to suffer. Last year, the US Department of Education (DOE) provided North Carolina with $3 billion – 11% of the state’s education budget. These funds supported low-income schools, special education under IDEA, and training programs in career and technical education which prepared young people for work. Trump’s Executive Order calling for dismantling DOE will mean our kids will have fewer teachers, hence larger class sizes, with less attention focused on diverse learning needs.
Forget about feeding the hungry
School breakfast programs were introduced as part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty because we knew kids couldn’t learn if they were hungry. Over 400,000 students won’t get a good breakfast or lunch at school anymore, thanks to the Trump decision to end local food purchase programs at the US Department of Agriculture. Ending those programs also means that local farmers who provide the fresh food for these school meals will lose a large portion of their income – in some cases up to 50 percent.
At a time when so many are facing job loss, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for low-income families are also in danger of being cut. The Administration doesn’t seem to care that the cumulative effect of hacking away jobs, food assistance, and health care will leave families destitute in the richest country in the world. They are even cutting the Emergency Food Assistance Program depended on by organizations like the Eastern and Central North Carolina Food Bank.
Where can we turn?
The North Carolina General Assembly could soften the blow these cuts are delivering if only the Republican leadership would shift their priorities from cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy to helping the people of North Carolina.
Here are some important changes we can lobby for:
Increase unemployment insurance for jobless North Carolinians.
Let’s start with helping friends and neighbors who have lost their jobs! Right now, North Carolina has one of the least generous unemployment insurance packages in the country. House Bill 48 was approved in February, boosting the weekly maximum unemployment benefit from $350 to $450 for up to 12 weeks. That bill is now in the Senate, but at this writing has not been assigned a number. Contact your State Senator and urge support.
Decouple Medicaid Expansion from the Federal Funding Decision.
When the Legislature finally approved Medicaid Expansion in March 2023 they made their decision dependent on the Federal Government paying 90% of the cost rather than the customary 65%. Ask our legislators to amend the current law (HB 76) to assure that all the adults who are now receiving Medicaid through the ACA will continue to do so. This will have the added benefit of keeping rural hospitals open.
Fully fund public education as stipulated in the Leandro case rather than using state money for private education vouchers or tax cuts.
The legislature continues to abdicate its constitutional responsibility to assure that every child gets a high quality education. Instead, they have pursued a program of vouchers for private schools that can only be described as a return to segregated facilities. Ask the legislature to fully fund the court recommendation in Leandro ($5.6 billion annually) to assure that public school teachers across the state are adequately paid for their services, that they are well-trained, that classes are small enough to enable individualized attention, and that every school has up-to-date materials. We must demand that our kids come first.
Use www.5calls.org to call Senators Tillis and Budd and ask them not to support a reconciliation budget that cuts Medicaid and SNAP and other critical safety net programs.
Each call we make, each email or letter to the editor we write underlines how many of us in North Carolina oppose these cuts and will stand strong in support of the well-being of all of our neighbors. You can find guidance on the message here.
