Editor’s note: This blog was first published by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights on June 10, 2025 and is cross-posted with permission. The author is Peggy Ramin, Leadership Conference’s senior policy counsel for economic justice. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a member of the Coalition on Human Needs.

The House-passed reconciliation bill proposes cuts and investments that would significantly harm civil and human rights, gutting vital services that help millions of families meet their basic needs. Right now, the reconciliation process is primarily being used to fund tax cuts for the wealthy; propose deep cuts to essential services  like Medicaid, SNAP, Planned Parenthood health centers, and student financial aid; and attack immigrant communities. The Leadership Conference is calling on senators to reject these attacks on essential services that help families meet their basic needs, and protect our health care, nutrition, and other essential services.

Gutting these programs and services won’t just hurt people who need support; it will devastate our communities and local economies, and cause millions of our neighbors to suffer. In their own words, here’s what people across the country have to say about how cuts and changes to programs like Medicaid and SNAP will hurt their families:

• Bethany from Caribou, ME: Bethany was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer and Medicaid, or MaineCare in Maine, was the only health insurance she had access to as a self-employed person; it was much too expensive to add her to her husband’s health insurance. Fortunately, her cancer treatment has been fully covered through MaineCare since her diagnosis in 2023. But that might not be the case if Congress moves forward with proposed cuts to the Medicaid program nationally.
• Mikayla from MO: Mikayla is a chronically ill single mother, full-time college student, and a substitute teacher. SNAP ensures that Mikayla and her daughter have access to food and can eat a healthy diet that helps to manage Mikayla’s chronic illness.

The Senate is now debating a budget bill that seeks to advance an extreme agenda through a number of harmful proposals. The stakes are high; the wellbeing and rights of millions in this country are being put at risk. Here are just some of the proposals in the House-passed version of this draconian and inhumane bill:

• Cuts and changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which would eliminate access to critical care that benefits millions of Americans.
• Defunding Planned Parenthood, which would devastate access to essential health care for millions of people across the country.
• Imposing cruel, shortsighted, and unprecedented cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which would upend access to food for millions of low-income families, children, seniors, veterans, people with disabilities, rural communities, and people of color.
• Blocking as many as 20 million children from receiving the full Child Tax Credit (CTC) because their parents’ earnings are too low, and excluding 4.5 million citizen children from receiving the CTC because their parents are immigrants.
• Weakening student borrower protections and cutting student financial aid and affordable repayment plans, which would cause deep and lasting harm to millions of students.
• Cutting funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which would expose millions of Americans to financial scams, abuses, and discrimination.
• Investing billions of dollars to create a mass deportation machine that threatens to trample on civil rights and civil liberties.
• Creating a new regressive and discriminatory tax that targets immigrant workers.
• Instituting a moratorium on the enforcement of state laws and regulations on artificial intelligence (AI), which will undo progress that has been made to protect people from AI risks and harms.
• Improperly limiting courts’ powers to enforce federal court orders.
• Giving sweeping power to the Secretary of the Treasury to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit they label as supporting terrorism.

Individuals and families across the country will be deeply harmed by these proposals.

• Sarah from Juneau, Alaska: Sarah’s adult daughter was born with a developmental disability that requires extensive home-based care and “her life is not possible without her Medicaid support.”
• Tiersa from New Iberia, La:  Tiersa and her mother both deal with medical conditions and challenges that make it difficult to stay above water financially. Without SNAP benefits, Tiersa says “it would be a disaster.”
• Pat from Iowa City, Iowa: Cuts to Medicaid could mean that Pat’s 35-year-old daughter, who has autism but lives independently in an apartment, might be forced to return to live at home, and that his 21-year-old son, who suffered a severe brain injury, might not be able to move into his own apartment as planned.
• Sandra from Crestwood, Mo: Sandra worries her daughter’s in-home nursing care would be on the chopping block if Medicaid is cut. Nearly all in-home services are an optional part of Medicaid that states are not required to include in their programs. But the services have been critical for Sandra and her 24-year-old daughter, Sarah. Sarah has been disabled for most of her life due to seizures from a rare genetic disorder called Dravet syndrome. She has been covered by Medicaid in various ways since she was three years old.
• Kathy from Columbus, Ohio: Kathy, director of the Broad Street Food Pantry, says that the number of families served by her pantry has skyrocketed from around 4,500 in 2019 to more than 18,500 in 2024. She fears further cuts could increase the need, and put families’ health at risk: “When you take healthy food off of people’s tables, then you’re also increasing their health risk, and leading to, you know, more diet-related disease, more medical costs, more health care costs.”
• Monica from Pittsburgh, Pa: “I depend on Medicaid to survive. Due to chronic illness and major injuries, I have frequent doctor’s visits and testing to address my medical issues. If I did not have Medicaid, I would not be able to access these services that I depend on.”
• Tamalee from Goldsboro, N.C.: “I am the primary care provider for my special needs son and because of that, I am unable to work. We depend on Medicaid and SNAP to get us through month to month.”

We should be strengthening investments in our health care, nutrition, and education, not ripping them away. Our communities are counting on senators to defend programs that protect our health, our ability to put food on our tables, our education, and our financial security, over tax cuts that will benefit the wealthiest 1 percent in this country. Moreover, we are relying on Congress to ensure that taxpayer dollars and personal data are protected from misuse before moving forward with any fiscal measures. That’s why we continue to urge members not to advance a reconciliation bill, or any other budget or appropriations measure, until the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is thoroughly investigated and reined in. Until DOGE’s activities are stopped, made fully transparent, and held accountable, proceeding with reconciliation legislation risks further compromising people’s privacy and undermining congressional budget authority and public trust.

Take action now and tell your senators to OPPOSE cuts to education, health care, and food assistance that hurt our communities to fund a payout for billionaires.