No Cuts to Public Services to Pay for Billionaire Tax Breaks 

Anti-union extremists and their billionaire backers are advancing devastating budget cuts on behalf of Elon Musk and billionaires. These reckless cuts will harm working families and retirees, damage our communities, and threaten our jobs — all so billionaires can enjoy huge tax breaks. 

Over 33% of all states’ budgets are supported by federal funding. Some states receive as much as 50% of their budget from the federal government.  

Put simply, federal budget cuts will devastate state and local budgets, which fund the work we do. AFSCME members could lose their jobs, face worse staffing shortages, and won’t be able to negotiate contracts with strong wages and benefits. 

States, cities, towns and schools will be forced to make tough choices about what needs to be funded. That means our jobs and all public services are on the line — transportation, education, health care, sanitation, environmental protection, social services, child care, home care and beyond. Everything will be on the chopping block. 

Gutting public services will hurt everyone including: 

• Children and families who depend on Head Start, as well as those who rely on nutrition assistance programs.  

• Retirees and people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid for care. 

• People who receive student loans or participate in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. 

• Working families who depend on child care funding to afford care for their kids. 

• Working people whose employers don’t offer health coverage and get care through Medicaid expansion. 

If anti-worker extremists and billionaires get their way, they will cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid. This means millions of low-income workers, children, senior citizens and people with disabilities will lose their health care, all to give billionaires massive tax breaks. 

Medicaid is the largest source of federal funding for state budgets, making up 56% of total federal funding to states. 

Medicaid dollars help keep the doors open at hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, state veterans’ homes, substance use disorder treatment centers, and other health care providers. Without that funding, they could be forced to close, and communities will lose jobs and dollars that help sustain local economies. 

If federal Medicaid dollars dry up, states, cities and towns will have no choice but to slash budgets and jobs for a broad range of public services.  

Working families would pay more out of pocket for care and workers will miss more workdays due to untreated illnesses. Even people with the best insurance will wait longer, pay more, and have fewer health care choices, especially when some hospitals start closing. 

Medicaid work requirements and block grants (giving states a fixed sum of money, instead of paying them based on what it costs to provide care) are really Medicaid cuts in disguise. 

Despite the rhetoric, most Medicaid enrollees work full- or part-time. Those who don’t either have disabilities, care for family members or attend school. These policies shift costs onto states and increase the number of uninsured people, leading to hospitals seeing more ER visits and providing more care they don’t get paid for. 

You don’t have to be on Medicaid to need Medicaid. When it’s under attack, we all have something to lose. 

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Elon Musk and his billionaire bullies are attempting to dismantle Social Security. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have illegally accessed Americans’ sensitive personal Social Security data. Thanks to AFSCME’s lawsuit, a judge has ordered DOGE to delete all data they gained, but they’re still undermining Social Security in other ways. 

They’re implementing serious cuts to services: 

• Laying off thousands of Social Security Administration employees 

• Closing offices in local communities 

• Ending paper checks 

• Cutting telephone services 

• Declaring living people dead 

This is harming Americans’ ability to receive Social Security checks that they’ve earned for themselves and their families. 

Elon Musk has called Social Security “a Ponzi scheme” and billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said only fraudsters would care if they didn’t get their Social Security checks.  

It’s not hard to see what their game is — billionaires are purposefully undermining Social Security and spreading lies so they can claim it’s broken and justify further cuts. 

The truth is Social Security is one of the most efficient government agencies. Working people and retirees have paid into the program their whole careers, and it belongs to us.   

We’re fighting to protect our freedom to thrive. People depend on us every single day to keep streets clean, provide patients with care, support students in well-run schools, and protect our neighborhoods.  

What we do isn’t just a job. It’s a calling. Through the services we provide, we ensure that all Americans have the opportunity not just to survive but thrive.  

And when we have a voice on the job, we can fight to improve pay and benefits, strengthen worker safety, ensure our retirement security and make our communities better for everyone. 

But right now, our jobs and freedoms are under attack. AFSCME members and retirees are standing together to build power like never before — to protect our health, safety and retirement; to defend our voice on the job and to keep our communities strong for generations to come.