Donald Trump’s Big Ugly Bill is a direct attack on Medicare and Medicaid that will throw hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans off their health care, gut the safety net for our most vulnerable residents and destabilize the hospitals and long-term care facilities that seniors rely on.
It’s clear that these cuts will hit seniors hard. It’s exactly why I’ve been against Trump’s Big Ugly Bill from the start and why I continue to fight against this cruel Republican law every step of the way.
Reversal of Another Illegal Funding Freeze
After the Trump Administration illegally withheld more than $5 billion in federal funding from New Jersey’s public schools, I demanded that Trump’s Budget Director immediately distribute the funding to schools as required by law. Now, after weeks of delay, the Trump Administration is reversing their decision, but that doesn’t undo the damage they have already caused.
In New Jersey alone, $162 million was withheld -- funding already appropriated by Congress -- and needed for afterschool programs, STEM education, and teacher training. That disruption hurt our schools and threatened the stability of the upcoming school year.
The Trump Administration’s decision to finally release this funding is not an act of leadership. It is a direct result of sustained public pressure, legal challenges, and bipartisan outrage. We said this freeze was illegal. We demanded action. And we made clear the consequences of playing political games with public education.
This episode is a reminder that when we fight back and raise our voices, it works. I’m glad we were able to protect New Jersey’s public schools from this deeply misguided attack, but it should have never happened in the first place.
Trump is Putting Polluters over People
This week, the Trump Administration moved to reverse the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) longstanding “endangerment finding,” the scientific finding that climate pollution harms human health and the environment under the Clean Air Act. The ramifications of this decision for all Americans will be significant.
With this action, Trump and his EPA Administrator are putting corporate polluters in the driver’s seat at EPA and it will be everyday Americans who pay the price – with their health, their energy bills, their jobs, their homes, and even with their lives. The only winners from this proposal are corporate polluters who will be allowed to dump unlimited pollution into our communities without any consequences.
No community is safe from the worsening climate crisis, but the Trump Administration is determined to ignore the science and make the crisis even worse.
