8 hours ago
5
Workers hit by the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts of federal government jobs, programs and services turned to congressional Republicans for help. But Republicans don’t want to talk about it, according to people who have tried to reach the politicians.
Sabrina Valenti, a former budget analyst for the Coastal Wetland Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), was fired in February, then reinstated, and fired again weeks later.
She started contacting Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives to express concern. “They represent hundreds of thousands or millions of people and those people deserve a safe and healthy life,” said Valenti. “They are allowing the people who create that safe and healthy life to be fired.”
But as she worked with other fired federal workers in the Fork Off Coalition to reach members of Congress, the responses ranged “from indifference and being ignored to outright hostility”, Valenti claimed.
Senators Josh Hawley and Chuck Grassley “just will not even look in our direction” in the hallways, she said. Hawley and Grassley’s offices did not respond to requests for comment.
The House of Representatives narrowly passed Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill on Thursday, which would extend tax cuts for individuals and corporations; sunset clean energy incentives enacted under Joe Biden; relieve taxes on tips, overtime and car loan interest; and fund construction of a wall along the border with Mexico, and facilities for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
To offset its costs, the GOP has approved funding cuts and new work requirements for Medicaid, which provides healthcare for poor and disabled Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as Snap, which provides food benefits to low-income families. Analysts fear these changes will bar millions from these benefits.
Jeanne Weaver worked as an aide for 35 years at the Ebensburg Center in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, one of two state-operated facilities for adults with intellectual disabilities, and is worried about the facility’s future .
But when Weaver, now president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Retiree Chapter 13, tried to reach her representative in Congress, the Republican John Joyce, she had no luck. Even when she traveled to Washington, she was unable to get a meeting.
“I’ve called, I’ve left him messages,” Weaver told the Guardian. “If he votes for cuts for Medicaid, I will make sure everyone knows him, because they don’t know him now. He’s hiding out, not doing what his constituents want him to do.”
After the Guardian went to Joyce for comment, Weaver heard from a member of his staff. His office declined to comment. On Sunday, after House Republicans advanced Trump’s tax cut and spending package out of a key committee, Joyce claimed the legislation would “strengthen, secure, and preserve” Medicaid for “future generations of Americans who need and deserve these benefits”.
John Kennedy, senator for Louisiana, did speak with Valenti – a graduate of Louisiana State University – about her program at Noaa, and its impact on Louisiana’s coast.
“He seemed really certain that if there was any, if any mistakes were made in the past, that they would be able to go back and reverse them,” Valenti said. Kennedy’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Other workers reliant on federal funds that have been cut, or are facing cuts, have also been pressuring their elected officials to address their worries.
Jesse Martinez, a teacher and co-president of the La Crosse Education Association in La Crosse, Wisconsin, expressed concern about cuts to education, Medicaid and Snap benefits to staff working for the Republican representative Derrick Van Orden.
The staff claimed Van Orden would not vote for cuts to Medicaid or Snap benefits, according to Martinez – but he voted for a budget blueprint that included cuts.
“In the school district of La Crosse, we receive approximately $500,000 per year in Medicaid funding. We use that to pay for speech and language pathologists in our schools, occupational and physical therapists across the district and school nurses in our schools,” said Martinez. “Losing that funding would be devastating to our kids.”
Van Orden argued in a statement that “being fiscally responsible and protecting benefits for vulnerable Americans can exist in the same universe”, and a spokesperson for Van Orden denied the budget bill cuts Medicaid.
Stephanie Teachman, an administrative assistant at the State University of New York at Fredonia, and president of Suny Fredonia Local 607, an affiliate union of AFSCME, fears that cuts could threaten the future of the only hospital in her rural area, Brooks Memorial, and the university, which is one of the largest employers in the area.
But attempts to speak with her congressional representative, the Republican representative Nick Langworthy, have not elicited any responses, she said.
“I’ve been to Langworthy’s office and he’s never there. We’ve written letters to him, and he doesn’t respond,” she added. “All of us deserve to have a voice and be heard. It’s unfortunate the people we vote for aren’t listening to us and they don’t seem to care what people of their districts are up to or what life is like for us.”
A spokesperson for Langworthy claimed his office did not hear from Teachman until a few hours before a debate on the budget bill. “Not one penny is being cut from eligible Americans who rely on Medicaid,” the spokesperson claimed in an email, accusing Democrats of “dishonest fearmongering”.
In Washington, those urging Republicans to resist cuts to key services have struggled to make headway. Senator Bill Cassidy’s office “kicked us out”, said Valenti, who noted the senator Katie Britt of Alabama called Capitol police on some fired federal workers, and that the Indiana Republican senator Jim Banks called a fired health and human services worker, Mack Schroeder, a “clown” who “probably deserved it”.
Senators Britt, Cassidy and Banks’s respective offices did not respond to requests for comment. Senator Banks declined to apologize for his remarks following the incident and said he “won’t back down”.
Four of the largest public sector unions in the US – AFSCME, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Service Employees International Union, collectively representing 8.3 million workers – have launched a new campaign to target GOP representatives over the cuts.
The drive includes a $2m ad campaign across 18 congressional districts held by Republicans, including in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa and Arizona.
“Their goal is the gutting of the schools and hospitals that help working Americans have a shot at a better life. And for what? To pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT. “These ads send a message to Congress about the human toll of the administration’s attacks.”
