IFPTE Condemns Senate Republican Bill That Extends Billionaire Tax Cuts on the Backs of Working Americans, Children, Veterans, and Seniors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                     

WASHINGTON, DC – The executive officers of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) commented on the Senate’s passage of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” H.R. 1, budget reconciliation, which extends President Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires and corporations and offsets some of the costs through cutting nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) while adding over $4 trillion to the national debt through 2034. Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is considering amendments and racing to pass this bill before July 4.

IFPTE President Matthew Biggs:

“Senate Republicans have passed a nightmare of a bill that causes 17 million Americans to lose healthcare and millions more to lose food assistance. At a time when working people are looking for relief from the escalating cost of living, devastating benefit cuts are being carried out to extend tax cuts that mainly benefit the very wealthy and corporations. Lawmakers who voted for this can continue to justify these cuts as “eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse,” if they want, but poll after poll shows that Americans – their constituents – already see through their dishonesty. We won’t pass up any opportunity to remind our members that this bill impoverishes working people and families instead of providing a pathway to the middle class, makes college and borrowing options more unaffordable, and threatens a lifeline for children, veterans, the homeless, and seniors in nursing homes. The disasters this bill unleashes will hurt all of us, as state and local government budgets are forced to absorb the impact of lower Medicaid and SNAP federal funds, health care premiums spike for employer-sponsored coverage, rural and small town hospitals close or scale back services throughout the U.S., and jobs and livelihoods are destroyed by the economic harm.

 IFPTE members know that this bill could have been worse if not for union members’ advocacy and Senate Budget Democrats and Homeland Security and Government Affairs Democrats successfully arguing that the Senate Parliamentarian should advise Republicans to remove from the bill the provisions that attack federal retirement benefits, strip civil service protections for new hires, kill union representation by charging for official time, and let the Executive Branch dismantle agencies without Congressional approval. We are also pleased that the tech industry-backed moratorium on AI regulations was removed from the Senate bill. We’ll keep pressuring Members of the House to vote against this un-American assault on the working people and, whether this bill is enacted or fails to pass the House, we will hold lawmakers accountable for their votes.”  

IFPTE Secretary-Treasurer Gay Henson:

“Members of Congress have heard from IFPTE, from our locals, directly from our members and their constituents that this bill will hurt the people and communities they represent. At this point, no one in Congress can say they didn’t know what they voted for when they vote for this budget reconciliation bill. In a narrowly divided Senate, it took Vice President Vance coming down to the Senate floor to cast the tie-breaking vote. But Americans are not divided on this bill. Registered voters overwhelmingly reject this bill when they learn the holes this bill cuts in our safety net will hurt their community and make life harder and make it more difficult for Americans to pick themselves up if they fall on hard times.

Many Americans have also seen the cruelty and elitism from some lawmakers who, when confronted by constituents who are rightfully outraged by this bill, talked down and made light of concerns that these policies will result in avoidable death. We can have legitimate policy debates and disagreements, but we won’t look past the inhumanity at the center of this budget reconciliation bill and the dishonesty that supporters of this bill in Congress are clinging to. We’ll keep fighting against this bill in the House and if it is made law, we’ll defeat these policies by building an America that puts working people first.”

IFPTE is a labor union representing upwards of 90,000 workers in the federal, public, and private sectors.

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