The 2025 federal budget is an attack on America
Pennsylvania House Democratic Caucus June 26, 2025 | 1:05 PM
It’s survival of the richest.
I think of a budget as a statement of priorities. It’s supposed to support working families — who are the backbone of Pennsylvania — care for the poor, the sick and the vulnerable; spur economic growth; and allot for expenses necessary to carry our country smartly and soundly into the future.
And it must ensure that our environment is safe for all.
What stunned me about the 2025 federal budget was the absence of these priorities, which have made the United States a beacon of light to the nations.
The budget does a “Reverse Robin Hood,” transferring wealth to the rich by funding tax cuts with cuts to programs for low-income Americans. It’s literally stealing from the poor to make the rich richer.
The budget evisceration of Medicaid funding will put the nail in the coffin of our already overburdened health system. If Medicaid is slashed, many of our hospitals and nursing homes will buckle and close under the impossible financial strain of caring for the uninsured.
None of us can afford the destruction of our health care system.
The bill also takes food off the table of food-insecure Pennsylvanians, reducing federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding by hundreds of millions. If Pennsylvania can’t fund the difference, food assistance would have to be drastically cut by either removing 1 million Pennsylvanians from the food assistance program or cutting the benefit amounts in half, according to analysis by Community Legal Services of Philadelphia.
Finally, the budget’s assault on Pennsylvania’s environment will impact us all by jeopardizing human health, stunting economic growth and increasing energy bills, making us all a lot sicker and a lot poorer.
The budget aims to cut drinking water and wastewater revolving infrastructure funding by 89% across the country. In Pennsylvania, over $120 million of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection funding is at risk, including basic support for air quality, water quality, safe drinking water, radiation protection, storage tanks and related grants for local projects.
Additionally, basic federal State Revolving Fund support for drinking water, water pollution reduction and wastewater projects administered by PennVEST would by slashed by $89.2 million.
These cuts violate our state constitution’s Environmental Rights Amendment, which guarantees our right to “clean air, pure water and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and aesthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come.”
The lack of federal funds and tax credits for environmental stewardship would also have a profoundly negative impact on our own largely rural Lancaster County’s two biggest economic drivers: farming and tourism. Our family farms and local businesses would bear the brunt of those losses.
The budget’s attack on environmental and climate initiatives will have a long-term negative impact on your wallet, your health and our world. By repealing multiple federal policies, funding programs and tax credits in the clean energy sector and shifting to fossil fuel investment, the budget would reduce Pennsylvania’s clean energy industries and workforce and significantly increase Pennsylvanians’ energy bills.
According to Energy Innovation Policy & Technology, a nonpartisan energy and climate policy analyst, Pennsylvania would lose nearly 23,000 jobs by 2030 and 37,000 jobs by 2035, resulting in the state’s gross domestic product shrinking by $3.6 billion in 2030 and $6.3 billion in 2035. The budget’s shift away from clean energy to fossil fuels would increase annual energy bills by $1 billion by 2030 and $2 billion by 2035 across Pennsylvania households, or $190 per year, per household by 2030 and more than $360 per year, per household in 2035.
As a member of the state House, a high school teacher and a mom, I am concerned that the rollback of federal clean energy tax credits would negatively impact an innovative new state grant program, Solar for Schools, that aims to reduce electricity costs for schools while lowering their carbon footprint through the installation of solar panels.
This federal budget is part of the Trump administration’s overall drive to roll back the hard-won environmental protections achieved by past Democratic and Republican administrations, as in this month’s announcement of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants and weakening Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
In recent years, we’ve seen and experienced extreme weather events caused by climate change that is rapidly worsening due to continued fossil fuel use, from powerful storms and severe flooding to yearslong droughts and extreme wildfires. And the damage? Millions of dollars’ worth of destroyed homes and communities and the immeasurable cost of lives lost. As Europe and Asia are increasing their investments in clean energy, we’re running a game plan that we already know doesn’t work, that results in an extreme weather event every three weeks, that costs over $1 billion worth of damage.
But at least we’ll get more money in your pocket thanks to the much-touted federal tax cuts, right?
Not really, as we will most likely have to pay the difference in higher state taxes because Pennsylvania may have to raise taxes to prevent Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit cuts, to maintain Medicaid for those who lose it, to fund other human services programs that have lost federal funding and to make up the difference in the slashed funding to protect our environment.
Finally, the federal tax cuts are predicted to result in all of us paying higher interest rates to borrow money, such as for a home, due to the trillions that are expected to be added to the federal debt under this budget.
Is this what we want for the Pennsylvania of tomorrow? Where it’s the survival of the richest and damn everyone else?
Not all is lost — yet. We do have a voice. Our elected leaders answer to us, so pick up the phone and tell U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Dave McCormick that we vote “NO” to this budget.
State Rep. Nikki Rivera represents Pennsylvania’s 96th Legislative District, which includes the City of Lancaster, Manheim Township, and East Petersburg Borough.