May 22, 2025
The Honorable John Fetterman
Member
United States Senate
142 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Fetterman:
On behalf of the 177,000 PSEA members I represent, I urge you to oppose the budget reconciliation bill the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved today. This bill would pay for nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy with deep cuts to health, education, nutrition, and other programs that benefit millions of Pennsylvanians in rural, urban, and suburban communities.
Most notably, the budget reconciliation bill would cut at least $625 billion from Medicaid, which would eliminate health insurance for 8.6 million Americans over the next 10 years. It would cut $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that provides nutritious food to hungry children and families. And it would add nearly $5 trillion to the federal debt.
Millions of the Pennsylvanians you represent rely on the programs that the House budget reconciliation bill would cut. The commonwealth receives $28 billion in federal funding each year to provide health care for families and school-based services for students living in every school district in the state, along with $4 billion in SNAP funding to provide nutritious food to hungry children and families.
The unprecedented cuts to these programs that the House budget reconciliation bill proposes will impede or eliminate access to health care for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania families and result in adults and children across the commonwealth going hungry.
It is also important to note that Pennsylvania’s state government clearly does not have the resources to cover the cost of these federal cuts. It is, quite literally, impossible. So, if the cuts proposed in the House budget reconciliation bill become law, there will definitely be a crisis-level impact on the Pennsylvanians you represent.
Just as important, PSEA members are deeply concerned about the budget bill’s proposal to divert $20 billion in federal funding over four years from public schools to private and religious schools to fund tax-credit vouchers. We oppose this in the strongest possible terms. No funding intended for the 90 percent of students who learn in public schools should be redirected to private and religious schools.
In March, PSEA conducted a poll on some of these issues. The results make it clear that Pennsylvanians actually support increasing federal funding to public schools, and they oppose tuition voucher schemes. The poll found that 55 percent of Pennsylvanians believe that the federal government should contribute 15 percent or more to funding public education in Pennsylvania. (The federal government currently provides approximately 5 percent.) The poll also found that 61 percent oppose diverting public school funding to tuition voucher programs.
It is clear to PSEA members that the House budget reconciliation bill will end up hurting Pennsylvanians in all areas of the commonwealth. We urge you to oppose it, start again, and negotiate a federal budget plan that continues to invest in the Pennsylvanians you represent, and that doesn’t cut crucial programs on which they rely for their lives and livelihoods.
As always, I stand ready to work with you to achieve this all-important goal.
Sincerely,
Aaron Chapin
President
