FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 11, 2025

Contact: Pablo DeJesús | info@uusj.org

Share: https://bit.ly/HouseSAVE-Budget

 

SAVE Act Restricts Access, Budget Resolution Cuts Services

We did not consent to be governed for the benefit of the powerful and wealthy

 

Washington, DC – With the leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson, House Republicans passed two bills this week, H.Con.Res. 14, the Budget Resolution for Fiscal Year 2025, and H.R. 22, the SAVE Act. If signed into law, each would have profound impact for Americans across the nation.

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Pablo DeJesús, Executive Director, UUSJ, stated: 

“The House dealt two blows against ‘we the people,’ both stone-hearted and dastardly. On one side of their ledger, they have moved to restrict access to the ballot box, depriving millions of the fundamental right to vote and thus privileging the influential; on the other, they seek to deny vulnerable Americans needed services for the benefit of the ultra-wealthy. Their ledger is immoral and favors the powerful and wealthy.

With the SAVE Act, the House would make voting more complicated. They would silence the voices of historically disenfranchised voters and limit their voting power. It is an attempt to recreate the participation parameters of the Jim Crow era and constrain the gains made by women with the advent of suffrage.

The Senate must block its passage. Senators must reject this egregious attack on our liberties. They must side with everyday Americans, defending our sacred right to be heard and vote.

States have strict safeguards to verify voters’ eligibility and maintain the accuracy of rolls. There is virtually no election fraud in our voting system. We see a minuscule number of people voting more than once, and non-citizen voting is already illegal and ‘vanishingly rare.’ These are tiny risks compared to significant obstacles to voting.

With the budget resolution, the House abandoned working people struggling to make ends meet amid the rising risk of recession and tariff price hikes with a budget plan that would raise costs for everyday families. While Americans struggle to keep food on the table and roofs overhead, the budget resolution offers trillions in tax benefits to the wealthy and corporations. Estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation demonstrate that extending the 2017 Trump tax law–alone–would cost $5.5 trillion with interest over the next decade.

Waste fraud and abuse can not fund the benefits. Instead, Congress will finance a bonanza through cuts in the order of billions to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and other human needs programs. 

No version of magic math or current policy gimmicks can obscure that this budget resolution fractures our modern norms and shreds our social contract, returning us to the vast inequities of the Robber Baron era. Workers and families will bear its real costs.

The mismatch between ailments and cures demonstrates that these two legislative proposals are not about safeguarding eligibility or making government efficient and effective but instead about restricting access to the very means of dissent and the prospect of electoral accountability while simultaneously effecting a wealth transfer from average Americans to the ultra-wealthy. All this while supercharging draconian immigration enforcement policies.

These proposals are an affront to the religious values we hold as Unitarian Universalists.

Those members who voted in favor of these measures have shown a lack of common sense and compassion while also being weak regarding democracy and freedom. And we name these actions, their ledger, immoral–infringing our liberties.”

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Established in 1999, Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice is a network of Unitarian Universalist individuals and congregations that lifts up the light of reason, the warmth of community, and the flame of hope to advance equitable national policies and actions aligned with UU values through witness, education, and advocacy. We envision a just, compassionate, and sustainable world community.

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