House Republican Bills Deeply Cut Programs That Help Low-Income People and Underserved Communities

Fiscal year 2025 started on October 1, but its funding under a stopgap continuing resolution runs out on December 20, 2024. Policymakers are debating whether to finalize 2025 appropriations during lame duck or when the new Congress convenes early next year. When policymakers finalize these bills, they should reject those approved by the Republican majority on the House Appropriations Committee as a guidepost. Those bills would lead to deep cuts in a range of important programs, including those that provide key services to people with low incomes and underserved communities. Rather, policymakers should work from the bipartisan bills passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee, which would better meet the nation’s needs.

Those bills would lead to deep cuts to important programs that provide key services to people with low incomes and underserved communities.

The full House of Representatives passed only five of the 12 House Republican appropriations bills. Another was defeated, one was pulled back from House consideration, and the full House never considered the remaining five. Nevertheless, all of these bills will presumably represent the House Republican position during negotiations over final 2025 appropriations.

The Republican House appropriations bills would, among other things:

• take away funding for K-12 students in low-income communities and programs that make higher education more affordable;
• increase hardship for families struggling to pay rent by reducing funding for housing assistance;
• exacerbate challenges for parents and providers by failing to make meaningful investments in child care;
• hamper our nation’s ability to address climate change and protect the environment by cutting funding for clean energy technology and programs that support clean air and water;
• underfund critical government services, including the Social Security Administration’s ability to respond to inquiries and process applications for disability benefits; and
• reduce funding for agencies that protect workers’ rights and provide job training programs to help people develop new skills and boost their employment prospects.

Many of these cuts would affect investments in people and communities that have been under-resourced for decades, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities, people with disabilities, and families with low incomes of all races and ethnicities.

In proposing these cuts, the House Republican bills depart from the bipartisan agreement reached in last year’s negotiations over raising the federal debt limit, which called for setting overall non-defense appropriations in 2025 at 1 percent above the 2024 level, along with a 1 percent increase for defense.^[1]

Instead, the House Republican bills cut non-defense programs by an average of 6 percent below the 2024 level. Some of the bills make even deeper cuts, such as the 11 percent cut for the bill funding the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education departments.^[2]Between 2010 and 2024 non-defense appropriations, other than for veterans’ medical care, fell by 14 percent when adjusted for inflation and population growth. The 2025 House bills would deepen the cut since 2010 to 22 percent.

Moreover, the House Republicans’ proposed funding cuts should be viewed in the context of cuts made since 2010, largely resulting from ten years of appropriations caps under the Budget Control Act of 2011. Between 2010 and 2024 non-defense appropriations, other than for veterans’ medical care, fell by 14 percent when adjusted for inflation and population growth. The 2025 House bills would deepen the cut since 2010 to 22 percent. (See Figure 2.)

Given the erosion of non-defense appropriations’ purchasing power, there’s a strong case for policymakers to not only reject the cuts proposed by the House but to increase 2025 appropriations by more than the 1 percent target set in last year’s negotiation. A 1 percent increase won’t even keep up with rising costs let alone begin to address funding shortfalls and unmet needs.

In contrast to the House bills, the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved 11 of the 12 bills for 2025, with an overall increase of about 2.7 percent — a step in the right direction for 2025 appropriations and done with bipartisan support.

Following are some examples of the significant and damaging cuts in the 2025 appropriations bills written by the Republican majority on the House Appropriations Committee.

House Republican Bills Undermine Investments in Children, Families, and Students With Low Incomes

The House Republican appropriations bills would make serious cuts to programs that support the needs of K-12 students in low-income communities and that make higher education more affordable. The bills would also reduce the number of households receiving help with housing costs and fail to make much-needed, meaningful investments in child care.

Serious Cuts to Programs That Support Low-Income K-12 Students and Affordable Higher Education

The House Republicans’ bills would cut the Education for the Disadvantaged program (also known as Title I) by $4.7 billion, or 25 percent, compared to 2024 funding levels.^[3] These funds support schools serving students from families with low incomes and are the largest ongoing investment the federal government makes in K-12 education. Research has shown that “money matters” when it comes to education; students do better with increased funding — particularly students from low-income households.^[4]

Robust public education funding is critical to achieve equitable outcomes following pandemic-related learning disruptions, which have had the greatest impact on districts serving a higher proportion of low-income students.^[5] Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds helped students make up some losses, but expired at the end of September.^[6] A nearly $5 billion cut would make it harder for low-income students to catch up after the catastrophic disruption of the pandemic.

In addition, these bills would freeze the maximum Pell Grant amount for the second year in a row (academic year 2025-2026) and cut two other student-aid programs by half, making it harder for low- and moderate-income students to attend college.

Pell Grants are the foundation of federal financial aid for college students of modest means, with more than 6 million undergraduate students receiving assistance. The aid is need-based. In the 2023-2024 academic year, the maximum Pell Grant covered just 31 percent of the cost of attending a state university (in-state tuition, fees, room, and board),^[7] a percentage that will likely decrease in future years if the benefit amount is frozen. Twenty years earlier, the maximum grant covered 38 percent of costs.

Funding for two other “campus-based” college student aid programs, Federal Work-Study and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOGs), would be cut in half. Qualifying colleges and universities distribute this aid to help cover unmet needs (through income from part-time employment in the case of work study). Work study was funded at $1.2 billion in 2024, and SEOGs were funded at $910 million.

Inadequate Funding for Rental Assistance and Cuts to Affordable Housing Programs

The House Republicans’ bills would increase hardship for households struggling with the rising cost of rent by inadequately funding rental assistance and cutting funding for other affordable housing programs.

An estimated 240,400 fewer households would receive help to afford stable homes.^[8] The Housing Choice Voucher program is the country’s largest rental assistance program, helping more than 2 million households with low incomes afford a home of their choice in the private market. The small increase provided in the House Republican bills is not enough to maintain current levels of assistance, as additional funding is needed to cover the rising cost of rents, and the voucher program is still catching up to steep rent increases in recent years. Moreover, only 1 in 4 households who are eligible for assistance receive it due to funding limitations; more than 16 million households in need are excluded as a result. Any reduction in assistance could lead to more people facing housing instability, such as living doubled up, being evicted, or experiencing homelessness.

Additionally, the House bills would cut public housing by $597 million or 7 percent, continuing a long pattern of disinvestment in this important source of affordable housing and risking the loss of public housing units to disrepair.

Further, the bills would cut the HOME Investment Partnerships Program — which funds affordable housing development and rehabilitation — by $750 million or 60 percent. It would also eliminate funding for eviction prevention efforts; a program focused on inclusive zoning; the Native Hawaiian Housing Block Grant, which helps Native Hawaiians with low incomes live on the Hawaiian homelands; and the Choice Neighborhoods program, which helps revitalize public and affordable housing and the surrounding neighborhoods, which have long been denied resources due to disinvestment and discriminatory housing and development policies.

Inadequate Funding for Child Care

The House Republican bills would continue to neglect critical needs of the child care sector, exacerbating challenges for parents and providers, and would cut support for state preschool planning.

The House bills would make insufficient new investments in the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and Head Start. CCDBG would receive just a 0.3 percent increase and Head Start just a 0.2 percent increase. This is far from what is needed to address child care needs.

Only 13 percent of the 6.38 million children under 5 who are eligible for assistance through the CCDBG receive it.^[9] Funding for CCDBG subsidy programs doesn’t go far enough to fully reimburse providers. Many states do not adequately reimburse providers for the true cost of providing high-quality care, keeping them in financially precarious positions.^[10]

Head Start availability is also far below where it needs to be, with only 26 percent of children eligible for Head Start services enrolled.^[11] Availability of child care also remains a massive challenge: more than half of the U.S. population lives in areas without enough licensed child care providers to serve the community.^[12]

Additionally, the House Republican bills would cut funding for Preschool Development Grants by $65 million or 21 percent. These grants help states develop and implement strategic plans for improving the entire child care landscape, from infancy until kindergarten, which requires addressing multiple challenges at once: improving affordability for parents, increasing child care availability — particularly in rural areas and for families with non-traditional hours — and improving quality for both child care workers and children.

House Republican Bills Would Undermine Clean Energy and Environmental Protection

The House bills would make significant cuts in efforts to accelerate implementation of clean energy technology, reducing the nation’s ability to make the urgent and necessary investments to address and mitigate the impacts of climate change. They would also make substantial cuts in environmental protection programs that work to ensure everyone has access to clean air and water.

The House bills would cut funding for the Energy Department’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) programs by $1.5 billion or 43 percent. This would significantly weaken EERE programs’ support for research, development, demonstration, and deployment of technologies to transition the country toward a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy. Historically, these programs have generated significant returns on investment, boosting job creation opportunities within the renewable energy sector and the competitiveness of U.S. industries in the global clean energy market.^[13]

Key to EERE programs’ mission is ensuring that the clean energy transition is equitable. This includes efforts to create good-paying jobs in disadvantaged communities, such as those impacted by the energy transition, those historically underserved by the energy system, and those disproportionately burdened by pollution.

Additionally, the House bills would cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by $1.8 billion or 20 percent. The EPA is responsible for protecting our environment and public health by implementing laws that ensure the safety of our nation’s air and water, and ensuring that industries comply with the safe use and disposal of chemicals. EPA works closely with states, localities, and tribes to achieve the goals set by law. The House bills would undermine this mission by:

• Cutting EPA’s basic operating account, “Environmental Programs and Management,” by $928 million, or 29 percent. The funding reduction of almost one-third would greatly reduce EPA’s ability to protect communities from polluted air, water, and other environmental threats.
• Cutting funding for research into the science and technology of environmental protection by $236 million or 31 percent. Cutting funding for environmental research reduces EPA’s ability to develop options for confronting threats to human health and the environment, and for mitigating the effects of climate change.
• Reducing State and Tribal Assistance Grants (“STAG”) by $739 million or 12 percent. These grants funding state, tribal, and local efforts to achieve national environmental and public health goals. The bulk of the bills’ STAG cuts come in appropriations for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, which would be reduced by $436 million (26 percent) and $243 million (21 percent), respectively. These funds provide low-cost financing for critical infrastructure improvements to local wastewater and drinking water treatment facilities.
• Eliminating all funding for environmental justice programs. These programs recognize that all communities should be equally protected from threats to their health and environment. Low-income communities, tribal and Indigenous communities, and communities of color are more likely to experience environmental harms or to be located near contaminated sites. The EPA develops policies that protect communities equally, conducts inspections, improves regulations, and provides equitable grant funding to address these communities’ environmental justice concerns.^[14]

Finally, the House bills would reduce funding for our national parks, cutting the National Park Service budget by $210 million or 6 percent.

House Republican Bills Would Undermine Critical Government Services

The House bills would inadequately fund agencies that provide critical government services, such as the operation of Social Security and Medicare and the administration of the tax laws.

The House bills would damage efforts to improve the capacity of the IRS by cutting its 2025 funding by $2.2 billion, or 18 percent. With adequate funding, the IRS can efficiently respond to taxpayer questions and conduct audits on high-income individuals and large corporations to ensure that everyone is complying with the nation’s tax laws. More funding for the IRS so that it can collect legally owed taxes means more revenue overall. The Inflation Reduction Act gave the IRS an infusion of funds to improve its customer service and audit capacity. The agency has already made major improvements, such as reduced wait times, upgraded technology, and the start of the Direct File program. But continued progress depends on regular, adequate appropriations so that the additional funding from the Inflation Reduction Act can have maximum effect.

The House bills would also cut customer service funding for the Social Security Administration (SSA) by $473 million, or 3.9 percent. SSA continues to face significant backlogs in customer service, fueled by a 19 percent budget cut since 2010, after inflation. Staffing is at its lowest level in almost 50 years, even though the number of beneficiaries has increased by 25 percent.^[15] The backlog of disability claims has reached 1.1 million. Wait times for initial disability determinations have ballooned to a record high of eight months, with an additional seven months for those seeking an appeal. The cuts proposed by the Republican majority of the House Appropriations Committee would result in further deterioration of customer service, such as increased waiting times on the phone, cutbacks in field office hours, and longer delays in processing disability benefit applications.^[16]

House Republican Bills Would Undermine Worker Protections and Employment Opportunities

The House bills would hurt workers by cutting funding to agencies focused on protecting workers’ rights and by eliminating key job training programs that can boost employment prospects.

The House bills would cut funding to agencies that protect workers’ rights, such as workers’ rights to minimum wages and overtime pay, rights to engage in union activity, and rights to safety on the job.

The House bills would:

• Cut National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) funding by $99 million or 33 percent. The NLRB enforces the federal law protecting the rights of workers to organize and to take collective action for improved wages and working conditions, including by forming unions and engaging in union activity. The NLRB investigates and adjudicates unfair labor practices by private employers, and conducts elections in workplaces that seek to become unionized.
• Cut National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) funding by $99 million or 27 percent. NIOSH studies occupational illnesses and injuries and provides recommendations to prevent them.
• Cut Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) funding by $75 million or 12 percent. OSHA sets and enforces safety standards to prevent workplace injuries and illnesses and provides training and assistance.
• Cut appropriations for the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division by $25 million or 10 percent. This agency enforces minimum wage, overtime, child labor, and family and medical leave laws, among others.

The bills would also cut appropriations for job training programs under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act by $1.2 billion or 30 percent, including eliminating programs for youth and nearly cutting in half funding for apprenticeship programs and programs to help formerly incarcerated people find employment.

House Republican Bills Would Undermine Public Health and Health Care

The House bills would cut funding to key reproductive health care services used primarily by low-income people and people living in rural communities. The bills would also reduce the capacity of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to detect and prevent health hazards and diseases.

The House bills would eliminate funding for the Title X Family Planning Program, which received $286 million in 2024. For over 50 years, Title X grants to public and private nonprofit organizations have improved access to reproductive health care for people with low or modest incomes.^[17] In 2023, the program benefitted 2.8 million users at 3,853 clinical service sites, and 60 percent of patients had family incomes at or below the poverty line.^[18]

The bills would also reduce funding for Maternal and Child Health by $152 million or 13 percent.^[19]These cuts include eliminating funding for the Healthy Start program, which received $145 million in 2024. Healthy Start seeks to improve infant health outcomes in communities with high rates of infant mortality through funding local organizations to provide health care, education, and social services.

Finally, the bills would cut funding for the CDC by $1.8 billion or 19 percent, reducing the nation’s capacity to prevent, monitor, and control health hazards and diseases. Cuts made by the bills would include:

• eliminating CDC’s block grant program to boost the capacity of state, territorial, and tribal public health agencies, which received $160 million in 2024;
• eliminating CDC funding for tobacco use reduction ($247 million in 2024);
• cutting environmental health funding (dealing with problems like toxins in the environment) by 40 percent or $97 million;
• cutting funding for HIV prevention and research by 22 percent or $220 million;
• cutting the Injury Prevention Center by 95 percent or $721 million. This would eliminate programs to prevent domestic violence, sexual violence, suicide, overdose, and firearms injuries, leaving only a rape prevention and education program funded at $40 million.

We are a wealthy nation. We can afford to make high-value investments in essential federal programs that provide public goods we all benefit from, including education, a healthy environment, and protections for workers, and that promote future economic growth. Policymakers should reject the deep and damaging cuts in the House Republican appropriations bills.