By: Gabe Ortiz | americasvoicecnn.substack.com |Editorial credit: lev radin / Shutterstock.com
Just think of how much our country could get done with $170 billion in federal funding. Hungry schoolkids fed with nutritious meals. Unhoused Americans sheltered and safe from the bitter cold or extreme heat. Sick senior citizens cared for with dignity. It’s an unprecedented amount of taxpayer dollars that could make unprecedented change for good.
But instead, mass deportation architect-in-chief Stephen Miller is getting an infusion of $170.7 billion dollars to turbocharge masked ICE arrests and open abusive detention camps while enriching private prison companies that, surely in no coincidence at all, generously donated to Donald Trump in 2024. Yes, while working families are stressed about the price of groceries, childcare, and worried about how to pay for next month’s rent, the Trump administration is putting its donors and buddies first. And, they haven’t exactly been shy about it. “I’ve worked at CoreCivic for 32 years,” one private prison executive buoyantly told investors earlier this year, ”and this is truly one of the most exciting periods in my career.”
Instead of going to Miller and the administration’s donors, that same funding could go to helping working families all across America, on everything from education, hunger, housing, healthcare, and the environment.
On education, $170 billion in funding could build more than 7,000 new elementary schools, pay for more than 1.5 million young Americans to attend an in-state public college for four years, or fund the Head Start program for nearly 14 years, as the American Immigration Council said last year.
“Every day, the parents of these children rely on Head Start so that they can earn an honest living and become economically self-sufficient,” parents, caregivers, and Head Start alumni told the Trump administration in a June 5 letter urging against the cutting or complete dismantling of this critical childhood program. “Every day, more than 40 million Americans enter schools, offices, and job sites better prepared to power America forward thanks to the start they received as children in Head Start.”
On housing, $170 billion could help end homelessness by providing housing for every unhoused American 17 times over. “A record-high 653,104 people experienced homelessness on a single night in January 2023,” said the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “This is more than a 12.1 percent increase over the previous year.” While a complex issue, it is not unfixable. “Policymakers can invest in these solutions through legislation,” the National Alliance to End Homelessness continued.
On hunger, $170 billion could pay for nutritious meals for our nation’s schoolchildren for a full decade. Not only is it the right thing to do – in California, the most populous state in the country, one in six children don’t have enough to eat – full bellies mean better educational outcomes. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, eating breakfast “is associated with better attendance rates, fewer missed school days, and better test scores.” Students who participate in school meal programs also “consume more whole grains, milk, fruits, and vegetables during mealtimes—and have better overall diet quality—than nonparticipants.” And, going even further, $170 billion could end hunger for 700 million people by 2030, according to researchers.
On healthcare, $170 billion could help 1.8 million people who are at risk of losing their Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill, which will gut healthcare for poor Americans in order to help pay for tax cuts for the super-rich. The money could also double funding for Community Health Centers for more than a decade. Since first opening in 1965, Community Health Centers have made healthcare more accessible for more than 32 million Americans, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers.
“Health centers help increase access to crucial primary care by reducing barriers such as cost, lack of insurance, distance, and language for their patients,” the association said. “In doing so, health centers — also called Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) — provide substantial benefits to the country and its health care system.”
And on climate – and this is also a biggie, since we all share this same planet – $170 billion could benefit communities from coast to coast by restoring funding for clean drinking water programs for over 60 years. How about restoring NOAA’s climate and weather research programs that were also chopped under the budget? $170 billion would take care of that for over 100 years.
But instead, this staggering sum will be directed towards making the masked ICE agency more funded than the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined. And contrary to the administration’s repeated claim that its targeting threats to public safety, masked agents are kidnapping farmworkers, DACA recipients, green card holders, individuals following the rules by going to their immigration court dates, family members of U.S. military veterans, and even U.S. military veterans themselves. And as recent polling has made clear, the more the public witnesses this ugly agenda, the more they hate it. Americans want solutions, not mass cruelty and giveaways for those at the very top.
The recent legislative fight showed that when Congress actually wants to pass something, it can do it. The problem here is that its priorities are not only misplaced and completely out-of-touch with working Americans, but self-defeating. And that will hurt all of us.