Local Impacts of Federal Policy Actions

By Jennifer Greenfield

Greenfield argues that congressional budget cuts to SNAP, EITC, and Medicaid will severely harm vulnerable Colorado families and the state's economy while benefiting the wealthy.

Published in the Denver Post on June 18th, 2025

By Philip Rocco

Rocco warns that the “Big Beautiful Bill’s” Medicaid and tax credit cuts will cost Wisconsinites health coverage, despite public demand for affordable healthcare.

Published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on June 15th, 2025

By Miranda Yaver

Yaver writes that the "One Big Beautiful Bill" forces states to cut Medicaid, abandoning federalism and harming millions.

Published in Medpage Today on June 14th, 2025

By Simon F. Haeder

Haeder details how Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" uniquely cuts health coverage via new Medicaid work requirements, state funding penalties, and ACA Marketplace barriers.

Published in The Conversation on June 13th, 2025

By Miranda Yaver

Yaver warns that House Republicans' proposed Medicaid cuts threaten millions of vulnerable recipients, particularly in conservative rural communities

Published in STAT News on June 12th, 2025

By Christopher Witko

Witko explains that the "Big, Beautiful Bill" gives tax cuts to millionaires, increasing debt, while reducing support for working families via the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit.

Published in PennLive on June 10th, 2025

By Marissa Williams & Kristen Gleason

Williams and Gleason explain that proposed Medicaid cuts could strip thousands of Maine fishermen of vital health care, putting their well-being and the future of the state’s $3.2 billion fishing industry at risk.

Published in The Portland Press Herald on June 10th, 2025

By Grace O'Toole

O'Toole emphasizes the need for stronger federal advocacy on reproductive health by highlighting how the Ombuds Act could help protect access to essential services amid growing abortion and healthcare restrictions.

Published on June 5th, 2025

By Taryn Morrissey

Morrissey critiques the House Republicans’ “Big, Beautiful Bill” for offering minimal family support through a small child tax credit while slashing key programs like Medicaid and SNAP that families rely on.

Published in The Progressive on June 2nd, 2025

By Michael Shepherd and Miranda Yaver

Shepherd and Yaver explain how Trump’s proposed Medicaid cuts would devastate rural hospitals and the Republican voters who depend on them.

Published in The Hill on June 2nd, 2025

By Barbara Risman

Risman writes about the impacts of Trump’s executive orders that seek to limit federal recognition of transgender people by recognizing only two genders and the attempts to erase nonbinary identities.

Published in The Conversation on May 28th, 2025

By Nadia Bell, Eliana Buckner and Benjamin Sommers

The authors reveal why proposed work requirements in the "Big, Beautiful Bill" would jeopardize health care and food aid for millions of low-income Americans.

Published in U.S. News and World Report on May 27nd, 2025

By Jake Haselswerdt

Haselswerdt writes that federally mandated Medicaid work requirements would overwhelm Missouri’s already struggling system and strip health coverage from thousands of eligible residents.

Published in the Columbia Missourian on May 27nd, 2025

By Cassandra Boness

Boness draws on her experience growing up around addiction to warn that federal funding cuts are threatening critical addiction research and treatment programs.

Published in The Albuquerque Journal on May 18th, 2025

By Harry Holzer

Holzer uses economic evidence to break down why the GOP's proposed cuts to Medicaid and SNAP will harm families.

Delivered remarks at a U.S. Capitol press conference hosted by Economic Security Project Action and Community Change Action on May 12th, 2025

By Chris Howard

Howard details how the Republican budget proposal would significantly harm Virginia by slashing funding for essential programs like healthcare, education, and nutrition assistance.

Published on May 8th, 2025

By Amy Fried 

Amy Fried argues that Trump, Musk, and RFK Jr. are endangering cancer patients by undermining research, clinical trials, and the FDA.

Published in Portland Press Herald on April 14th, 2025

By Tiffany Joseph

Joseph argues that Republican plans to cut Medicaid and ACA subsidies are a calculated effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and jeopardize health care for millions.

Published in The Hill on March 24th, 2025

By Micki Burdick

Burdick argues that repealing the FACE Act would escalate threats to reproductive health clinics by enabling anti-abortion activists to resume violent and obstructive protest tactics.

Published in The Conversation on March 10th, 2025

By Julia Lund

Lund warns that without urgent funding, proven community-based violence intervention programs in California risk collapse due to federal grant cancellations and state funding shortfalls.

Published in Los Angeles Daily News on May 20th, 2025

By Daniel C. Semenza

Semenza argues that a recent drop in homicide rates is the direct result of deliberate investments in policy, research, and community-led strategies that are now being undermined.

Published in Common Dreams on May 5th, 2025

By Charis Kubrin

Kubrin shows that immigration enforcement policies are based on a false link between immigration and crime and calls for evidence-based approaches that promote public safety and community well-being, rather than fear or misinformation.

Published on June 6th, 2025

By Matthew Blanton

Blanton argues that while Republicans acknowledge the crisis of declining birthrates, their anti-immigration policies undercut the most effective solution to sustaining the U.S. population and economy.

Published in The Fulcrum on May 16th, 2025

By Matthew Boaz

Boaz critiques the Kentucky attorney general’s support for a legal brief that would allow residents to be deported without a hearing, calling it unconstitutional.

Published in Courier Journal on May 9th, 2025

By Matthew Boaz

Boaz warns that the Trump administration is claiming unchecked deportation powers that could endanger even U.S. citizens, undermining due process and constitutional protections.

Published in Newsweek on April 17th, 2025

By Sarah Bruhn 

Bruhn argues that sanctuary policies are essential not only for public safety and economic stability, but also for upholding justice and human rights amid rising anti-immigrant crackdowns.

Published in The Progressive on March 25th, 2025

By Kristina Fullerton Rico

Rico explores the widespread psychological and social effects of deportation threats—even among those not directly targeted.

Published in The Conversation on February 19th, 2025

By Elizabeth Aranda and Liz Venture Molina

Findings from a new report on Florida’s anti-immigrant law illustrate the sweeping harm such policies cause—offering a preview of what may come under federal shifts.

Published in Newsweek on January 22nd, 2025

By Felicia Arriaga

Arriaga details how North Carolina’s state and local agencies collaborate with ICE and urges policymakers to increase oversight and transparency to protect immigrant communities.

Published on January 21st, 2025 

By William Lopez

Drawing on research into past ICE raids, Lopez warns of the long-term trauma and destabilization these tactics bring to entire communities.

Published in The Hill on December 4th, 2024 

By Jenny Bratburd

Bratburd warns that the Trump administration’s cuts to environmental and health data programs will have dangerous consequences for public health, both in Wisconsin and nationwide.

Published in The Capital Times on May 30th, 2025

By Mayank Chugh and Jonny Coates

Chugh and Coates argue that open science is key to protecting U.S. research from political threats, budget cuts, and data suppression.

Published in The Scientist on May 21st, 2025

By Nina Christie

Christie writes about her work organizing a local Stand Up For Science rally to state that communities need to come together to support the many people working to advance scientific knowledge.  

Published in The Albuquerque Journal on April 18th, 2025

By Fernando Tormos-Aponte

Tormos-Aponte urges scientists to resist political interference by building collective power, drawing lessons from environmental justice and other social movements.

Published in Nature on April 8th, 2025

By Judith Scott-Clayton

Scott-Clayton’s grant was abruptly terminated mid-study, cutting short a nearly complete evaluation of Federal Work-Study just as findings were emerging.

Published in Inside Higher Ed as part of the “Grant Terminated” series on April 7th, 2025 

By Rob Blair, Jessica Gottlieb, Laura Paler and Julie Anne Weaver

The Democratic Erosion Consortium lost funding mid-grant for their global work on democratic backsliding, dismantling a key bridge between research and policy.

Published in Inside Higher Ed as part of the “Grant Terminated” series on April 7th, 2025 

By Matthew Woodruff

Woodruff’s lab made vital discoveries on long Covid, but NIH funding was cut mid-commitment, putting the lab’s future at risk.

Published in Inside Higher Ed as part of the “Grant Terminated” series on April 7th, 2025 

By Denise L. Baer

Baer outlines how a women’s empowerment project with bipartisan backing that lost funding, despite its origins under the Trump administration.

Published in Inside Higher Ed as part of the “Grant Terminated” series on April 7th, 2025 

By Ken Kolb

Kolb defends the role of scientific research in public life and criticizes efforts to politicize and defund it at both the state and federal level.

Published in The Post and Courier on February 27th, 2025

By Eva Warren

Warren recounts how a federal gag order abruptly halted her NIH training, illustrating the real-world stakes of science policy rollbacks for public health and state economies.

Published in Akron Beacon Journal on February 6th, 2025

By Sarah Lindstrom Johnson

Johnson argues that federal cuts to school mental health programs undermine student safety and ignore their proven benefits. 

Published in The Progressive on May 14th, 2025

By Julie J. Park

Park emphasizes that many DEI programs are vulnerable but not illegal, urging institutions to respond with care rather than fear-driven approaches that undermine meaningful diversity efforts.

Published in Inside Higher Ed on April 14th, 2025

By Raquel M. Rall and Demetri L. Morgan

Rall and Morgan argue that college boards must defend academic freedom and institutional independence from growing political interference. 

Published in Inside Higher Ed on April 8th, 2025

By Amir Goldberg and Barbara J. Risman 

Goldberg and Rismanargue that Trump’s efforts to combat antisemitism on campus are dangerous, hypocritical, and politically motivated attacks on higher education.

Published in The Chronicle of Higher Education on March 19th, 2025

By Jackie Pedota and Liliana Garces

Pedota and Garces highlight how coalitions formed in response to anti-DEI and anti-CRT efforts have supported academic freedom and reduced self-censorship.

Published in Inside Higher Ed on March 13th, 2025

By Andrew Flachs

Flachs makes the case for universal school lunch, arguing it benefits everyone from students to farmers and should be protected from federal budget cuts.

Published in IndyStar on February 21st, 2025

By Liliana Garces

Garces argues that the Education Department’s “Dear Colleague” letter misinterprets the SFFA ruling and unlawfully restricts race-conscious practices beyond admissions.

Published in The Chronicle of Higher Education on February 18th, 2025

by Tiffany D. Joseph

Joseph reflects on her upbringing and a recent visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture to make the case that efforts to whitewash the past will fail.

Published in Common Dreams on May 4th, 2025

Featuring Luisa Deprez and Amy Fried

Deprez and Fried discuss Maine’s defiance of Donald Trump’s threats over transgender athlete policies and the broader implications for upcoming elections, including Sen. Susan Collins’s re-election.

Podcast from Washington Monthly released on May 21st, 2025

By Jennifer McCoy and Rachel Beatty Riedl

McCoy and Riedl write that defending democracy takes more than protest, requiring broad coalitions, coordination across sectors, and clear demands.

Published in The Fulcrum on May 18th, 2025

By Jason DeBacker

DeBacker explains that everyday Americans benefit from federal workers—and urges more precision, not broad cuts, when considering budget reductions.

Published in The Post and Courier on March 6th, 2025

By Daniel Carpenter, Paul Pierson, and Eric Schickler

A warning about how inaction from Congress and executive overreach are unraveling core tenets of constitutional governance.

Published in Washington Monthly on February 21st, 2025

By Ryan LaRochelle

LaRochelle argues Trump is repeating Nixon’s failed attempt to bypass Congress and dismantle agencies, and offers lessons from that time for resisting executive overreach.

Published in Time on February 12th, 2025

By Theda Skocpol

Skocpol reflects on what made past efforts to resist authoritarianism effective—and what lessons matter most in this moment.

Published in The New Republic on January 24th, 2025

By Ken Kolb

Kolb explains how the Trump administrations tarrifs on steel won't revive steel jobs as promised and calls for tax credits as a more effective policy solution.

Published in The Post and Courier on May 22nd, 2025

By Anita R Kellogg

Kellogg argues that U.S. foreign aid cuts are enabling China to expand its global influence through strategic investments that undermine American interests.

Published in The Hill on March 4th, 2025

By Erica Owen

Owen explains why protectionist trade policies fall short for U.S. workers and calls for long-term solutions like retraining programs and stronger safety nets.

Published on January 21st, 2025