A family together in their kitchen.
Anyone raising children in the U.S. knows that it’s expensive. Many jobs – especially the service jobs that do essential work caring for our children and elders, bringing us food, cleaning our office buildings, and so much more – don’t pay enough to cover basic needs. From rising grocery costs to unaffordable housing, it’s becoming harder and harder for American families to make ends meet.
Unfortunately, if our leaders don’t step up, it will soon get even more difficult for families. That’s because the budget reconciliation bill passed by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, now under consideration by the House of Representatives, includes critical tax changes that will leave many children, their families, and, ultimately, our communities in the lurch.
Helping families with childrearing costs is an investment in the next generation, making it an economic as well as a moral imperative. But the United States is an outlier here. Our public spending on families with children, as a percent of GDP, is lower than all but one peer nation. Similar wealthy nations usually provide families with a child allowance, which reduces child poverty and its related harms.
In the U.S., we have the Child Tax Credit, a tax refund of up to $2,000 per year per child for lower- and moderate-income households with children. But this credit leaves behind millions of children, with 17 million children nationwide currently excluded from the full credit because their parents’ income is too low. In Orange County, California, where I live and work, approximately 141,000 children are excluded.
Congress’s proposal would maintain these exclusions and lock even more children out of the full credit. That’s because new requirements would mean 2.6 million U.S. citizen children would lose their eligibility just because their caregiver lacks a social security number.
This is the complete opposite of what we should be doing. Expanding the Child Tax Credit is among the most effective ways we can direct public resources. After the American Rescue Plan expanded the Child Tax Credit in 2021, child poverty fell by 46 percent, to its lowest recorded level. The research is clear that the monthly payments helped families provide food and other day-to-day necessities for children. And supporting families in meeting their needs helps to prevent child abuse and neglect, keeping small setbacks from spiraling into crises.
Not only does expanding the Child Tax Credit pay off in improved child health and well-being – which benefits us all – it also boosts local economic activity. The expanded Child Tax Credit was poised to deliver $11.5 billion in economic benefits for California in the year after its passage.
It doesn’t end there. The federal budget bill would also impact the Earned Income Tax Credit, which goes to lower- and moderate-income working families and has long been one of the most vital, bipartisan anti-poverty programs in this country. Already, approximately 1 in 5 eligible families miss out on this tax credit because of difficulties filing for it. New, tedious paperwork requirements would mean even more eligible families would be left behind just because of red tape.
Child poverty spiked after the Child Tax Credit expansion expired. The budget bill’s tax proposals, in tandem with deep cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, housing assistance, and more, will accelerate that trend by keeping more families from receiving these vital supports.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Senate-passed bill is not yet law – it now heads back to the House, where these harmful proposals can still be changed. Our leaders must step up to protect children, or the affordability crisis will only get worse for many families across the country.
Kelley Fong is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, where she studies social policy and family life. She lives in Irvine.
Congress should recognize that caseworkers are subject-matter experts and put their knowledge to use.
Congress writes laws but rarely follows up on how they are implemented. When things inevitably go wrong, it passes the buck to agencies, which often hire consultants to investigate the problem at great expense. However, Congress could do the job itself for free. Congress already employs a cadre of staff that knows the gory details of government programs—namely, caseworkers.
Caseworkers are staff employed by members of Congress to help their constituents navigate the federal bureaucracy. When the public has problems with federal agencies—everything from mishandled disability applications to poor postal service—caseworkers are the go-between to sort things out. In helping the public, caseworkers learn how the implementation of government programs can go awry.
Congress invests heavily in casework; by our calculations, caseworkers are about 15 percent of Congressional office staff. But Congress does not tap into their knowledge, largely because caseworkers are based in their home districts, where they work with constituents in person. As caseworkers are far from the politics of the U.S. Capitol, the Washington establishment often wrongly thinks of them as merely entry-level customer service representatives.
Instead, Congress should recognize that they are subject-matter experts and put their knowledge to use. Congress could benefit from their expertise by turning caseworkers loose on three problems: identifying root causes of dysfunction, spotting emerging problems, and creating better-informed policy.
Caseworkers could help identify the source of longstanding problems. When they determine why the bureaucracy made a mistake for constituents, they often discover the underlying cause. For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) sometimes improperly continues paying dependent benefits to disabled soldiers even after their children become too old to be eligible. These veterans later discover that their disability checks have been cut off and the VA is demanding that they repay tens of thousands of dollars. Caseworkers who assist these veterans know the cause: the VA has no way for veterans to amend their listed dependents themselves. These changes must be made manually by bureaucrats, with only a handful of employees processing updates for the entire country.
To fix these longstanding problems, oversight staff should consult caseworkers for their insight. Congressional committees that oversee agencies providing social services could host a "staff day" at the beginning of each Congress, incorporating caseworkers' expertise into their oversight plans.
Casework could provide Congress with an early warning signal to spot emerging problems. For example, Rep. Loudermilk's staff (R-Ga.) had rarely received postal complaints until March 2024, when they began receiving tens and then hundreds of complaints about mail delays and missing items. His caseworkers soon uncovered that Georgia was the testing ground for a new U.S. Postal Service reorganization. After discovering this, lawmakers conducted oversight to ensure tax returns and primary ballots would be delivered promptly.
To help other offices replicate this success, Congress needs data management tools that summarize complaints heard by individual legislators. The House has already begun creating a dashboard of anonymized casework data, which could also be adopted by the Senate. Congressional committees should use these tools for oversight and invest in their success.
Congress could ask caseworkers to help write better laws in the future. Lawmakers may not understand implementation details but good caseworkers do. For example, the proposed TAS Act aims to address common taxpayer complaints about the IRS; it draws upon recommendations from the Taxpayer Advocate Service, which in turn drew upon Congressional casework inquiries.
Congress should prioritize incorporating such insight directly from caseworkers. Congressional committees might even borrow experienced caseworkers to provide input in strengthening draft bills, in addition to incorporating casework data into oversight plans.
In today's era of low trust in government, good casework matters more than ever. Caseworkers are the first line of defense for constituents, demonstrating that interactions with government can reflect trust, accountability, and dignity. More than that, caseworkers could rebuild trust in government by helping Congress hold the government accountable and write better laws. This requires that Congress take casework more seriously and view it as an integral part of oversight and legislation.
So, the next time Congress wants to sort out a thorny problem, it shouldn't send agencies running to consultants to find solutions. Instead, lawmakers should schedule a happy hour with their caseworkers.
Anne Meeker is a former Director of Constituent Services and Deputy Director of POPVOX Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit that helps democratic institutions keep pace with a rapidly changing world.
Kevin Hawickhorst is a Policy Analyst at the Foundation for American Innovation, a think tank that develops technology, talent, and ideas that support a better, freer, and more abundant future.
View of the LNG Terminal in San Juan, where most of Puerto Rico's natural gas resources are shipped to. The island currently imports 85% of its energy resources.
When President Biden first announced $1 billion in funding to install rooftop solar in Puerto Rico’s vulnerable communities two years ago, many Puerto Ricans felt it was cause for celebration. Federal officials have long sought to support rooftop solar in Puerto Rico, which could help the island's unstable energy grid become more energy-independent.
But under the leadership of President Trump — and with support from Puerto Rico’s newly elected governor, Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colòn — these federal dollars could end up going toward the island’s gas-heavy grid rather than renewable energy efforts.
On May 21, the Department of Energy announced it was redirecting $365 million from the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund toward “technologies that improve system flexibility and response” for Puerto Rico’s power grid.
This fund was first established by the Biden Administration in February 2023, earmarking $1 billion in federal funding to build energy resilience for the island’s most vulnerable residents. Puerto Rico suffers from frequent blackouts and a notoriously unstable electric grid, and during natural disasters, rural communities are often without power for weeks or even months. The majority of the Energy Resilience Fund was intended to combat this by providing funding for rooftop solar installations on essential buildings, such as rural community health centers and the homes of low-income residents.
Since January, this funding has been slowly eroded. The first phase of funding, originally slated to provide $450 million for rooftop solar installations for low-income families, is set to be terminated in June, with less than half of its projects completed, according to grant recipients.
And with the May 21 announcement, experts are concerned that the final chunk of funding from this once-essential energy resilience fund will be redirected to Puerto Rico's existing energy infrastructure, much of which relies on coal and natural gas.
“These cuts are very dangerous because we don't really have a way to substitute those funds,” said Rolando Emmanuelli Jimenez, an attorney from San Juan and an expert on Puerto Rico’s energy sector. “Being a territory, we don't have the protection of equality among the states. So it's particularly worrisome that maybe the cuts in the states will be moderate, but here in Puerto Rico, they will be very profound.”
Solar is especially vital in Puerto Rico. The island’s maximum rooftop solar capacity is over 24 terawatt hours — that’s four times as much as its current residential energy consumption, according to a 2020 analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
But currently, 93% of Puerto Rico’s grid runs on fossil fuels, and 85% of its energy resources are imported. The cost of energy per kilowatt-hour is higher than that of all but three U.S. states, primarily due to the high cost of importing fossil fuels. And under the management of two private corporations — LUMA Energy, which runs Puerto Rico’s transmission lines, and Genera PR, which runs its generation system — the government has lost much of its control over electricity prices.
Frustrated with the current electric system, many Puerto Ricans have turned to solar as a source of clean energy and a way to avoid the frequent blackouts under the LUMA-managed grid. The PR-ERF was just one of several funding streams designated by the Biden Administration for solar in Puerto Rico.
However, Governor Jennifer Gonzalez-Colón has faced backlash from some Puerto Ricans for her handling of energy policy since taking office in January, as well as for the changes to the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund. While Gonzalez-Colòn had previously pledged to defend the island from Trump's funding cuts, her administration told the Associated Press in early May that she ultimately revoked her support for the Energy Resilience Fund. She has since publicly supported redirecting these grants to island-wide transmission systems.
“Rather than impacting a few customers, deploying these funds for urgent projects that improve the resiliency and reliability of our grid will have widespread, lasting benefits for all 3.2 million Americans in Puerto Rico,” Gonzalez-Colòn said in a May 21 press release announcing the change.
The first Trump administration had already authorized $18 billion in emergency funding to go toward system-wide transmission upgrades in Puerto Rico. These funds are currently frozen, but the new governor has recently pledged to ensure that federal authorities will deliver these funds.
In the wake of these policy changes, many Puerto Ricans — especially those in rural areas who have suffered from an unreliable electric system — were left feeling frustrated.
“The governor has made a political calculation to not go against the Trump administration, and is basically acquiescing to whatever the Department of Energy decides,” said C.P. Smith, executive director of Cooperativa Hidroeléctrica de la Montaña. “This is something that is very problematic.”
Since 2023, Cooperativa Hidroeléctrica has operated a solar microgrid in the mountain town of Castañer. This system links several solar panels into one small grid, enough to power a few dozen homes independently of the larger grid.
Cooperativa Hidroeléctrica received a grant from the Energy Resilience Fund as part of the Solar Ambassador Prize, which comprised the first $450 million of the fund. These grants were slated to go toward "last-mile communities" — rural households and towns, such as Castañer, that often experience the longest wait times for electricity restoration after blackouts.
“These are families that have suffered the most in terms of the poorest electric reliability,” said Smith.
Cooperativa Hidroeléctrica was planning to build 110 additional microgrids in rural neighborhoods over the next two and a half years. However, earlier this year, they discovered that their funding from the Energy Resilience Fund, as well as other grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, had been canceled.
According to Smith, there’s “no way” Cooperativa Hidroeléctrica can continue operating its existing microgrid, or move forward with building new ones, without federal funding.
“This is exactly the role of government with a capital G, right? Government steps in to take care of the cost of large infrastructure projects and other resiliency measures that cannot be attended to by the private sector, especially when we're talking about remote rural communities,” he said. “It doesn't mean that the government has to give giveaways, but those guaranteed loan programs are very important to be able to serve these communities that are poorly attended.”
Gonzalez-Colòn, a longtime Republican, has already followed some of Trump’s federal energy policy moves. The first law she passed was a package that eliminated Puerto Rico’s goals of transitioning to 40% renewable energy by 2025 and 60% by 2040. The law left the island’s ultimate goal of reaching 100% renewable energy by 2050 intact, but Gonzalez-Colòn hasn’t approved any new solar or wind projects while in office.
“Even the final renewable energy goal that was kept on the books, that is not going to be achieved,” said Ruth Santiago, an environmental lawyer based in Salinas, Puerto Rico. “All of these new gas power plants will take a few years to come online and have usually operational lives of 25 to 30 years.”
Gonzalez-Colòn also declared an "energy emergency," mirroring the one proclaimed by President Trump on his first day in office. The move drew attention to the island's power shortage and unstable grid, which could prove fatal as the Atlantic hurricane season approaches this summer. But according to Santiago, this could also be an attempt to speed up permitting for fossil fuel plants.
“Basically, the government is exempting all new energy, all energy infrastructure work, from Puerto Rico permitting requirements,” Santiago said. “They’re trying to sort of latch onto the federally declared energy emergency by President Trump, to potentially eliminate any permitting requirement, like Clean Air Act permits.”
Aside from the PR-ERF, federal funding cuts have also had indirect impacts on renewable energy research. Francisco Valentin, who runs a rural medical clinic in the mountainside province of Utuado, said his clinic has worked with U.S. universities for years. American students have visited Utuado to help provide healthcare to locals and to maintain the solar panels that power Valentin’s clinic.
In the wake of recent cuts to research universities, though, Valentin said he's nervous these programs might not continue. His clinic had already lost two grants from Fordham University, which would have amounted to $420,000. The University of Puerto Rico, which received over $51 million in total NIH grants across its campuses this year, has also begun to experience difficulties accessing databases for climate and renewable energy research.
“When you start to work with the communities, you can start to see that a lot of things that [need] help, and the people just have… the desire to be part of the solutions,” Valentin said. “But the government [isn't here]. They don't care. They don't have the resources.”
For now, both federal and Puerto Rican politicians say they're keeping fossil fuel plants running to ease the transition to renewable energy while also avoiding an energy shortage. Governor Gonzalez-Colòn plans to redirect some of the PR-ERF grant money toward building temporary fossil fuel plants and repairing aging ones.
“By redirecting these funds, we will ensure taxpayer dollars are used to strengthen access to affordable, reliable, and secure power, benefiting more citizens as quickly as possible,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright in the May 21 press release.
However, given both Trump and Gonzalez-Colón's recent actions, experts like Emmanuelli are concerned that these temporary solutions could permanently put Puerto Rico on a path away from renewables.
“Right now, we don't know when we will have the capability in terms of renewable energy to substitute those new investments in natural gas,” Emmanuelli said. “I believe that the strategy for those sectors is to try to push hard here in Puerto Rico, to install temporary generation, to make them eventually permanent. So we will be tied to that energy that is not the best for Puerto Rico, that will make Puerto Rico a slave of the markets of natural gas.”
Lily Carey is a graduate student in journalism at Northwestern University.
A group of hikers at the Zion National Park in Utah.
Congress is discussing a dark and disturbing deal right under our noses: to sell up to a quarter-billion acres of America’s public lands. The proposed bill would open vast stretches of federally protected lands, including national forests to private interests. Without any substantial safeguards, these lands could be bought by foreign investors, corporations, and the ultra-wealthy to be developed into gated communities, resource extraction sites, or other commercial ventures. This legislation is a corporate land grab that threatens our natural heritage, our safety, and our future. It is a full-frontal attack on the American West.
Our country’s natural wonders are already under fire. This administration recently laid off roughly 1,000 workers in the National Park Service, or about five percent of its workforce. These dedicated professionals are the backbone of conservation efforts; they manage trails, clear brush, teach visitors about the animals and the stars, and tend to endangered species (and, presumably, at least one of them runs the National Park Service social media accounts, which are fantastic). When the personnel responsible for maintaining our parks are cut back, we risk letting our environment fall victim to neglect, creating conditions ripe for ecological disasters.
Since the passage of the Antiquities Act in 1906, presidents have been able to designate national monuments and safeguard our most cherished landscapes. Traditionally, presidents have honored the monuments established by their predecessors, but during his first term, President Trump challenged the status of not one, not two, but 26 national monuments. This resulted in significant reductions in the size of Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, and revealed a dangerous willingness to prioritize short-term gains over long-term sustainability, underscoring the fragility of these protections. This most recent legislation would exploit that fragility with devastating consequences.
The West is already uniquely positioned at the forefront of climate instability. From wildfires and droughts to rising temperatures and sea levels, this region has the unmistakable fingerprints of climate change all over it already. When public lands absorb carbon dioxide, regulate local temperatures, and sustain biodiversity, removing protections and selling them off will only accelerate environmental degradation, removing natural buffers that help mitigate these crises. From California to Colorado, the West offers a gateway to nature with a front-line community for climate impacts, and our economy depends heavily on tourism, outdoor recreation, agriculture, and clean water. Pawning off these lands risks homes and lives while undercutting our economic backbone and jeopardizing future growth. As a Native American Proverb–which was once shared with me by a Park Ranger–goes: "Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money."
Deforestation and resource exploitation make natural disasters more severe, diminish our ability to adapt to climate crises, and hamper strategic capabilities, making the U.S. more vulnerable. In fact, even the Department of Defense calls climate change an “existential threat,” as our own military prepares for conflicts over dwindling resources and territorial disputes arising from environmental crises. If the U.S. forfeits control over our public lands and ecosystems, our ability to project power, defend our interests, and adapt to these emerging threats will diminish too.
Besides, public lands should belong to all Americans. In 2023, the national parks welcomed over 325 million visitors—a remarkable 16% increase since 2010. These open spaces are not just scenic backdrops for memorable family vacations; they are crucial ecosystems that sustain biodiversity, offer recreational opportunities, and serve as a reminder of our environmental heritage. They promote health, learning, and community. They are priceless. But privatization limits future generations’ opportunities to enjoy nature; once privatized, these lands could be logged, drilled, mined, or paved, destroying ecosystems and wildlife habitats. As American as it may be to steal land, gain a sense of pride from it, and then strip it for parts, we can do better. Wouldn’t it be more American to preserve our purple mountain majesties for the American people?
Protecting what belongs to all of us shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but the American people may have to prove to the American government what the stakes really are here. If we don’t want to lose these lands forever, we must act now. Your voice matters. Keep exploring outdoor spaces, share stories of your experiences, and remind yourself and your community about how vital our lands are. Call your senators. Insist that instead of carving up the commons, we invest in conservation programs, sustainable water policies, and infrastructure improvements with a long-sighted perspective on preserving public resources. Tell them Teddy Roosevelt advised: “What you can do is to keep it for your children and your children's children and for all who come after you.” Or at least ask that the bill include a right of first refusal to Tribal Nations. No matter what, we should get to weigh in before these irreplaceable public lands are liquidated.
If Congress cuts down the trees in the forest but we’re not there to see it, does it make a sound? The only way politicians can get away with this kind of highway robbery is if We the People either don’t notice or don’t do anything about it once we do. The issue deserves to be more than a sneaky line item tucked away in a big budget bill. It deserves a public debate. Let’s insist on one.
Julie Roland has deployed to the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating from the Navy in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She graduated law school from the University of San Diego, is currently pursuing a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is the director of the San Diego chapter of the Truman National Security Project.
