Democratic Action Network LBI

• • Gretchen Gahrke – monitors federal websites with the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative
  • • National climate assessments were one of the best tools that demonstrated how climate change will affect the places that people care about.  
    • These reports were also used by a wide variety of stakeholder – policy makers, farmers, businesses to guide future decisions.  
    • If you suppress info and data, you no longer have the evidence to create or strengthen regulations 
    • Continuation of the Administration pulling funding to offset climate disasters including 
    • • $4M in funding from a Princeton program to improve computer models predicting changes in the oceans and atmosphere
      • NOAA ended its 45-year tradition of tracking billion-dollar weather disasters
      • Trump also plans to shut down the Mauna Loa Lab in Hawaii which has measures the steady rise in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide 

Impacts of additional deregulation for climate controls – flooding, lack of preparation for storms……

Long Beach Island (LBI), along with other Jersey Shore towns like Avalon, Stone Harbor, Ocean City, and more, is not receiving federal beach replenishment funding for federal fiscal year 2025, the first time in nearly three decades that Jersey Shore towns have had zero federal support for these projects.

Key Facts:

• Thanks to the Republican led Federal Appropriations Legislation $0 Federal dollars allocated in 2025 for beach nourishment along the Jersey Shore, including LBI.
• Historically, Congress allocated $100million to $200million annually, with NJ Shore projects regularly supported in that range.
• The House Appropriations Committee has proposed continuing major cuts, approving just ~$60million for FY2026, far below past levels.

• • America has never seen corruption like this – The Atlantic
  • • Trumps Qatari jet was just the beginning – estimated costs to refurbish range from $400M to over $1B
    • Shaking down news networks, law firms, universities
    • Peddling Trump phones, perfumes, meme coins, Trump backed crypto
    • Gutted institutions and independent boards that went after white criminal networks, task forces that investigated kleptocracy, public prosecutors that chased public corruption and regulations that targeted transnational money laundering
    • Foreign countries working to open Trump resorts  – In the UAE, India, Vietnam, Qatar, Saudi Arabia - Full List of Trump's Foreign Real Estate Ventures Underway Around the World - Newsweek
    • Trump granted foreign powers permission to directly bankroll US politicians  by his tactic permission – The Atlantic.              

• • Underneath the attacks on the poor and the working class, it is packed to the gill with handouts to the ultra-rich, boons to special interest groups, and checkbox provision for corporations and lobbyists. 
  • • It makes private jets tax deductible
    • It caps student loans – will price out lower income students
    • It further limits drug-pricing negotiations by big Pharma by Medicare
    • It places a moratorium on nursing home staffing standards
    • It institutionalized DOGE-esque “government efficiency” – puts $100M for finding budget & accounting efficiencies from OMB which is headed up by Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025.  He was also put in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which he has been dismantling from the inside out
    • It puts money toward getting rid of the IRS free filing program
    • It gives oil drillers a greasy deal – mandate to resume and accelerate oil & gas leasing – both offshore and on land, includes a sweetheart tax deal for oil drillers, allowing them to use deductions to wipe out what’s supposed to be a must-pay corp tax
    • Ted Cruz inserted language that eliminates a $150M fund to accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments and dissemination of info to the public about weather forecasting.  Anticipate more weather disasters that we are not prepared for.  
    • • As floods hit, Key Roles were vacant at Texas weather station offices
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• • To help fund the Billionaire BBB – the expected premiums for the health exchanges are anticipated to go up 75% on average as the expiring tax credits will not be renewed.  
  • ICE will have more cops than the FBI, more jails than the Federal Bureau of prisons and a larger budget than most countries’ militaries.  Once the bill is fully implemented, no where in America will be safe from Trumps secret police state
  • • Many examples of people who have committed no crimes being detained for purposes of numbers:
    • Childcare worker Nicolle Orozco Forero was a qualified person working with children with disabilities from Columbia.  Fled Columbia two years ago since her husband was targeted by gangs.  Had a routine meeting with ICE in Seattle.  One of her sons is being treated for kidney issues in Seattle.  They have been deported and have also left many families who relied on her care for their disabled children without support
  • It takes more than $1T out of Medicaid, leaving about 12M Americans without insurance by 2034 and slashes Food Stamps, all to give a giant tax cut to the wealthy
  • It will increase the already-bloated deficit by $3.4 trillion
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Healthcare  - NJ’s 2^nd District

This bill threatens health coverage for thousands in our district—putting 16,294 people at risk of losing Medicaid, stripping Affordable Care Act coverage from an estimated 14,000 more, and endangering care for over 82,000 children and 17,000 seniors who rely on these programs.

These impacts are for all of us, whether you are on Medicaid or not.  

• Drives up loss of affordable preventable treatment
• Increases uncompensated costs for hospitals – longer wait times, even risking closures
• Rural hospitals in NJ-2 are already on razor-thin margins – impacting Inspira Bridgeton and Cape Regional which rely heavily on their large share of Medicaid patients.  Salem Medical Center is already at a risk of closure.