Weekly Letter to Members and Recommended Actions for the Week of September 22, 2025

Dear Grandparents and Friends,

As always, there are so many horrors happening every day that it is hard to know what to do. Nonetheless, many national and local organizations fighting to preserve our democracy and decency are urging one important action this week:

CALL. YOUR SENATORS AND CONGRESSPERSONS AND TELL THEM TO VOTE AGAINST THE CONTINUING RESOLUTION  ON THE BUDGET UNLESS THEY GET REAL CONCESSIONS FROM THE REPUBLICANS.

Sixty votes are needed in the Senate to pass the Resolution. This is the one tool left to Senators to stop the Trump agenda. The Resolution has to be adopted by Sept. 30 to avoid a government shut-down .

A government shut-down is awful, but we are in awful times. Trump and his gang have already shut down or broken so much of the federal government, and will do much more damage if they continue to be enabled. 

Here is language you can use when you call, provided, with some edits by me, by https://5calls.org/

Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent from [CITY, ZIP]. I’m also a member of Grandparents Fight Back, a nationwide network of grandparents dedicated to restoring American democracy and decency.

I’m calling to urge [REP/SEN NAME] to oppose any federal budget deal that does not require the executive branch to end their budget rescissions and cuts,  their illegal tariffs, and the deployment of military personnel to American cities that is clearly intended to cow us all into submission to Trump’s will alone. 

This administration has repeatedly defied Congress’s authority and undertaken unconstitutional actions that have harmed countless Americans. They cannot be trusted with another blank check. They will certainly do much more harm if they get one.

[Here. you can skip to the last two paragraphs, or you can continue with the following list of some of the cuts to the budget that you want the Dems to insist be restored]

Among the hundreds of critical cuts or withholding of funds that Trump has made, and which you should insist are restored, I mention just a few:

$900 billion in Medicaid funding, predicted to eliminate health insurance for 7 million people, and hundreds of millions cut from other health-related programs, including to the Children’s Health Insurance Program

Billions of dollars in NIH research grants on critical health issues

Hundreds of millions for education programs, including a cut of $315 million in preschool development grants

Hundreds of millions for Community Development Block Grants, Community Services Block Grants  and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Programs

Hundreds of millions for funding for the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency, targeting climate and renewable energy research

$9 billion for approved programs for foreign aid and public broadcasting

This is not acceptable! Please fight back with the only tool you have! Restore these cuts and insist on assurances that the Administration will spend the money appropriated by Congress.

Thank you for your time and consideration. [For Dems: I appreciate all you are doing to oppose the Trump agenda; now we all need to take bigger risks to save our country and, perhaps, the whole world.]

If you want to see a chilling memo from the White House boasting about its cuts to “woke” programs, see  https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Cuts-to-Woke-Programs-Fact-Sheet.pdf

If you want to mention other specific budget cuts — and there are so many you can find a list at https://www.google.com/search?q=what+funding+has+trump+cut&oq=what+funding+has+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgAEAAYgAQyBwgAEAAYgAQyBwgBEAAYgAQyBggCEEUYOTIHCAMQABiABDIHCAQQABiABDIHCAUQABiABDIHCAYQABiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABNIBCDQ1NDNqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

One more thing: PLAN TO MARCH IN THE NEXT BIG PROTEST ON OCTOBER 18. LET’S HELP GET TO THAT 3.5% NUMBER! (THAT’S ABOUT 12 MILLION IN THE STREETS.)