The bill that Trump signed on July 4 is a beast from the pit and will dump extra requirements on state and local governments -- unless they, too, give in, hang their heads and let low-income workers fend completely for themselves. Some will do that; we feature here some who are not. Maryland is making its own moves, other states are also looking for ways to avoid housing market collapse, nutritional and health-care deficits and other human-rights abuses in many locations. The carnage in Texas floods, in which the National Weather Service's huge DOGE staff cuts may have contributed to lack of warning and preparedness, just amounts to the most jarring examples of what the cuts in this bill will do in order to fatten the tax benefits that the rich can send their platoons of lawyers out to reap. We hope this blog post will illustrate both the worst consequences and the most inventive responses of local governments and outraged working people to this devastating Trump assault. It is important now, as noted below, not to be fooled by the GOP timeline that puts off the worst damage until after the 2026 elections. The congressional jellyfish who knuckled under to Trump and voted for this casino-carnival of inequality have got to start paying the price today, and every day. Gear up.

Progressive Maryland and two of our chapters with residents in the first Congressional District, Shore Progress, and Progressive Harford County, issued the following joint statement after the House of Representatives passed the Republican budget bill, which slashes Medicaid, strips healthcare from millions, and transfers billions of our taxpayer dollars to the wealthiest people and corporations in America. 

Constituents flood Harris’s office with calls, emails, and social media action demanding he oppose harmful cuts

Harford County, Maryland – Progressive Maryland is publicly calling on Representative Andy Harris (MD-01) to vote no on the proposed federal budget bill that would slash funding for Medicaid and devastate access to healthcare for thousands of Marylanders.

Nationwide, the bill is projected to strip health coverage from 17 million Americans — including an estimated 31,000 people in Rep. Harris’s district alone, many of whom are children. The proposed cuts will hit especially hard in rural areas like Maryland’s First Congressional District, where healthcare access is already limited and costs are rising. If passed, the budget would strip over $4 billion in federal funding from Maryland, causing widespread harm to hospitals, providers, and patients across the state, regardless of where they live.

As July 4 approaches, MDOT offers guidelines on how to get to the beach with least traffic. But somehow the holiday is haunted by the threat posed by Congress (with Trump behind them like a Simon Legree, flogging those who stray from the coffle) as it approaches the biggest transfer of wealth from the working class to the already-rich in the history of the United States. Trump's "biggest ever" mantra is not limited to the recently dropped mega-bombs; the limited damage done to Iran's nuclear program ranks as nothing compared to the long-term damage to Americans' well-being brought on by Trump's high-velocity assault on the rights and constitutional protections previously afforded to us. As shown below, Republicans (opponents of bureaucracy) nevertheless "have turned paperwork into one of the bill’s crucial policy-making tools" to knock "people who are legitimate and qualified for Medicaid" off the rolls, enabling the big tax bonus for billionaires. Is it good to be the king? It is, apparently, if GOP members of Congress can be convinced that that's what you are.

In Maryland, the budget morphs with every twitch of Trump's Truth Social trigger finger (imagine announcing a war on social media...). More unemployed Marylanders, vanishing grants and federal funds, more irritating behavior from Himself's hired fan club. Meanwhile Gov. Moore has managed to put himself on a tightrope by vetoing a reparations (study) bill (Boo from the Black Caucus) and proposing grants for impacted communities (Boo, faint with echoes, from GOP legislators). The lawsuit seeking open primaries is a first peep but could have big consequences in the state' VERY closed-in politics. The Bay cleanup is in reverse, as feared, as Trump's EPA averts its gaze. And the state gas tax has "declined" but you have to squint. Other states continue to provide good and bad examples; the Ten Commandments are a popular new decoration for public schools but a judge in Louisiana has squashed it on constitution grounds, imagine that. Mississippi is tired enough of fighting off its own history to exempt high schoolers from getting tested on the past. Moves to say "no thanks" are on in Oregon, which has banned mobilization of the state's National Guard by the feds; in New Jersey concern about data centers that don't bring their own power source, and Montana mulls a ballot measure to forbid corporate money in state elections if the corp. does biz in the state.

National: in the midst of all the bomb-dropping in faraway places, a skill Trump has assimilated from the IDF, the Senate's parliamentarian has given a thumbs-down to significant parts of the GOP's Big Beautiful Ugly Bill that pretty plainly don't have anything to do with making a budget, such as revenge moves against the safety net. See Megan E's roundup, below, for details. The bad news is that it strips out money the GOP faithful were hoping to give to the rich; they'll be prowling for it somewhere else.

Each week brings new fights, which are very tiring when undertaken alone. Be sure to get your community involved, because solidarity is, well, just everything. 

While US Army soldiers paraded downtown in a history pageant illustrating the service's 250-year tenure (reviewed by the 79-year-old Prez, who basked in the reflected glory) Marylanders were declaring independence from kings of any sort throughout the state.

The reverberations of savage federal budget cuts are felt in the state's universities, in housing aid for the poorest, and continued ICE raids. Around the other states we find similar struggles among the Red and the Blue; quite a few Biden energy projects were scratched despite the economic potential they promised in... Red states. Measles spreads from Texas, where folks seem to have caught on about the effectiveness of vaccines, to North Dakota, which hasn't got the memo.

And in DC, while the House is away, the Senate appears inclined to play with the precariously devised Big Beautiful Bill, meaning it might be legislative ping-pong right up to the budget and debt-ceiling deadlines. Do the Dems have an answer? They retain the monopoly on disarray, it seems. The parade continues, with the cars packed with clowns up front.