Issue: Budgets

U.S. House budget bill would hammer struggling Alabama families

By Chris Sanders

The U.S. House voted 215-214 Thursday for a budget bill that would make basic needs like food and health care more expensive for millions of families through severe cuts to food assistance, Medicaid and other human services. These funding cuts would finance efforts to renew or expand tax cuts for wealthy people and highly profitable corporations.

Alabama Arise executive director Robyn Hyden issued the following statement Friday in response:

“It’s wrong to hurt people who are struggling to help people who are already doing well. But the U.S. House just voted for a budget bill that would do exactly that.

“This cruel budget plan would take away food assistance, health coverage and other vital services from hundreds of thousands of Alabamians who struggle to afford basic needs. And it would make those cuts in service of slashing taxes for billionaires and highly profitable corporations. The bill’s $1.1 trillion of cuts to food assistance and health care over the next decade would be equal to the amount of tax breaks it would provide for the wealthiest 2% of households.

Text at the top: Alabama Arise news release: U.S. House budget bill would hammer struggling Alabama families. In the image below, a mother looks at a long receipt in the foreground. In the background, a father opens grocery bags on a kitchen table while their two young children stand to either side of him.

Threats to nutrition, health care

“Alabama likely would feel the worst effects from cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP benefits have been fully federally funded for decades, but this bill would change that. As a result of this cost shift to states, Alabama would be on the hook to pay nearly $300 million a year in direct benefits and additional administrative costs.

“There is real reason to worry that the Legislature can’t or wouldn’t provide this additional funding. In that case, Alabama would be forced to cut SNAP benefits significantly – or even eliminate the program altogether for nearly 800,000 participants statewide. These cuts would send hunger soaring and devastate the economy in local communities across Alabama.

“The House bill also would make health care inaccessible or less affordable for hundreds of thousands of Alabamians. It would allow enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire, increasing premium costs for marketplace plans. It also would take away the additional federal incentives for the first two years of Medicaid expansion that Alabama left on the table, increasing the chances that hundreds of thousands of our neighbors will remain stuck in the health coverage gap with no options to afford life-saving care.

“The Senate should put the future and well-being of all of us ahead of tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected. That means rejecting the House bill’s harmful service cuts for working people and tax giveaways to wealthy households. Our senators should focus instead on building an economy that works for everyone in Alabama and across our country.”

More resources

Read the February letter from Alabama Arise and 111 partner organizations urging Alabama’s congressional delegation to oppose harmful cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

Read the January letter from Alabama Arise and 55 partner organizations urging Alabama’s congressional delegation to oppose further tax cuts for wealthy people.

Arise legislative update: Week of April 28, 2025

By Alabama Arise

With just five meeting days in Alabama Legislature’s 2025 regular session, Arise’s Robyn Hyden highlights one major issue left on the to-do list: further reducing the state sales tax on groceries. HB 386 has passed the House and needs to move to the Senate floor.

We need your help to get this crucial legislation across the finish line. Contact your senator today!

Full transcript:

Hey y’all, Robyn here from Alabama Arise. Thank you so much for your advocacy and hard work this legislative session. Thanks to your support Arise has made some critical wins for working families.

But we have one major issue on our to-do list that we need your help in the final five days of the legislative session. Please reach out to your Alabama senator and ask them to once again cut the grocery tax.

The bill number is HB 386. It has passed the House, we’d like to cut the grocery tax by one more cent this year. So call your senator, let them know they’ve only got 5 days left to act. We need to see this bill come out of committee and get to the Senate floor.

Thank you so much for your support, thanks for helping make life a little bit easier for Alabama’s workers and low-income families. Have a great week.

Arise legislative update: Week of April 14, 2025

By Alabama Arise

Arise’s David Stout breaks down the dangers of legislative proposals to expand the CHOOSE Act. This 2024 law will divert hundreds of millions of public dollars away from Alabama’s public schools and toward private schools and homeschooling in the coming years. David highlights why further increasing that amount would be bad for Alabama’s public school students and considers some better ways that lawmakers could use the funding to improve life across our state.

David also shares some good news: Legislation ensuring Medicaid presumptive eligibility for pregnant women with low incomes has passed the Legislature and now awaits the governor’s signature. Thank you to everyone who made their voices heard in supporting the health of Alabama mothers and families!

Full transcript:

Hello, I’m David Stout, the legislative director for Alabama Arise, and I just want to briefly touch on a bad thing that’s happening in the Legislature. That’s continuing a bad policy, and it’s called the CHOOSE Act.

A lot of people don’t hear about this. They hear about it in positive terms, but what the CHOOSE Act does is divert literally hundreds of millions of dollars away from public schools to pay for private vouchers for people who already have children in private school. What that means is less money in the rural areas for public schools, less money for schools with a lot of poverty issues, and less money for public schools in general.

This year, there’s an additional $35 million to $40 million being put into that effort to divert money from public schools to private schools.

I like to think about an analogy. Think if you were sitting and your children were going to a public pool. It was regulated, it had the right chemicals in it, lifeguards taking care. But I didn’t like that — I wanted my own pool in my backyard. So what I would do then, to compare it to the CHOOSE Act, is I would go and get public money to build a private pool in my backyard that was unregulated and only for the people I wanted — or no people at all, except my children.

It is bad public policy to spend public money on private enterprise in that fashion. The money could have gone to the RAISE Act, which has been introduced and would put more money into schools with poverty, more money into schools with children needing English learning abilities, and more schools even for gifted students.

So there’s different ways to spend money. It’s all about how the Legislature spends it. We could have spent it to reduce the tax on groceries. There are all sorts of ways, other than to divert public money to people who send their children to private school.

Now, that’s bad news. On the good news front, our bill that we fought so hard for — presumptive eligibility — did pass the Legislature and is in the governor’s hands to sign into law.

Hope you stay tuned in. Go to the Arise website and stay informed. Thank you.

Arise legislative update: Week of April 7, 2025

By Alabama Arise

Arise’s Carol Gundlach highlights a significant win from the 2025 legislative session: the enactment of paid parental leave for teachers and state employees, a top priority for Alabama Arise. This legislation represents a major advancement for parental and infant health.

Arise also continued to oppose harmful proposals last week, including junk health plans and bills that would impose barriers to Medicaid coverage and SNAP food assistance. Carol discusses how these state-level efforts are unfolding amid ongoing federal funding threats to these essential services.

Get updates and action alerts by signing up for our email list at alarise.org and following us on all of our social media platforms!

Full transcript:

Hello, this is Carol Gundlach, senior policy analyst at Alabama Arise. Last week was a really hectic week at the Alabama Legislature, and we expect a similarly busy week this coming week.

The good news is that the paid parental leave bill, a top Alabama Arise priority, was passed by the Legislature last week and signed by the governor. This was a major victory for parental and newborn health, a model for other Southern states on workers’ rights. So we are very proud to have gotten this bill passed.

We also spent a lot of time last week speaking against some very bad bills at the Alabama Legislature. This included a junk insurance bill that was considered by the House Health Committee and two bills that would have placed administrative barriers on access to health care and food assistance for people receiving Medicaid and SNAP food stamp benefits.

This week, we’re expecting the education budget to be considered. That would include an expected major reform in how Alabama funds education for our most at-risk students. We are also, of course, working hard to make sure that schools that want to offer universal free breakfast for their students can afford to do so. And we are seeking funding to make this happen.

All of these efforts are, of course, happening in the context of federal concerns, particularly around funding and budgets for essential programs like Medicaid, food assistance, school meals and many more federal programs that are at risk for cuts, and that will make our work here in Alabama even harder.

Please check into our Alabama Arise website for both state and federal budget updates, and keep an eye on your emails for action updates. We need to work together now more than ever, so if you are not an Alabama Arise member, please join us. If you are an Alabama Arise member, please do everything you can to help advocate for essential programs at the state and federal level for our people and our members.

Thank you so much, and we’ll talk to you next week.

VIDEO: Alabama Arise Action Legislative Day 2025

By Matt Okarmus

Arise held its 2025 Legislative Day on Thursday, March 20. More than 200 supporters from across Alabama joined us in Montgomery to urge their lawmakers to continue to untax groceries and to support a plan to allow every public school in our state to provide no-cost school breakfast to all students. Our supporters also were excited to celebrate the final passage of legislation to provide paid parental leave to teachers and state employees.

Watch this video for snapshots of the event and for highlights from our news conference on untaxing groceries. Thank you to everyone who spoke out for a better Alabama for all!

Arise legislative update: Week of March 31, 2025

By Alabama Arise

With a little less than half of the Alabama Legislature’s 2025 regular session remaining, Arise’s David Stout breaks down what to expect in the weeks ahead. The General Fund and Education Trust Fund budgets both will begin moving soon. Arise is working to ensure the education budget includes funding to allow every public school to choose to provide no-cost school breakfast for every student.

Arise will keep advocating to reduce the state sales tax on groceries again this year. We’re also hopeful for continued progress on bills to improve maternal health and reform Alabama’s criminal justice system. And we are opposing bills that would authorize junk health plans and harm immigrant communities and their families.

Follow our updates by signing up for our email list at alarise.org and following us on all of our social media platforms!

Full transcript:

Hello, I’m David Stout, legislative director for Alabama Arise, with a look forward to the last 14 days of this legislative session.

Most importantly are the two budgets. The General Fund budget, which will allocate over $3 billion, and the Education Trust Fund budget, which will allocate over $9 billion, will be moving in the last days of the session. Arise has been working hard to include in the Education Trust Fund budget monies to incentivize all schools to provide breakfast for every student.

Very important in the Education Trust Fund budget is a bill that reduces the grocery tax by another cent. This has been a longtime objective of Arise. It is now in the Senate awaiting action.

There are several criminal justice and parole bills that have a chance of passing. A couple of the criminal justice bills deal with resentencing, which is progressive and will allow some inmates to be paroled early. Secondly, there are bills to provide oversight to the parole board, which is much needed. Also, for the first time, there is a bill moving that allows virtual hearings, meaning that a person or an inmate who is eligible for parole will be able to present directly, virtually, to the parole board.

There are a couple of Medicaid bills moving forward that are very important for maternal health. One will provide care early in pregnancy for a Medicaid-eligible mother, and another will provide drugs and care for mothers who suffer from postpartum depression.

And of course, there are always controversial bills that we will be monitoring and perhaps working against. One is the so-called Alfa insurance plan, which is not insurance at all. It does not provide oversight for the programs, nor does it cover preexisting conditions. Secondly, immigration bills continue to hang around, which can be punitive and certainly disruptive in Alabama.

Lastly, there are two Medicaid- and SNAP-related bills under consideration that would severely restrict the allocation of those benefits to the elderly, children, and those with disabilities.

It’s important to stay informed in the last 14 days of the session. It’s also important that you continue your membership or join. It is through contributions and membership that Arise is able to continue working on bills that will benefit all Alabamians.

Thank you.

Arise legislative update: Week of March 24, 2025

By Alabama Arise

Arise’s Dev Wakeley provides updates from the first half of the Alabama Legislature’s 2025 regular session as lawmakers are on spring break this week.

In good news, lawmakers passed a paid parental leave bill on Thursday! SB 199 will introduce paid leave for new parents who work as teachers or state employees. The bill now goes to the governor for her signature. We also saw important progress on untaxing groceries last week as the House voted 103-0 for HB 386. This bill would reduce the state sales tax on groceries from 3% to 2%, building on the momentum of the 1-cent reduction that Arise members’ advocacy helped secure in 2023.

Dev also warns that SB 84, which would authorize junk health plans, remains alive at the State House. We need to continue to oppose this bill and advocate instead for Medicaid expansion as a real solution to close Alabama’s coverage gap.

Full transcript:

Hi, I’m Dev Wakeley, Alabama Arise’s worker policy advocate, here with this week’s legislative update.

We got big news this week as more than 200 Arise members got together at the State House to advocate for positive policy change that benefits people who have the least resources in the state. We spoke with legislators all across the state about good bills that we want to see pass and bad bills that we want to stop. And we made some significant progress.

The biggest news from the past week was the passage of HB 327 and SB 199, which are the companion bills that will provide paid parental leave for state employees, for teachers in Alabama’s high schools, and for two-year college employees. These bills are sponsored by Rep. Ginny Shaver in the House and by Sen. Vivian Figures in the Senate, respectively.

This is a first-in-class bill throughout the South. It provides eight weeks of paid leave for mothers and two weeks of paid leave for fathers. It’s available for childbirth, for adoption of a child under the age of 3, and, unfortunately, in cases of miscarriage or stillbirth as well. This is the best in the South by far. It’s a great bill, and we’re really excited to see this pass.

We are going to see it signed by Gov. Kay Ivey. This is one of her legislative priorities, and this is a bill that Arise has been advocating for over a year now. Great to see that pass.

In other developments, we also saw a bill to knock another cent off the state portion of the grocery tax pass out of the House entirely. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Danny Garrett. It’s a great bill. Groceries shouldn’t be taxed, and we love to see this bill moving forward. We hope to see full passage of it.

In unfortunate developments, we’re seeing some movement by a junk health plan that will do nothing to benefit Alabamians and, in fact, will make real change via full comprehensive Medicaid expansion more difficult. That bill, SB 84, is something we’re hoping to stop. We had hundreds of our members speak with their legislators about the need to engage in real change and not allow corporations to paper over the health care problems that Alabamians are facing.

To know a little more about what we’re doing on a regular basis, please follow us on social media. Visit our website, and you too can become an Arise member and advocate for positive change in Alabama.

We’re going to keep working, and we’re going to see more wins just like the ones we saw this past week.

Thanks. I appreciate your time. See you soon.

Arise legislative update: Week of March 17, 2025

By Alabama Arise

Arise’s LaTrell Clifford Wood provides an exciting update about our progress on untaxing groceries in Alabama. LaTrell highlights HB 386 by Rep. Danny Garrett, which would reduce Alabama’s state sales tax on groceries from 3% to 2%, saving families an estimated $122 million annually. Thanks to the efforts of Garrett and the Joint Study Commission on Grocery Taxation, we are optimistic about further progress this year.

HB 386 will be up for a vote on the House floor on Tuesday, March 18. Stay tuned for updates, and join us for Arise Legislative Day on Thursday, March 20, at the State House in Montgomery as we continue advocating to untax groceries in Alabama!

Full transcript:

Hi, everybody. My name is LaTrell Clifford Wood, and I’m our hunger policy advocate here at Alabama Arise. Now, I’m sometimes endearingly known as the “Food Lady.” In my role, I sit on the Joint Study Commission for Grocery Taxation, so I’m here today to talk to you all about untaxing groceries.

Untaxing groceries is an issue that Arise and our membership have been working on since the ’90s. Now, Rep. Danny Garrett has introduced a tax package, including HB 386, that further reduces the grocery tax. HB 386 would reduce the grocery tax from 3% to 2% and save Alabama families about $122 million annually.

We are so grateful to Rep. Garrett, who has spearheaded this legislation this session, as well as those who are on the Joint Study Commission for Grocery Taxation, including Rep. Penni McClammy and Sen. Andrew Jones. Their efforts and my own were preceded by former Arise employees and legislators, including Rep. John Knight, current Sen. Merika Coleman, as well as Akiesha Anderson, who preceded me on the Joint Study Commission on Grocery Taxation.

Our members’ advocacy over many years has gotten results on this issue in 2023, and we look forward to and are optimistic that we’ll get more results this year.

Now, where are these bills going from here? Where is HB 386 going from here? The bill will be on the House floor Tuesday, March 18, and we look forward to updating our membership more during Legislative Day on Thursday, March 20. See you at the State House!

Maternal health, paid leave are early highlights in Alabama’s 2025 legislative session

By Carol Gundlach

Alabama Arise is advocating successfully to advance several good bills early in the Legislature’s 2025 regular session. Our members are speaking out and getting results on maternal health care access, paid parental leave and other issues.

The session began Feb. 4 and likely will end in mid-May. Here is an overview of Arise’s advocacy at the State House this year.

Maternal and infant health care

Both the House and Senate have voted overwhelmingly for legislation to improve Medicaid access for pregnant women. HB 89 by Rep. Marilyn Lands, D-Huntsville, and SB 102 by Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, would use a process known as presumptive eligibility to streamline Medicaid enrollment for eligible women, allowing them to get health care earlier in their pregnancies.

We also have seen early momentum for bipartisan bills to ensure paid parental leave for teachers and state employees. HB 327 by Rep. Ginny Shavers, R-Leesburg, and SB 199 by Sen. Vivian Figures, D-Mobile, would provide eight weeks of paid leave for mothers and two weeks for fathers. The leave would apply to childbirth, adoption or miscarriage. Gov. Kay Ivey prioritized this policy in her State of the State address, and Arise strongly supports it.

Arise also supports bills to allow nursing mothers an exemption from jury duty and to improve Medicaid coverage for mothers facing postpartum depression. We back legislation to allow some women convicted of crimes to serve supervised probation during and immediately after pregnancy. And we support requiring employers to allow breaks for nursing mothers to express breast milk.

Adequate state budgets and public transportation

Medicaid expansion would help make health coverage affordable for all Alabamians, and it remains a top Arise budget priority. (See page 3.) We also oppose legislation to authorize junk health plans that could deny coverage for people with preexisting conditions. And we oppose federal efforts to slash Medicaid and food assistance to fund tax breaks for wealthy households. (See page 1.)

Arise is advocating for state funding to allow all public schools to provide universal free breakfast to every student if they choose. We are seeking to ensure ongoing support for Summer EBT benefits for more than 500,000 Alabama children, which our members’ advocacy secured last year. And we are working with other advocates to reform Alabama’s school funding formula, ensuring equitable public education for all students.

Arise was instrumental in creating state trust funds for public transportation and affordable housing. We are working with legislators on multiple possibilities to support these services.

Reforming Alabama’s upside-down tax system

Alabama reduced its state sales tax on groceries from 4% to 3% in 2023. Reducing the grocery tax further and ultimately eliminating it remains an important Arise goal. This may require amending the original legislation to phase in the next reduction sooner.

Arise supports good bills to end the state sales tax on infant formula, diapers and women’s hygiene needs. And we are closely monitoring the CHOOSE Act’s impact on education funding. Arise opposed the 2024 law, which will divert at least $100 million annually away from public schools and toward private schools and homeschooling.

Voting rights, criminal justice reform and death penalty reform

Voting is a fundamental way for people to make their voices heard. Arise opposes efforts to make it harder for people to exercise their right to vote. We support legislation to allow early voting, reduce barriers to absentee voting, and remove barriers to voting rights restoration for disenfranchised Alabamians.

Reforming criminal justice policies, including the death penalty, has been an Arise priority for many years. We are working to pass legislation improving the state’s broken parole system. We also back efforts to apply Alabama’s ban on judicial overrides of jury sentencing decisions in capital cases retroactively.

A man stands at a podium speaking to lawmakers who are seated.
Arise worker policy advocate Dev Wakeley testifies Feb. 6 against HB 29, a bill that would make it harder for workers to claim unemployment insurance benefits. (Photo by Robyn Hyden)

Workers’ rights and racial justice

Arise is committed to supporting safe workplaces and workers’ rights to organize. We support legislation allowing Alabama to recapture tax incentives from companies that violate child labor laws. We also support a bill to end state restrictions on local minimum wage increases. And we oppose legislation making it harder for people to receive unemployment insurance benefits after they lose their job.

The 2024 federal election has influenced state legislative priorities. Numerous state bills are targeting people without immigration documents and attacking efforts to advance racial equity and inclusion. Arise stands with our partners and friends in opposition to harmful bills in these areas.

Federal Medicaid, SNAP threats imperil Alabamians

By Chris Sanders

Lawmakers should not hurt people who are struggling to help people who are already doing well. But Congress is considering cuts to health coverage, food assistance and other human services that would do exactly that. These proposals would increase hunger and hardship for hundreds of thousands of Alabamians.

The U.S. House last month approved a budget resolution that could set the stage for more than $1 trillion of cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over the next decade. Congressional leaders are weighing these cuts to offset the cost of renewing huge tax breaks for wealthy people. Among those breaks are higher estate tax exemptions and a cut to the top marginal income tax rate.

The contrast is stark. The amount of potential Medicaid and SNAP cuts in the House resolution would be roughly equal to the cost of extending tax breaks for just the wealthiest 1% of households, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) found.

These funding cuts would increase suffering across Alabama. As many as 1 in 5 Alabamians enrolled in Medicaid could lose coverage due to cuts or work reporting requirements, CBPP estimated. Many other people could see SNAP assistance reduced or eliminated. Other potential targets include school meals, student loan assistance and tax credits for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

“Our lawmakers should reject harmful service cuts for working people and tax giveaways to wealthy households,” Alabama Arise executive director Robyn Hyden said. “They should focus instead on building an economy that works for everyone in Alabama and across our country.”

Arise is speaking out against harmful cuts

The proposed cuts are not a done deal. The House and Senate still must agree on an identical budget resolution. After that, lawmakers would have to identify specific cuts to meet the resolution’s numerical targets. Then the House and Senate would have to pass budget legislation to enact those cuts.

Arise and our partners have spoken out repeatedly against these harmful proposals. We joined 55 other groups in January to urge Alabama’s congressional delegation to reject additional tax breaks for wealthy households. The joint letter asked Congress to provide tax reductions for working families instead by expanding the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit. Arise also joined 111 groups in February in another letter urging Alabama’s delegation to reject cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

Read the January letter here and the February letter here.

Arise and our members will continue opposing service cuts that would hurt families who struggle to make ends meet. As we wrote to Congress in January: “Americans want you to meet the moment and put the future and well-being of all of us ahead of tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected.”