We Need to Invest in Families. Project 2025 Wants the Opposite.

Posted Dec. 5, 2024

I teach my children to be kind and respectful and not to judge others — we’re all in this life together. Yet families like ours are often stigmatized when we need assistance to make ends meet.

My husband and I work hard for our four boys. We live above the official federal poverty line, but we struggle. And if conservative groups succeed in implementing Project 2025 under the next Trump administration, we’ll struggle a lot harder.

We can’t keep going down the road of increasing inequality.

We live in a poor barrio in La Habra, California. While I work a full-time job at a nearby university, I don’t make a living wage. Our combined incomes keep us just above the threshold for most assistance programs, but we still can’t afford to move from our dangerous apartment building, get child care, or give our children all the opportunities they deserve.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition determined that we would need to make nearly $50 per hour to afford just a modest, market-rate two-bedroom apartment. And with four boys, we really need a three-bedroom apartment. This is out of reach for us and millions of Americans.

Still, some programs have been a big help to families like ours.

Our youngest, Diego, was born with autism. Thanks to Early Head Start, Head Start, and its special Transition to Kindergarten program, Diego will have more chances than disabled children did when I was growing up. But these programs would be eliminated by Project 2025 — just like the Child Tax Credit expansion conservatives eliminated during the pandemic.

When our tax dollars were used to expand the Child Tax Credit in 2021, for the first time we could afford to send our kids to enrichment programs like a summer day camp. And we had an easier time catching up on our utility bills, which air conditioning puts a lot of pressure on during the scorching hot summer. Most importantly, we had less stress and could be more present for our kids.

But that expansion was ended by conservatives on Capitol Hill who decided our kids didn’t deserve it anymore. Child poverty immediately shot up again.

At the same time, turf violence around our apartment block got worse. I fear for my kids’ safety. We’ve been on the waiting list for a safer apartment building for 13 years, which isn’t uncommon. Due to inadequate funding and supply, families nationwide have to wait years for federal housing vouchers.

We’re also anxious to move so Diego can get the Occupational Therapy he needs to eventually live independently. Studies show the earlier children get these services, the more effective they are for a lifetime. But the closest services are three cities away, and the commute is impossible for us.

This nation has the resources to make life less precarious, but it’s a question of priorities. Only 44 percent of Americans can weather a $1,000 emergency without borrowing money, but the safety net has been shrunk again and again so the wealthy and corporations can have more tax breaks.

If the architects of Project 2025 or other Trump advisors who vow to cut public programs get their way, life’s only going to get harder for working families like ours — all to fund more tax cuts for the wealthy people who need them the least.

We can’t keep going down the road of increasing inequality. Next year, tax cuts for the wealthy come up for renewal in Congress, so now’s the time to get our priorities straight and bring back the expanded Child Tax Credit.

Chloe Medina is a member of the Parents Advisory Board of the Automatic Benefits for Children Coalition. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.