May 23, 2025  ATLANTA, GA — Kindred Futures strongly opposes the 2025 budget reconciliation bill passed by the House this week, calling it a sweeping and dangerous rollback of federal support for Black families, children, and wealth-building infrastructure—especially in communities already bearing the weight of systemic disinvestment across the Deep South.  

The budget slashes $2 trillion from core safety net programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and education funding while delivering more than $4.5 trillion in tax cuts overwhelmingly skewed to the wealthiest Americans. These changes threaten to undo decades of hard-won progress in strengthening the social safety net and further destabilize already underinvested Southern communities. Moreover, this budget is built on lies that the safety net discourages work, that tax cuts for the rich bolster economic opportunity, and that families with low incomes need more red tape, not more support, despite evidence proving the opposite. 

“This isn’t a budget—it’s a blueprint for exclusion,” said Dr. Janelle Williams, CEO and co-founder of Kindred Futures. “It drains resources from the very families and communities who’ve been shut out of wealth gains for generations. It’s a direct attack on Black children, workers, and rural communities across the South.” 

Key Harms to Black Wealth-Building Include: 

• Medicaid Cuts will force closures of rural hospitals and reduce access to maternal care and preventive health services. Black families in our southern states that didn’t expand Medicaid will be hit hardest. 

• SNAP Reductions will cut food assistance to millions of Black families, especially in high-poverty states with historically weak safety nets. 

• Education Restrictions will make Pell Grants harder to access, limiting higher education pathways for Black youth and reinforcing intergenerational poverty. 

• Child Tax Credit Changes exclude 20 million children from full benefits—nearly half of all Black children—while families earning $400,000 and more get the full credit increase. 

• “Trump Accounts,” renamed from “MAGA Accounts,” offer symbolic savings accounts for newborns during a narrow eligibility window—while providing zero relief for the wealth-building barriers Black families disproportionately face today. 

“This budget reflects a dangerous refusal to learn from history,” said Dr. Alex Camardelle, Vice President of Policy and Research at Kindred Futures. “It revives failed policy ideas that deepen hardship, especially for Black families and communities already denied fair investment. This is not just policy neglect—it’s targeted abandonment.” 

We need a new policy direction rooted in shared prosperity and evidence—not austerity. We demand a future where public policy protects Black life, supports working families, and builds real pathways to intergenerational wealth.