The major strategy of the Trump administration is to create thick fogs obscuring harmful actions. In previous presidential administrations, any single misstep or major deviation from the norm typically caused an uproar. But in 2025, the current administration has managed to obscure unpopular actions by producing so many of them — what some call “flooding the zone.”
And, the President and his people aren’t stopping just because it’s summer and the rest of us would prefer to be relaxed instead of vigilant. This would be a mistake. It’s essential that right this moment we pay attention to harmful provisions beyond the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). As you read this, the Senate is considering a new set of horrors set to be passed before Senators take their own extended summer break.
Thanks to your calls to Congress, the OBBBA passed by the Senate is somewhat less horrible for higher education than the House version, although it’s worse in other ways, including deeper cuts to Medicaid, which also affects students. But low-income undergraduates will still remain eligible for federal aid up to $7,395, a Pell grant amount that the House bill had substantially cut.
The legislation still does considerable damage to higher education, especially to students. Graduate students will experience particular losses in eligibility for funding. For undergraduates, the chosen method for cutting funds is to add layers of complication, and the OBBBA imposes a tangle of red tape on every possible benefit.
OBBBA is also confusing. The Department of Education now has fewer employees because of freezes and impending cuts. Calls and emails are not being answered, as this Baby Huey of a law sows chaos everywhere. University financial aid officers are already being deluged with questions just at a time when most higher education institutions are obligated to reduce staff to make up for funds that the Trump administration has cut, withheld or frozen.
The Medicaid reductions will affect 3.4 million U.S. students. Those cuts won’t go into effect until after the 2026 midterm elections (wonder why!), but they must be planned for.
It could have been worse
Still, citizen action had some positive effects.
The OBBBA was passed under rules pertaining to what is called “reconciliation,” bypassing the filibuster guardrail in the Senate with only a simple majority necessary for passage. Everything in the bill must be budget-related and pertain to fixed government costs like Social Security, Medicaid, etc. It was up to the Senate Parliamentarian to monitor the reconciliation rules, and she did in fact disallow some of the provisions the administration tried to sneak through.
If you thought your monitoring of a sneaky Congress was over, think again. Reconciliation may be complete, but now we must pay attention to rescissions. (We even have to pay close attention to how the word is spelled!) Before July 18, Senators will be reviewing discretionary spending in the FY25 budget — that’s the budget the federal government has been operating under now. But, as you recall, Trump has issued executive orders to withhold funds already appropriated by Congress for FY25.
Under rules established by the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA), Congress must consider these cuts to existing programs and affirm or reject them with a simple majority. That means again no filibuster protection in the majority-Republican Senate. In June, the Rescissions Act of 2025 passed the House, cutting approximately $9.4 billion in unobligated funds affecting global health programs, public TV and radio, USAID, higher education, and more.
Urge Pennsylvania Senators to fight devastating cuts in the Rescissions Bill
Fighting all the rescissions is the right thing to do, since these are cuts in funds that Congress appropriated and that agencies have been spending or at least counting on. But in the spirit of realism, I’m urging our Senators to fight the provisions most harmful to sustaining the ideal of an educated electorate. Trump has singled out cutting $1.1 billion from public media as “very important” to him and has threatened to withhold endorsements from Republican Senators who don’t go along with decimating PBS and NPR, often the one source of evidence-based news available in small towns and rural communities but important to us in the city, too.
Trump has also particularly targeted funds for the Library of Congress, which preserves original documents, so essential to the unbiased study of American history.
Mammoth cuts to the Department of Education are also scheduled. I urge Senators Fetterman and McCormick to be particularly vigilant about TRIO funding, which provides mentoring, tutoring, and other services to low-income and first-generation students. A helping hand can make all the difference.
It takes only three Republican Senators to save these programs. Senator McCormick, I’m looking at you! Amendments approved by the Senate would have to go back to the House for approval by July 18, or the Congress would be required to spend the appropriated money on the targeted programs.
It can actually work for Republican senators to hold out. We saw that with Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska on the OBBBA. Before she agreed to vote yes on the overall bill, she carved out protections for Alaskan rural communities and whalers. It doesn’t make me happy to urge our PA Senators to get stuff for PA rather than for the whole nation. But if that’s the only game in town, then please play it. The better option would be for Republican Senators, many of whom do not want to lose NPR and PBS for their states, to band together and preserve the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for all.
And Senator Fetterman, although you are a Democrat and planning (I hope) to vote against all the rescissions, please use your influence with Senator McCormick and with other Senators to protect constituents. At the very least, do not go quiet into that not so good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
If you were thinking we could rest after July 18, please think again. When Congress returns from the August recess, they will be working on appropriations for FY26, with an October 1 deadline to avert a government shutdown.
Our founders wrote a Constitution based on an educated, informed electorate, even during summer vacation. Over the weekend, I saw so little coverage on the threat of rescissions that I started checking my higher ed sources to ensure accuracy. Please make some noise. Our founders also assumed a balance of powers. We do not have that now. Please communicate daily with elected officials to urge them to do their jobs and restore Constitutional order.
Elaine Maimon, Ph.D., is the author of Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation. Her long career in higher education has encompassed top executive positions at public universities as well as distinction as a scholar in rhetoric/composition. Her co-authored book, Writing In The Arts and Sciences, has been designated as a landmark text. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum.
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