As Texas copes with one of its worst flooding tragedies in recent years and the U.S. Supreme Court in a split decision clears the way for the Trump Administration to cut federal agencies as it sees fit, all states are facing a future with less federal funding from critical services like FEMA. But reductions in FEMA funding is just the tip of the iceberg. Ongoing cuts to basic services that provide enough food (SNAP benefits) for those in need, huge cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, and cuts to various facets of our local schools will cause daily hardships to millions of Americans.

The Republican line of folly is that states are better at managing aid to their citizens so let them do it.

The reality is more complex. While most agree states are better equipped to distribute the aid in appropriate ways when needed, the huge caveat is being able to provide the aid in the first place.

In Trump’s world, the states must raise the aid as well, while his vision of the federal government is one that cuts funds to the states, while reducing taxes on individuals with the richest benefitting the most. In his big, bad bill, the wealthiest few will receive trillions of dollars in tax benefits over the next decade, while Americans in need of assistance — from food subsidies to health care expenses to social security to disaster assistance — will shoulder more of the burden or do without. (And this is not to disparage those who have been successful, many of whom give generously to a great many funds that benefit their states and communities and who didn’t ask for the tax breaks in the first place. It’s a policy choice by Trump because he benefits from it and he’ll tie the GOP to the fateful debts the nation will incur because of it.)

The impacts are huge. Locally, estimates are that 45,000 Vermonters will lose health care and 13,000 would lose food assistance in the first year. And the governor’s office recently announced it was working on an impact statement to inform Vermonters how much more they’ll have to cough up (pay in taxes) to cover the cuts in federal funds or do without. Expect it to be a long list as small states typically benefit more from federal funds than larger states.

But even in large states, the facts are glaringly obvious: FEMA’s workforce has been cut 20% since Trump took over on Jan. 20, 2025; three key players on the FEMA management team that would have responded to the flash flooding in the Austin-San Antonio area had left their jobs and FEMA had not replaced them; those in the local/state disaster response teams cited the lack of earlier communication as one of the reasons the tragedy unfolded at the girls’ Christian camp as it did and why over 150 people throughout the area are dead or remain missing.

Policy makes a difference.

When the Trump administration cuts the workforce out of an emergency preparedness agency citing waste and fraud — based on their own unfounded biases with no evidence to back it up — bad outcomes should be expected. It was an asinine decision, just as Trump’s decision to cut food assistance funds is “asinine,” according to Vermont Sen. Peter Welch in a front-page story in today’s Addison Independent. And it’s appropriate to call things what they are in the most straightforward language possible.

Americans might also note that Trump and his team have now backtracked on several significant fronts since Inauguration Day. The DOGE cuts are being criticized as excessive and the Trump team is trying to rehire critical staff to several agencies after having offered severance packages to the early takers (at a net loss to taxpayers); Trump has caved on more tariff deals than he’s made and his few successes are overblown; his boasts that he would solve the war in Gaza and Ukraine on “day one” have turned into a humanitarian nightmare in Gaza, created increasingly long-term hostilities in Iran, while his bromance with Russia’s Vladimir Putin has flip-flopped — realizing his so-called “buddy” whom he had once so greatly “admired” is a mean-spirited, double-crossing, greedy thug, after all.

In short, Trump’s shoot-from-the-mouth, don’t-over-think-it strategy that relies on his critically flawed “gut instincts” has misfired time after time while producing bad policy with poor — sometimes tragic — outcomes.

Expect more poor outcomes to follow. That’s because the big, bad bill is chock full of bad policy. Not that it’s all bad, but most of it hurts the average American, wrecks America’s image on the world stage, while benefitting a select few at the expense of others.

Trump’s myopic attack on renewable energy projects in favor of supporting the fossil fuel industry is another area that Americans can expect worse outcomes. From weather catastrophes to more frequent heat waves, from the negative impact on farmers to giving up any hope of the U.S. leading any of the industries renewable energy will spawn for decades to come, Trump’s policies make America less prosperous and a pariah among nations who value global cooperation in combatting the world’s current crises.

So it is that Vermonters, and Americans from coast to coast, will struggle to meet the needs of their citizens when hard times come. They’ll plan, they’ll strategize, and they’ll be ready to do the best they can (see several stories on today’s front page that address some of those concerns), but there’s a reason to have formed a federal government almost 250 years ago — to lean on the resources of the nation when one state suffers inordinate harm.

By taking more federal aid out of the mix, Trump makes the nation weaker and less worthy just as his propaganda touts the opposite.

Angelo Lynn

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CORRECTION: This column has been updated to correct a reporting mistake: Due to cuts from President Trump’s big, bad bill, an estimated 45,000 Vermonters could lose health insurance coverage, and an estimated 13,000 could lose food assistance. In the print edition of this column, we incorrectly wrote that an estimated 43,000 Vermonters would lose food assistance.