A message from Mark Dann
FFRF Director of Governmental Affairs
Washington, D.C.
As the Senate returns to work this week, we expect movement on the GOP’s budget reconciliation bill, which recently passed the House. Here’s an update on what has happened so far, what we expect the Senate to do, some of the most harmful provisions to the separation of state and church in the bill, and what we can do about it.
The latest
The GOP’s dangerous reconciliation bill, unlike most Senate legislation, only takes 51, not 60 votes to pass. All parts of it must pertain to revenue, spending, taxes or the debt ceiling. This bill is a major priority for President Trump and the GOP to get it signed into law by the Fourth of July. The bill, after several committee votes and floor votes were held in the middle of the night, passed by 215 to 214 at 6:56 a.m. on May 22. There were a few GOP holdouts who wanted even more severe cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security but Trump eventually squeezed them into submission. We can expect the same process to occur in the Senate: The Senate will negotiate with itself and the House. Trump will primarily come in to crush any remaining GOP opposition.
Provisions that threaten the separation of state and church
The reconciliation bill is packed with provisions pulled straight from Project 2025 and designed to advance a Christian nationalist agenda. Below are some of the provisions we are heavily focusing on:
A private school voucher program on steroids
The bill contains a 100 percent, dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for donations to private school scholarship funds, primarily for the ultrawealthy. It creates a special category of preferred charitable giving that gives a vast tax advantage to private school scholarships and disadvantages all other charities. Unlike a standard charitable tax deduction, which reduces taxable income, this tax shelter allows the richest Americans — such as Betsy DeVos — to vastly reduce their tax bills by donating stock to private, mostly religious school scholarships, avoid capital gains tax and reduce their overall tax liability. At the same time, money is taken out of the public school system. These credits create a pipeline of taxpayer-subsidized funding for private religious education without any public oversight or accountability. The scholarship funds can legally exclude students based on religion, disability, LGBTQ-plus identity or academic ability. It’s a backdoor voucher scheme that prioritizes religious indoctrination over equitable, secular education — while giving billionaires a tax break for dismantling our public schools.
529 homeschool expansion
The GOP’s bill would expand 529 education accounts to cover unregulated homeschooling and religious instruction. The 529 accounts were originally intended to make college education more affordable and had a lot of support from both Democrats and Republicans. During the first Trump administration, Congress expanded the use of 529 accounts beyond their original purpose, allowing them to cover private and religious K–12 education and related expenses. The GOP reconciliation bill is a further departure whereby primarily wealthy families could use tax-free funds for homeschooling.
There is a clear and growing link between homeschooling and Christian nationalism. In many states, there are limited checks to meet academic standards. Christian nationalist groups have long promoted homeschooling as a vehicle to indoctrinate the next generation. Popular curricula like Abeka Academy and Bob Jones University Press openly teach revisionist religious history, while newer options like Turning Point Academy and the Christendom Curriculum promote explicitly Christian nationalist worldviews.
Eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood
FFRF has long warned that attacks on abortion access are driven by religious dogma — not by science or public health. It is not surprising that the GOP’s reconciliation bill includes a provision to eliminate Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, putting nearly 200 health centers at risk of closure and jeopardizing essential care for more than 1.1 million patients (which not only provides abortion and birth control services but also prenatal and postpartum services, vaccines and wellness and prevention care, among other services). This move would cut off reimbursements for a wide range of critical medical services, and many patients would be left with no other source of care.
Stopping national injunctions against Trump
The bill includes a provision that would gut the ability of federal courts to issue national injunctions — court orders that stop harmful policies from taking effect while they’re being challenged. This provision has no legitimate budgetary impact and should be ruled out of order by the Senate parliamentarian.
Under current law, courts can issue nationwide injunctions and waive or reduce bond requirements when cases serve the public interest. But under the GOP’s bill, plaintiffs seeking to block a federal or state policy — even one that’s clearly unconstitutional — would be forced to post potentially astronomical bonds. This measure is designed to shield a future Trump administration from legal accountability and make it prohibitively expensive for civil rights groups, immigrants, abortion providers or anyone else to seek emergency relief. It’s a direct assault on judicial oversight — and a core component of Project 2025’s plan to dismantle democratic checks and consolidate executive power.
How we can push back
We need you to call your senators — and keep calling — to vote no on this bill. Utilize our fast Action Center to email and phone your senators. Many Senate offices don’t realize just how harmful these provisions are, because there’s so much packed into the legislation. We need your help to make sure they understand what’s at stake: a massive tax shelter for religious schools, a stealth voucher expansion through 529s, the elimination of funding for Planned Parenthood, and threats to the independence of the judiciary.
We’re working closely with members of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, and with our secular, religious and civil rights allies, to push back hard on this reconciliation package. We’re meeting with members of the Senate Finance Committee — the first committee to vote on the bill — and making sure they hear from the communities who will be directly harmed. This fight is far from over. We’ve beaten back similar attacks before, and with your help, we’ll do it again.
FFRF Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization that develops and advocates for legislation, regulations and government programs to preserve the constitutional principle of separation between state and church. It also advocates for the rights and views of nonbelievers, endorses candidates for political office, and publicizes the views of elected officials concerning religious liberty issues.