FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 25, 2025
CONTACT: Unai Montes, press@peoplesaction.org, 202-660-0605 (bilingual)
People’s Action members from across the country tell D.C. lawmakers how deep cuts to essential services harm their families and communities; demand that corporations and billionaires pay what they owe to We the People
The livestream from the PAI/CPC press conference on Capitol Hill is here
Photos from today’s events are available here
WASHINGTON, D.C. – People’s Action Institute members came to Capitol Hill from all across the country to demand lawmakers stop the deep cuts proposed to health care, housing, and climate resilience that were demanded by billionaires and greedy corporations from Trump and GOP congressional leadership. In a press conference at the Capitol with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and in private meetings with their Democratic and Republican representatives, People’s Action Institute members spoke frankly about how these cuts will cause direct and immediate harm to their families and communities.
“They plan to vote to take away health care from sick people. They plan to vote to take away food from hungry people. And they plan to vote to take education away from children,” said Juanita Lewis, the executive director of Community Voices Heard in New York City and the board chair of People’s Action Institute’s affiliated 501(c)4 organization, People’s Action. “People in red districts rely on Medicaid, people in blue districts rely on Medicaid. Everyone, of every race and from every place needs care when they are sick. And when the richest people in the world are demanding cuts from almost a trillion dollars to Medicaid so they can have a sixth mansion and a third yacht, they’re coming for every single working family.”
Lewis was one of the People’s Action Institute leaders and members from 27 states and 60 congressional districts – from Washington State to Maine and Illinois to Texas – who came to confront lawmakers with the stories of how deep cuts to programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Title 1 and SNAP will cause widespread harm where they live.
“If Medicaid is cut, literally millions of Americans will lose their health care,” said Cate Readling from The People’s Lobby in Illinois, where more than 700,000 people will lose health care if the proposed cuts go through. “If you think you won’t be impacted, consider what the ER waiting rooms will look like when the people who were covered by Medicaid now no longer have access to routine care. When funding for public hospitals and clinics are cut. What do you do then, when your kid has a life-threatening allergic reaction?”
Readling, whose husband requires ongoing care for psoriatic arthritis, joined Elissa Tierney from the New Jersey Resource Project to speak about the health consequences of the nearly $1 trillion in planned cuts to lifesaving services at a press conference on Capitol Hill. They spoke alongside People’s Action Institute members from Wisconsin, Texas, and Washington State, along with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Representatives Greg Casar (D-Tx.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) Becca Balint (D-Vt.) and Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Or.).
“If your vote is going to result in someone dying or losing the roof above their head, vote NO,” said Tierney. “Taxing the very wealthy in this country isn’t going to result in them dying or missing a meal. They don’t want to interact with us, let alone share the wealth. If it was going to trickle down, it would have already.”
The press conference marked the launch of a new coalition of dozens of progressive groups who reject these deep cuts to services, as well as the proposed $5 trillion in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.
“We are here to say, clearly, Enough with the attacks on working people in order to fund billionaire tax cuts!” said Rep. Greg Casar (D-Tx.), who thanked People’s Action Institute’s members for sharing their stories with lawmakers. “Enough with the lying and the gaslighting. This is not about making our government ‘more efficient’ for working people. The Republican plan is about making government more efficient for big corporations and billionaires who are screwing us over.”
“The only reason they keep doing this is because they want to distract you from the fact that they are stealing your taxpayer dollars, your benefits, and your programs, so they can give a $4.5 trillion tax cut to the billionaires,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who founded and led OneAmerica, a People’s Action Institute member organization, for ten years before she was elected to Congress. “They want you to blame immigrants, they want you to criminalize immigrants. We need to focus on the greedy billionaires and make them pay their fair share. We can’t let them continue their lies and their distractions.”
“Where’s the money going? We’re paying them to be rich,” said Alfredo Reyes, Jr., a U.S. veteran from VOCAL-TX who spent seven years living on the streets with bone cancer in his hometown, Austin, before getting housing through a federally-funded initiative and becoming an outspoken advocate for the unhoused. “The one thing I can tell you is that we need to make sure we stop these billionaires from profiting off of us, and making sure that they pay their taxes and pay their equal share.”
“We have lost homes, our family structures, community structures, and community wealth. All the while, oil, gas and coal billionaires are stealing from us. It is utter and absolute theft,” said Dr. Majadi Baruti from PUSH Buffalo, which had won an EPA grant that would create jobs to weatherize homes for climate resilience and lower utility bills in upstate New York. The grant has now been stalled by the Trump administration’s freeze on federal programs.
“There are millions of us who need these programs that you’ve heard spoken of to thrive,” said Dr. Baruti. “And at the same time, the richest three men in this country have more money than the bottom half of us, and they’re trying to take even more. They’re trying to squeeze the proverbial blood from a turnip.”
“Billionaires are funding politicians who spread lies, using fear to justify policies that hurt all working families,” said Glicerio Zurita from OneAmerica in Washington State, whose own wife was sent to the Tacoma Detention Center in an unlawful raid on immigrant communities. “We have seen families torn apart and fear spreading, where parents are afraid to send their children to school or leave their homes,” he said. “But the enemy isn’t our immigrant neighbors, or new arrivals. It’s the billionaires and corporations who manipulate a system for their own benefit, getting tax breaks while they cut health care, education and the programs our community relies on. That ain’t right!”
For more information, visit: https://peoplesactioninstitute.org/