For Immediate Release: February 19, 2025
Contact: media@colorofchange.org
COLOR OF CHANGE OPPOSES REPUBLICANS’ DANGEROUS RECONCILIATION PACKAGE PROPOSING CUTTING MEDICAID, FOOD ASSISTANCE, AND STUDENT LOAN ASSISTANCE TO PAY FOR TAX CUTS FOR BILLIONAIRES
NATIONAL – Speaker Mike Johnson, President Donald Trump, and Elon Musk have introduced a dangerous reconciliation package designed to extend and expand tax cuts for the wealthy, billionaires, and corporations at the expense of essential aid programs. Enacting any tax cuts for the rich, including extensions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, will do absolutely nothing to keep money in the pockets of everyday people, particularly Black families and communities.
Thanks to the horrendous 2017 Trump Tax cuts, corporations enjoy and revel in a lower effective tax rate than the average American family. Many companies and wealthy individuals have been able to cut their collective tax bills by more than hundreds of millions of dollars, with companies like Meta, Amazon, and Disney paying lower tax rates than our teachers, nurses, bus drivers, and childcare workers. And the wealthy only use this extra money to improve their bottom line and further fatten their wallets.
Republicans know that tax cuts are not free. And they intend to pay for these handouts to the wealthy by eliminating health care benefits for low-income families, cutting food assistance for children, gutting public education funding, and eliminating other important benefits for our most vulnerable citizens. Despite running on promises to stop inflation and lower costs, President Trump is proposing budget cuts to federal committees that head SNAP, Medicaid, student loan assistance, and more, a plan that will make food, healthcare, and education more expensive.
Portia Allen-Kyle, Interim Executive Director of Color Of Change, issued the following statement:
“Trickle-down economics do not work and tax cuts for the wealthy are the biggest scam perpetrated on the American public. Republicans take joy in robbing our children and grandparents of food and healthcare to make sure that billionaires become trillionaires and corporate power goes unchecked. And they are advocating for these dangerous policies to line the wallets of their rich friends and wealthy partners at the expense of American workers and families. They are completely out of step and out of touch with average Americans.”
The American public gave a clear mandate to Republicans and President Trump: lower the costs of groceries and improve housing affordability for families. Yet we continue to see the same old, tired argument for more benefits for the rich.
“This reconciliation package takes from the poor and gives to the rich. We will not stand idly by while Trump and Republicans fleece working families, making promises they will not fulfill. I encourage everyone to call their members of Congress and tell them to reject this reconciliation plan and keep their hands off critical programs like Medicaid and SNAP. If we don’t stop budget cuts to these necessary programs, our communities and families will feel it in their wallets.”
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ABOUT COLOR OF CHANGE:
Color Of Change is the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. We help people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us. As a national online force driven by millions of members, we move decision-makers in corporations and governments to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people in America. Visit www.colorofchange.org.