Congresswoman Ramirez Slams Republican Betrayal of Working Families, the Big Nasty Bill
Washington, DC — Today, Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (IL-03) released the following statement condemning the passage of the GOP’s extreme reconciliation bill, the biggest betrayal of all working families in recent American history. The bill authorizes devastating cuts to the programs and services working families rely on, while expanding Trump and Noem’s mass detention, disappearance, and deportation agenda.
“Today, Republicans condemned Americans to a future of poverty, scarcity, sickness, and toxicity. As Republicans go back to their districts to celebrate “freedom and liberty” with their families and donors, working families are left, once again, wondering who is free and who has been liberated. Because it is clear that those liberated by the Big Nasty Bill do not include the 17 million people, including the 535,849 in Illinois, who will lose their health care. It is not the 5 million veterans, seniors, and single parents who will lose food assistance or the 10 million children at risk of losing school breakfast and lunch. It is not the families who will see an increase of $400 per year in their electric bills. It is not the students who will see their dreams of affordable, quality education stolen from them. It is not those whose rights will be violated by an expanded anti-immigrant operation.
Republicans have used their power and their votes to free Trump and Noem from their obligation to respect the Constitution by infusing over $150 BILLION into their fascist mass deportation campaign that will terrorize our neighbors while enriching the private prison campaign donors. They have liberated their billionaire donors from paying their fair share in taxes, delivering a permanent trillion-dollar tax break for the top 1% while making tax breaks for working people temporary.
As disappointed as we are by the lack of Republican moral clarity and courage, their efforts only make clearer what's at stake in the fight for our collective freedom and liberation. Generations before us have fought imperialism, monopolies, oligarchies, unchecked capitalism, and wanna be kings—and they have won. And, while it may seem bleak today, we will continue to fight for policies that make the billionaires pay their fair share, get their hands off of our bodies, our rights, our neighbors, and out of our pockets, and prioritize ALL working families' healthy, thriving, prosperous futures. Because when we fight, when we choose radical, inclusive love, when our people-powered, intersectional, multiracial movement organizes, we win — we are not giving up.”