To celebrate Tax Day, Pennsylvania Together partnered with local activist groups Yardley Indivisible and Indivisible Bucks County to rally in front Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s office in Langhorne to protest the massive tax cuts for the wealthy, as well as cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Speakers included Bucks County Clerk of Courts Eileen Hartnett Albillar and local grassroots leaders. Protesters also displayed signs and filled out constituent contact forms that were dropped off at the Republican lawmaker’s office.
When President Donald Trump’s 2017 spending bill passed with a new tax law, most experts agreed that the cuts would benefit the wealthiest Americans. That data has finally been collected, and it is more shocking than most citizens realize.
According to research done by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Trump’s tax law led to an average tax cut of over $61,000 for the wealthiest 1 percent, and over $252,000 for the wealthiest one-tenth of the 1 percent. Meanwhile, Americans in the bottom 60 percent only saw an average cut of less than $500 this year.
That tax bill will be expiring this year, and the framework of the the GOP’s new spending bill working its way through the House and Senate would be even more painful to middle- and working class Americans if it passes in its current form. The bill will keep the 2017 tax cuts, while cutting federal funding for Medicaid and SNAP programs by hundreds of billions of dollars.
“Now more than ever, we need leaders in Congress who will protect workers, those of us who work one, two and three jobs just to make ends meet,” said Eileen Hartnett Albillar, Bucks County Clerk of Courts. “Most low-wage workers do not have access to health insurance through their employers, and rely on Medicaid. Not only does Medicaid keep people healthy to enable them to continue working, it creates healthcare jobs. Any and all cuts to Medicaid should be off the table; Bucks County working families don’t deserve to be abandoned by Representative Fitzpatrick for the benefit of wealthy business owners.”
Indivisible Bucks County’s Kierstyn Zolfo also highlighted the harm to Bucks County families.
“We are seeing price increases on everyday necessities from tariffs, less funding for schools, hospitals, and Social Security,” said Zolfo. “The cuts to Medicaid that DOGE and the Republicans have promised will all have negative, direct effects on our families and communities.”
There is still time until the final spending bill is created and voted on. Already, some Republicans are being more vocal about the social costs of massive tax cuts for wealthy that require gutting critical social programs like Medicaid. Fitzpatrick is not one of them, and he continues to refuse to hold public, in-person town halls to answer constituents’ concerns.
