16-state tour hosted North Carolina town hall on the harm to working people, and how fairer taxes could fund priorities that help all people thrive (not just billionaires)

“The spaces that we're creating must be the spaces that are big enough to take on the billionaire class.” - Fair Share America Executive Director Kristen Crowell in Harrisburg, PA

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (August 5, 2025) – Yesterday, Harrisburg residents gathered for a community town hall hosted by Fair Share America, Unrig Our Economy, Pennsylvanians Together, and local partners to discuss the impacts of Donald Trump’s new budget and tax law and how a far fairer tax system could fund priorities that help all people (not just the billionaires) thrive.

“They want us to forget they want us to move on,” said Kristen Crowell, Executive Director of Fair Share America, of Republicans who voted for Donald Trump’s unpopular new tax and budget law. “Our job over the next year and a half and beyond is to never, ever let them forget and to make them pay significant prices for betraying our families.”

The town hall is part of the extended “Stop the Billionaire Giveaways” national bus tour, which made its first stop in Harrisburg on June 24th and its second last night. The 45-foot bus wrapped in a giant trillion-dollar bill returned as part of the next phase of the coast-to-coast effort, now focused on accountability for reconciliation bill votes. This event was the first of 2 stops in Pennsylvania on this leg and will be followed by a “Broken Vows” town hall later today at a wedding venue in Scranton.

To request video or photos from the event or to set up an interview, please contact ashley@fairshareusa.org.

Here are some more highlights from yesterday’s Harrisburg town hall:

“My responsibility is to my community and my employees,” said Harrisburg small business owner Andrea Grove Musselman of Elementary Coffee, “and to think about the fact that I don't know if there is going to be the money there to pay them in the coming weeks or months, is terrifying.” “We need to have a clear look at what the tariffs are doing to the backbone of this community,” she continued.

State Senator Patty Kim, SD-15 spoke powerfully about supporting people who will lose lifelines due to Donald Trump’s new law and urged the community gathered to persist in getting the word out: “We're going to have to talk about this until we're blue in the face,” she said.

State Representative Justin Fleming, HD-105, called out the hypocrisy from Republicans in Washington: “[H]ow often do we hear Republicans talk about cutting red tape? If you're a business that wants to pollute our air, pollute our water, make your workplace less safe, pay your employees as little as humanly possible. They want to get rid of every regulation you can possibly imagine right to make it easier for for businesses to operate and to thrive, and yet, if people need help, if you need food assistance, if you need health care, they will erect every single obstacle they possibly can to dissuade you from doing that…”

“How often have we heard the Freedom Caucus shout from the rooftops about spending and deficits, and you know, not using the debt ceiling as a political football, and threatening to withhold funding… This bill is going to add upwards of $5 trillion to the national deficit in the next five to 10 years, and they do not care.”

He also said Pennsylvania’s budget remains at an impasse, in part, because of the budget uncertainty at the federal level.

Melissa Reed, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Keystone, “[W]hen Trump signed the reconciliation bill on July 4, it immediately defunded Planned Parenthood and prohibited us from being a Medicaid provider…” “40% of our [Harrisburg] patients rely on Medicaid for their care.” “Cancers will go undetected, STIs will be untreated, and people will no longer be able to get their birth control from the provider that they trust and rely on.” She pledged that “Planned Parenthood will not turn anyone away. We will be seeing those patients at a loss for just Planned Parenthood Keystone.”

Tyler Hartl, a youth activist with OnePA said Donald Trump has created “barriers” for his generation but that young people are spreading the word: “With the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP and things that personally affected me, but so many others, I know that these are barriers for my generation…” “My friends that are youth, now we realize, well, Trump isn't making our quality of lives better. The cost of living is not coming down anytime soon.”

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Learn more about the “Stop the Billionaire Giveaways” bus tour online and on social media: @FairShare_USAon X and @FairShareAmerica (FB, IG, BS, Threads, TikTok).