“The more the American public knows what's in this bill, the more we have a chance to defeat it.” - Fair Share America Executive Director Kristen Crowell at the tour’s launch

Bucks County, PA - Fair Share America, Unrig Our Economy and state and local partners* launched the “Stop the Billionaire Giveaway” national bus tour this weekend, traveling from New York, to New Jersey, to Pennsylvania to raise public awareness about the devastating impacts of the Trump/GOP reconciliation bill on our families, communities, and economy, and to speak out.

The 45-foot tour bus, wrapped in a giant trillion-dollar bill, began its three-week, 14-state journey in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, represented by GOP Rep. Mike Lawler, where local labor, organizers, and residents rallied together (pictured above) to say ‘no’ to a massive transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich at the cost of lifelines like health care and food assistance:

• There, 102-year-old Dee Volz recalled listening as a child to FDR announcing a new social safety net to help seniors live with dignity, Social Security. “I just ask everybody to call Representative Lawler and tell him to fight for Medicaid like he's fighting for SALT,” she said.

• On Saturday afternoon, the bus visited downtown Somerville, New Jersey, where a local doctor explained how slashing Medicaid raises all of our medical bills [Video]. Find a recap of this stop here.

• On Sunday, June 22, the bus began its day at Philadelphia City Hall for a rally and press conference with SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania members and a reverend with the organization Just Nation, who decried the racism in taking safety nets from black and brown lower-income people to give even more to the rich [Video]. Find a recap of this stop here.

• Sunday afternoon, the bus was greeted by Bucks County, PA organizers and activists who rally at their Congressman’s office parking lot once a week to voice their opposition to the reconciliation bill (the bus tour event was held in the same parking lot near Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s district office). More on this stop here.

At every stop, local residents heard from Fair Share America Executive Director and bus tour organizer Kristen Crowell:

“We've seen what the billionaire and the rich have done with rigging an economy that has driven up the cost of day to day things, groceries, rent, housing. We already are stretched, and if this bill goes through more cuts to things like health care will further cost us. And right now, we are stretched so thin we cannot afford any more handouts to the billionaires,” Crowell said at the New York tour kick-off event.

• [VIDEO] Crowell explains why Fair Share America and Unrig Our Economy have launched this national tour and how we’re building a national movement.

• To set up an interview with Kristen Crowell, please email Kristin Sosanie (kristin@fairshareusa.org) or Ashley Woolheater (ashley@fairshareusa.org).

• Follow the “Stop the Billionaire Giveaway” bus online and on social media: @FairShare_USA on X and @FairShareAmerica (FB, IG, BS, Threads).

Excerpts from this weekend’s bus tour rally speakers below:

New York State Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg (District 95): “If this legislation passes, this state would lose billions of dollars in federal funding, while at the same time being burdened with massive new administrative costs to implement work requirements for [Medicaid] benefits, which do not increase employment rates, but do cause people to lose coverage.”

Kevin Sheil, President of CWA Local 1103, warned how the bill could shutter local hospitals and deprive people of care: “We will share in the misery when our friends, family and neighbors are denied benefits that they are qualified to receive, because if Mike Lawler continues to vote to cut Medicaid, it will have disastrous effects on our local community hospitals that we all rely on today.”

Kara McCormick Lyons, President of the White Plains Teachers Association and a Vice President of the American Federation of Teachers, shared how the kids at the middle school where she teaches benefit from school breakfasts for both nourishment and community. Funding for school meals would be lost if the bill passes; 18 million kids could lose out. “$290 billion from SNAP. That's literally snatching food off the table of working people,” she emphasized.

Croton-on-Hudson Mayor Brian Pugh: “This is not a question of politics or ideology… The one big, beautiful Bill threatens to do the clean energy provisions of the IRA inflation Reduction Act, and studies show that that will increase the average home energy bill by $400 annually within the decade. That is an increase that working Americans cannot afford."

New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller, who represents nearly 200,000 educators in the state, said this tour is happening at a moment when democracy has called people to action to defeat the unpopular measure: “It is a chance for every single person to see what is at stake, to understand that sometimes, sometimes a democracy calls you to action.”

Marc Stier, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center and a host of the tour’s Pennsylvania events: “There have been many bad cash cuts in our industry that overwhelmingly benefited the rich and wealthy corporations. There have been many efforts to cut the social safety net, but this legislation, this terrible bill, is unique and uniquely bad.”

Hanaa Hawthorne from Mental Health Partnerships in PA, who relied on Medicaid for life-saving surgery and care, in Philly: “Let's be clear, I did not choose to get sick. No one does, and so many of us are forced to choose between paying rent, buying groceries or getting the care we need to live…It's not a luxury, it's not an add on, it's the backbone of our health and our hope.”

Kay Evans, a home care worker and proud SEIU PA member lamented how difficult it has always been for honest workers like her to simply get their health care benefits and how this bill will make it even harder. “We have a right to what we’re fighting for,” she said.

State Representative Joe Hohenstein (PA House District 177): “The wealth transfer that will happen out of the poor and the working class is astounding. It's trillions of dollars. Can anyone even imagine a trillion dollars?”

Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie [Video]: “The median income in Bucks County is about $58,000 a year. So imagine, in this, one of the wealthiest counties in Pennsylvania, the median income is equivalent to the tax break you're going to give [to the wealthiest Americans],” said Harvie. (The reconciliation bill would give the richest 1 percent of Pennsylvanians an annual tax cut of $55,140.)

*With tremendous thanks to our early event partners: Invest in Our New York, Empire State Voices, Make the Road NY, NYS United Teachers Union, CWA Local 1103, New York Communities for Change, Citizen Action NY, Upper West Side Action Group, NJ For the Many, Make the Road New Jersey, Citizen Action NJ, Committee to Protect Health Care, New Jersey Policy Perspective, Our Revolution NJ, Pennsylvanians Together, Pennsylvania Policy Center, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, Mental Health Partnerships, ROC United, Just Nation, People’s Action Institute, Planned Parenthood PA, MomsRising PA, Action Together NEPA, SEIU, NEA, AFT, AFSCME, Families Over Billionaires, Indivisible, National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, Tax the Greedy Billionaires, Strong Economy For All.

Follow the “Stop the Billionaire Giveaway” Bus online and on social media: @FairShare_USA on X and @FairShareAmerica (FB, IG, BS, Threads).

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