Congress, Do Your Job – No Tax Breaks for Billionaires!

WASHINGTON (03-26) – “Do your job!” and “Families Over Billionaires” were the operative messages loudly chanted to Congress outside the Capitol at a morning rally calling attention to the Trump Musk/DOGE evisceration of the government and tax breaks for the rich.

Activist taxpayers and union members gathered to “Welcome Back Congress” after the legislators’ recent recess, calling for an end to the Republican billionaire-first agenda, an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to be paid on the backs of hard working-class families and in calling for the rich to pay their fair share. Speakers at the event conveyed the simple easy to remember message of “Families Over Billionaires.”

The rally’s sponsor was Families Over Billionaires, a well-funded nonprofit campaign by Democrats to put pressure on Republicans during the tax debates being considered by legislators in an effort to end the “trillions in tax giveaways to billionaires and big corporations.” All this to be paid for naturally by the working class in the form of higher taxes and the ending of programs that have already been eliminated or severely cut back. Also active in the campaign is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) whose members were among the crowd.

Director of Families Over Billionaires, Michael Linden, started the rally off by calling for a moment of silence to honor the memory of recently deceased Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) who he described as “a tireless champion of working people and working families.”

“Republicans in Congress and the Trump-Musk administration have been repeatedly betraying working families all over this country,” Linden said in pointing to the Capitol. He went on to reflect that the GOP “took the first step to pass a budget plan that would increase taxes for millions of everyday families to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.” To pay for their plan, they are proposing cutting programs such as Social Security, food stamps, student aid… in which “Seventy percent of the benefits of their plan would go the richest five percent of Americans. It is not too late to stop them!”

Noting further that there are champions in Congress who are fighting for working families every day, he introduced Congresswoman Suzanne DelBene (D-WA). She reminded everyone that in spite of promising to lower prices on “day one,” Trump and Republicans instead have made America more expensive after taking office including Trump’s tariffs that are “taxes” on American families. “Democrats stand for growing the middles class” is how she summed up the difference between the two parties. And wishing to avoid dealing with the impact the cuts would have, she said that “Republicans are running scared from their constituents and avoiding Town Halls, so they don’t have to hear from them.”

Congressman Hakeem Jefferies (D-NY), House Minority Leader, said “The Capitol where I work has been turned into a hostile work environment. Congress doesn’t work for Donald Trump; we work for the American people. We want to move the country forward. They [GOP] want to turn back the clock. We believe in an economy that works for everyday Americans; they want an economy of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires. That’s why we are going to stop the GOP tax plan dead in its tracks.”

Jefferies promised to fight hard to bring the American Dream to life for every single person in the country. “Nobody told us the road would be easy. So, we know we have trouble all around us.” Going further in speaking about trouble, he said that “Pete Hegseth needs to resign immediately.”

In closing on the subject of trouble, he mentioned Elon Musk. “Elon Musk is unelected, unaccountable, unhinged, unpopular, and un-American.” He framed the GOP government assault as Musk and the Republicans who want to “take a chainsaw” to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, to public schools, veteran’s benefits, and to the American way of life. “We’ve got to show up, we got to stand up, we’ve got to speak up and when we do, we’re gonna take a chainsaw to Project 2025.”

Josephine Rios, a SEIU West union member and nursing assistant from California, told of her seven-year-old grandson Elijah who suffered a serious brain condition at birth that in turn must be treated through medication which costs $5,000 a month. Working at Kaiser Permanente Hospital, Rois explained that she and her family cannot afford to pay for the costly medicine. In facing the DOGE cuts for Medicaid, the loss of Elijah’s medication and extensive physical therapy means he would be homebound with the attentive degradation of his condition. Without the medication he would be subject to “uncontrollable epilepsy.” She called the proposed life altering cuts “shameful.”

Before addressing the rally, Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) was greeted by the crowd loudly chanting: “Tax the Rich.” The senator opened by reflecting that there is “a lot going on by design and the administration keeps coming after us by taking a wrecking ball to the federal government, because “They want to find every nickel they can to fund tax breaks for the wealthy, the billionaires and tax breaks for the largest corporations in the world.” To pay for the tax breaks he annunciated that in doing so “They are executing a plan to make working families struggle even more” in trying to live the American dream. He encouraged everyone to fight back by protesting, marching and advocating in doing “their part” in reversing course to their blatant plan.

Congressman Steven Horsford (D-NV) took to the stage saying, “When the choice is between private jets and yachts for the few or basic medical supplies and services for families, it’s not complicated to be for families over billionaires,” which he characterized as “obscene.”

In his home state of Nevada, 40 percent of the population is dependent on Medicaid, Hosford said. “Stripping services such as Medicaid for those in need isn’t leadership, it’s not efficiency, it’s cruel, it’s chaotic and it’s bullshit!” He furthered with: “American Democracy is not for sale. Federal services are not trust funds for the GOP to skim from.”

“The American people might have elected Donald Trump to run our government for four years’, but they didn’t vote to have him dismantle it for generations. And we sure as hell didn’t elect Elon Musk. The American people don’t owe these tycoons a damn thing.”

Social Security expert Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, advocated “Fighting to protect and expand Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; lower drug prices; ensure economic justice for all; and guarantee health care as a human right—because everyone deserves to live in dignity.”

In preserving those entitlements, Altman assured everyone that “We’re gonna fight,” and illuminated the horrific asymmetrical distribution of wealth in the country saying that “The top 10 percent of Americans owned two-thirds of the nation’s wealth. The bottom fifty percent owned one- fortieth. It’s only going to get worse. They will get richer while they steal our benefits.”

Randy Irwin, President of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) whose organization represents 110,000 federal workers nationwide called them “the backbone of this country,” and they should be maintained. He went further in calling DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, “a joke, as it is the exact opposite.” He called it unacceptable that “They are running off the best and the brightest in government and creating a toxic environment. If this goes unchecked by this Congress, there will be disastrous consequences for regular Americans.”

In saying that public safety is also being compromised as a result, he pointed to wildland firefighters saying the government is “not doing the hiring they need to contain wildfires in this country. They laid off the supporters and they are not hiring the people that they need to hire right now who are wildland firefighters. Communities are going to burn if they don’t get their heads out of their asses!”

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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