Local leaders, workers, and community activists spoke out against how billionaires got a massive tax break in the OBBBA while everyday Americans got the bill.
PORTLAND, Maine — On Tuesday evening, June 30th, Families Over Billionaires, Maine Center for Economic Policy and Oxfam kicked off a nationwide bus tour in Portland. The bus-side rally lifted up local personal stories about the impact of Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers’ choice to hand out $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for billionaires and corporations while cutting services for working people in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA), which was signed into law a year ago this Saturday.
Portland is the first stop on the 17-stop nationwide tour, which will hit 13 states and end on July 16th in Tucson, Arizona. At every stop, local voices and leaders will tell the local story behind the headlines. Learn more here. In Portland, we heard from the following:
Kelli Brennan, a registered nurse at Maine Medical Center in Portland and Co-President of the Maine State Nurses Association: “Let me just emphasize that there are enough funds to keep our community hospitals open. We just need our elected leaders that have the right priorities and spines to take immediate action at the federal level.”
(Half of Maine’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure due to cuts from OBBBA, according to reports).
Libby, a philanthropist and advocate for progressive policies in Maine: “I have benefited from tax breaks for the rich for generations, and right now my net wealth is higher than it’s ever been,” she said, thanks to OBBBA. “Despite giving more and more to charity, it’s like I can’t keep up since Trump took office, my net wealth has increased pretty much every day. That’s disgusting.”
(OBBBA gave the top 1% of US households more than $1 trillion in tax cuts.)
Seth Kroeck of Crystal Spring Farm in Brunswick and treasurer of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association: “I grow food, and over the last year that has gotten a lot more difficult. If you eat in Maine, you’ve been swallowing the hike in food prices at the store and at restaurants, and as a farmer, I’ve been feeling it as well.”
Jon Olson, Pastor of North Wayne Community Church and volunteer at the Mount Vernon Food Bank: “In the midst of this growing need, we are seeing reductions in emergency food assistance…as well as…reductions in the amount of USDA surplus foods… In the Gospel reading of Matthew, Christ tells us that we need to feed the people who are hungry. We are not doing this as we should. It is morally wrong to take money from the poor to enrich billionaires now.”
(Since OBBBA was signed into law, roughly 4 million Americans have lost their food assistance, including 700,000 children in just 12 states.)
Landry Kwizera, owner of Golden Group Home Services and president of the Maine Immigrant Business Coalition: “We belong here, our below our work belongs here and many most vulnerable residents deserve a system that honors both the care they receive and the people providing it.”
Garrett Martin, President & CEO of Maine Center Economic Policy: “Change doesn’t happen when a few powerful people decide to do the right thing. Change happens when ordinary people like you and me demand it. That’s what it’s going to take. That’s what this bus tour is about. We can build an economy that makes sure all of us have a fair share chance at a good life, and that’s exactly what we need to do.”
Rebecca Swanson Conrad, Oxfam America Sister on the Planet ambassador: “Today, we’re reminded of this inequality, as many billionaires pay lower effective tax rates than teachers and nurses, and now this administration is sacrificing ordinary Mainers. Trump’s Big Beautiful bill threatens Maine’s policy that all kids get school meals to be able to learn and be prepared to enter the workforce; threatens Maine’s belief that hospitality workers deserve access to health care to grow our tourism economy; threatens Maine’s rural health care systems…”
Kristen Crowell, Executive Director of Families Over Billionaires ended the rally with optimistic words about the unity she has seen as she’s traveled across the country in the course of her work: “They are underestimating our resolve to work in different communities to build a coalition that unites and refuses to let the politics of hate divide us. We know that we are the ones who have to re-write the whole system and build something new, so every family in our community can live with dignity, and that is what I see across the country.”
