Local leaders and residents called out the harms from Washington’s choice to give billionaires a massive tax break and stick everyday Americans with the bill.
Harrisburg, Penn. (July 2, 2026) – Today, Families Over Billionaires joined local partners* to bring the Who Pays? Bus Tour to the State Capitol in Harrisburg. Residents and local leaders shared stories about the real-world consequences of President Trump and Republicans in Congress’ choice to pass the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA). Signed into law one year ago this Saturday, the law delivered $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to billionaires and large corporations and slashed programs that help working families like Medicaid and SNAP.
Guests also commemorated the 62nd anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, reflecting on its enduring legacy as a milestone in the fight for equal rights, opportunity, and dignity.
Harrisburg was the fifth stop on the 17-stop nationwide tour, which started in Portland, ME on June 30th. The tour will hit 13 states before ending on July 16th in Tucson, Arizona. At every stop, local voices and leaders tell the story behind the headlines. Learn more here.
Media who would like video or photos from the event, or an interview with one of the speakers please email [email protected].
EXCERPTS
Rep. Dave Madsen, House District 104, shared his frustration with lobbyists for the rich and corporations influencing the state budget process to reward them even more: “When it’s budget season and the governor presents his budget, these hallways are filled with lobbyists and special interest groups all advocating for their little carve out…Consistently, the same economic argument is made. Well, give us more of the pie and it’ll trickle down. But it doesn’t equate to livable wages, it doesn’t equate to health care, it doesn’t equate to housing, so these stats and figures to me are meaningless. If people can’t live a decent middle class life, then what are we doing?”
Jasmine (Jazzy) White, owner of the former Jazzy Good Eats in Harrisburg lost her business due to high costs: “At the beginning of this year, I had to close the doors of my business. Let that sink in. A business that I’ve been in for five years, I had to close the doors. It’s because things aren’t affordable for us. Prices have gone up in the grocery store and the things that we need, and then the customers as well aren’t able to afford to dine out like they used to. When people hear about billionaires getting tax breaks, it can sound like a political issue, but for families like the ones that I work with every day, and also my own, it’s personal.”
Arona East, a local resident and mom: “I worked very hard as a single mom for years to survive with programs like SNAP and Medicaid. And I was able to get us off of those programs and move to thrive mode from survival, but in 2024, I was laid off and lost access to my affordable health care coverage for my family. The loss of the tax credit on the marketplace then forced us to have to choose to go without health care… We need to have policies that make it possible for us to live and not just survive, because people can only stay in survival mode for so long.”
Carlos Johnson, pastor and director of the non-profit Right Way To Do It shared how extremely difficult it is right now to find resources for the formerly incarcerated individuals his organization serves: “It’s people out here that really need your help and our help and our government’s help. We need to actually stand up and stand out and speak out against injustice and wrong… And I’m telling you, it was a lot more affordable to transition before this current situation now, and that’s just from my own lived experience. If I came out in this situation here, I probably wouldn’t be here speaking to you guys.”
Dr. Kimeka Campbell, an organizer for Affordable PA: Sixty-two years ago today, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law… But 62 years later, we have to ask ourselves, what does equal protection mean in a country where your zip code or your bank account determines whether you can feed your children or see a doctor? The fight for civil rights was never just about the ballot box; it was about the fundamental right to live with dignity.”
Felicity Williams, Executive Director of Pennsylvania Policy Center: “In Pennsylvania, those 23 billionaires… The bottom 20% of our income earners in Pennsylvania are paying an effective tax rate of 15.1% while our top 1% are paying an effective tax rate of only 6% and that is not fair. That is not justice. The good news is this: policy choices created these challenges, which means that policy choices can change these challenges, and they can solve them.”
Kristen Crowell, Executive Director of Families Over Billionaires, concluded the event with her own story of struggling financially as a single mom, and with a call to build deeper communities to make change: “I want us to get angry and righteously angry, because there’s a million of me right now in this country that are doing nothing wrong except trying to provide for their families, working 1, 2, or 3 jobs. I want us to think about Martin Luther King and actually start living a day-to-day existence where we are pushing ourselves to be in deeper communities. We are building bridges where they want us to fight, and then we can elect each other to the halls of power. We are the ones who have to be at that table, because otherwise we’re just crumbs.”
* Our local partners include Pennsylvanians Together, Affordable PA, MomsRising, For Our Future, Northern Dauphin Democracy Coalition, and 50501.
Who Pays? bus tour national partners include: Gen Z For Change, Protect Our Care, National Women’s Law Center, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, DemCast USA, National Nurses United, Unrig Our Economy, Americans for Tax Fairness, and State Revenue Alliance.
