Community members and elected officials at Hear Our Hunger forum on the Who Pays? National Bus Tour discussed devastating local impacts of cuts in the OBBBA one year after its signing.

PHOENIX, Ariz. (July 15, 2026) – One year after President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, Phoenix residents and elected leaders gathered Tuesday night for a Hear Our Hunger community event to describe the real-life consequences of the law that took from working families to pay for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations.

Families Over Billionaires, together with Opportunity Arizona, LUCHA, and state partners brought its nationwide Who Pays? Bus Tour to Fuerte Arts Movement, where speakers warned that cuts to SNAP, higher costs, and growing pressure on Arizona’s budget are already hurting families and local communities.

Arizona has been one of the hardest hit by SNAP cuts, seeing a 53% drop from June 2025 to March 2026 as OBBBA was implemented. That amounts to more than 469,000 individuals who have lost their SNAP benefits in Arizona already.

Additionally, as the rest of the OBBBA provisions take effect:

• More than 300,000 Arizonans are expected to lose Medicaid coverage.
• The expiration of enhanced ACA premium tax credits has increased insurance premiums for thousands of Arizona families, forcing 66,000 people to drop their health care.
• Arizona’s taxpayers are now shouldering billions in additional costs shifted from the federal government.

Last summer, many of the same organizations rallied in Phoenix urging Rep. David Schweikert to oppose the bill. Tuesday’s event marked a return to the district one year later to assess the law’s impact—and to hold elected officials accountable for supporting it.

EXERPTS

Kristen Crowell, Executive Director of Families Over Billionaires

• “I’m sorry we have to be here. I’m legitimately sorry that we have to be here standing up for ourselves and shining a light on what Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are doing to our communities, because it’s an atrocity.

• “We are asking for basic shit. We’re not asking for yachts or jets – we are asking for things that every family relies on, and right now they’re taking that away. Food is a normal thing that people need to survive.

• “We are the ones that are paying the price, and also we are the ones that are doing the work. The good news of this is that something very different is happening. We are done being pitted against each other, we are done believing the lies that they sell us about this community versus that community, and we know it is the rich people that are hoarding all the money, while the billionaires opt out of our public systems.

Rep. Sarah Liguori, AZ LD 5

• “We’re here today because hunger is all around us. I see it in the parent that I talk to putting back groceries in the grocery aisle. It’s the senior in New Arizona who lost their benefit and were in a food desert and don’t know not only how they’re going to afford their next meal, but where they’re going to get it from. It’s the child who my children are friends with who don’t know where they’re going to go for lunch now that school is out. The summer is very long and hard for them.

• “This administration has decided that hunger is a surplus that will help balance the budget, paying for their tax cuts for the wealthy. And as the event states tonight, as the bus says out front: billionaires get the break, but we all get the bill.

• “With families stretched thin, grocery prices higher, rent, childcare, utilities constantly climbing, SNAP is not extra money. It’s what helps bridge the gap between a paycheck and the end of the month. ….[Nonprofit] organizations are doing extraordinary work, but they were never meant to replace our nation’s largest anti-hunger program. The public good can only go so far to fill the gap of public policy.”

Dee McDonald, SNAP recipient raising 5 grandsons

• “Even though I’ve done everything right, it’s a struggle to afford all the basic necessities: rent, health care, school supplies, clothes, groceries, everything it takes to you know to make it happen in reality. But now that these cuts have been made, it’s almost impossible because my SNAP benefits have stopped coming in. … there are thousands of us that are forced to be collateral damage for the bad policies.

• “Lawmakers will tell us that they don’t have enough money for SNAP, and then turn around and give tax breaks to the billionaires and major corporations, while we go hungry. Then they go home and have their giant feast paid for by our taxes. … It’s time that billionaires pay what they owe, and our elected officials do something about it. We need to fund SNAP.”

Eileen Halladay, Phoenix resident and SNAP recipient

• “Before I lost my SNAP benefits in November, I was already making every dollar count. SNAP wasn’t paying for luxury; it was helping me buy the basics and keep food on the table. Since then, I’ve become a regular at my local food bank. I go once a week, and I’m incredibly grateful for the volunteers who remind me that community still exists.

• “My experience isn’t because I’m not working hard enough or being financially irresponsible. This is happening because of the political decisions made by Republicans and Trump. Struggling to put food on the table isn’t something to avoid. It’s a result of political decisions made by Congress and the Trump administration that have prioritized billionaires over working families. We deserve better than a system that takes food off the table for children, veterans, and families just to fund tax cuts for the wealthy.”

Erika O’Valle, school board member for downtown Phoenix and SNAP recipient

• “Lately, my funds have been cut from $400 [per month] down to $100 a month. And if you’ve been shopping lately you know that 100 bucks will get you three bags of groceries that aren’t even full…. We are giving money to wars, and tax cuts to corporations and rich people. Meanwhile, we’re down here at the bottom of the barrel trying to figure out what we’re going to eat.

• “In my position as a school board member, hunger is a big thing for me. They want us to track test scores and achievements, but I’m like half the kids are not even eating at home. Coming to school and getting a meal, a breakfast or a lunch is kind of a big deal.

Phoenix was the 16th stop on the 17-city Who Pays? Bus Tour, which began June 30th in Portland, Maine, and concludes tomorrow, July 16th in Tucson. At each stop, local residents share how policies that favor billionaires and large corporations are affecting their communities.

Who Pays? bus tour national partners include: GenZ For Change, Protect Our Care, Committee to Protect Health Care, National Women’s Law Center, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, DemCast USA, National Nurses United, Oxfam, Unrig Our Economy, Americans for Tax Fairness and State Revenue Alliance.

Also see the latest op-ed from Kristen Crowell on Heartland Signal: “OP-ED: Billionaires got a break. The rest of us got the bill.”