by Ashley Murray, Georgia Recorder
April 10, 2025

WASHINGTON —  Hundreds demonstrated outside the U.S. Capitol Thursday, urging congressional Republicans to rethink cutting programs vital to millions of Americans as a way to help extend President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

The previously scheduled rally, organized by the advocacy coalition Fair Share America, occurred less than an hour after House Republicans, by a narrow margin, adopted a budget resolution that paves the way for negotiations on deep spending cuts as Congress works on an extension of the 2017 tax law.

The advocates, who flew and bused in from 30 states to rally and meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, say the cuts would be devastating for low-income Americans who rely on government health care, nutrition and early education programs, among other benefits.

A state-by-state report from Democrats last month projected up to 25 million across the country could lose access to Medicaid, a health program that covers medical costs for some low-income people as well as nursing home care, if Republicans successfully pass their proposed cuts to make room in the budget for a roughly $4.5 trillion tax cut extension.

“This is personal to so many of us, and many of you are here from all over the country, Utah, Iowa, Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan,” Fair Share America Executive Director Kristen Crowell told the crowd. “This is a national movement where we are the people we’ve been waiting for.”

Lawmakers “need to look us in the eye while they do harm,” Crowell said.

Medicaid ‘was my lifeline’

Cadon Sagendorf of Salt Lake City, Utah, told his story of relying on Medicaid while growing up in the foster care system. Foster youth are automatically eligible for the federally funded health care program administered by the states.

“I was placed into the foster care system at birth and spent 10 days in the NICU withdrawing from meth, marijuana, heroin and cocaine. I was then later adopted seven months later, but at the age of 15, my adoption failed and I was placed back in the foster care system,” said Sagendorf, who is now 23 and studying psychology at the University of Utah.

“Medicaid was not just a policy, it was my lifeline,” Sagendorf said.

In most cases, foster youth who age out of the system at 18 can remain on Medicaid until age 26. Over 100,000 former foster youth received Medicaid in 2023, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Mickey Rottinghaus, 70, of Center Point, Iowa, said she’s scared that her adult son Tucker could lose his Medicaid benefits if Congress follows through with deep spending cuts.

The program pays for a nurse and home health aide to assist him every morning, seven days a week.

Tucker, 50, was left paralyzed after being shot with a .22 caliber handgun at a friend’s apartment in 1994.

“Our family was changed in a matter of moments,” Rottinghaus told the crowd.

For three decades she’s been arranging his care, patching together a daily schedule of nurses paid for by Medicaid, supplementing with care paid for out of pocket and a circle of friends who volunteer to help.

For the past two years, she’s been staying with her son in Waterloo, Iowa, to feed him in the afternoon and get him into bed at night.

“I know that if he didn’t have Medicaid, he wouldn’t be able to have a nurse and a home health aide in the morning,” she told States Newsroom in an interview following her speech.

The ‘hell, no’ Congress

Several House and Senate Democrats spoke to the demonstrators, who wielded signs bearing the messages “Tax the Rich” and “Fair Taxes Now.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon borrowed a sign from the crowd that read “Dangerous Oligarchs Grab Everything,” referring to billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting agenda.

“Well, I’ll tell ya, I’m a member of the ‘hell, no’ Congress. Are you a member?” he yelled to the crowd.

“When Republicans say, ‘We are going to slash Medicaid,’ we say, ‘Hell no,’” he said, prompting the crowd to say it with him.

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said “a budget is not just a fiscal document, it’s a moral document.”

“Show me your budget and I’ll show you who you think matters and who you think is dispensable. Show me your budget and I’ll show you what you think about children, what you think about workers, what you think made America great. And if this budget that they are trying to pass were an EKG, it would suggest that the Congress has a heart problem and is in need of moral surgery,” Warnock said.

On the hunt for spending cuts

House and Senate Republican leaders announced Thursday they agreed to find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. GOP House lawmakers have been instructed to find $880 billion in cuts to programs under the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which holds jurisdiction over Medicaid, among other areas.

The budget instructions that will guide the coming months of negotiations also direct the House Committee on Education and Workforce to find $330 billion in cuts, and the Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over government food programs, including SNAP, to find $230 billion in cuts.

House Speaker Mike Johnson hailed the passage of the budget blueprint Thursday morning as “a big victory” and “a big day for us.”

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, maintains that letting the 2017 tax cuts expire would allow “the largest tax increase in U.S. history all at once.”

“We have a responsibility to get our country back on a sound fiscal trajectory and also make sure that we ensure and protect those essential programs,” he said.

Last updated 6:24 p.m., Apr. 10, 2025

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