July 2nd, 2025
In this issue:
- Republican senators’ proposed Medicaid cuts threaten to send red states ‘backwards’
- Amazon: Corporate Freeloaders
- Corporate interests shouldn’t take precedence over everyday people in WA’s budget
- 5 things $45 million could pay for instead of a massive military parade
- Abigail Disney: The Rich Should Be Paying More—and Yes, That Means Me
- Poorest Americans Dealt Biggest Blow Under Senate Republican Tax Package
Federal lawmakers are in final deliberations over massive cuts to Medicaid and other programs families rely on. Make no mistake, when they make these cuts, thousands of Washingtonians will lose access to vital medications and medical procedures, putting at least 3 Washington nursing homes at high risk of closure. In the same bill, lawmakers are flipping our tax code even further upside down, doling out tax cuts to the super rich, worsening the already alarming wealth inequality in our country and stripping funding from programs like SNAP and Medicaid.
Washington taxpayers will be on the hook to fill the funding gap. We have our work cut out for us to make the rich pay what they owe.
There’s growing momentum on our side, though. More and more people, including those among the super rich, are speaking out. A new survey shows that a majority of millionaires support a wealth tax, and in a recent article, Abigail Disney, of the Disney empire, laid out a list of possible solutions for taxing the rich, including closing loopholes and introducing a global minimum tax. She wrote, “more than anything we need to dramatically raise the top marginal rate and tax wealth itself.”
To join the many voices calling for a better tax code, take action to contact your lawmakers and tell them NO cuts to Medicaid and NO tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations.
Thank you!
-Treasure
REPUBLICAN SENATORS’ PROPOSED MEDICAID CUTS THREATEN TO SEND RED STATES ‘BACKWARDS’
“With the text released earlier this week, somehow the Senate made the House’s ‘big, bad budget bill’ worse in many ways,” said Anthony Wright, the executive director of Families USA, a consumer healthcare advocacy group, in a press call.
The Senate’s version makes deeper cuts to Medicaid and so-called Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) plans, “both by expanding paperwork requirements and making it harder for states to fund Medicaid coverage for their residents”, said Wright.
If passed, the House-passed bill would have already made the biggest cuts to Medicaid since the program’s enactment in 1965. With red tape and an expiration of additional healthcare subsidies to Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the House version would leave 16 million people without health insurance by 2034.
More – Jessica Glenza, The Guardian
AMAZON: CORPORATE FREELOADERS
If Jeff Bezos can spend an estimated more than $50 million on his Venice wedding, he can increase the salaries of his lowest paid workers so they don’t need Medicaid.
It’s repugnant that Amazon, though it made $59.2 billion in profits in 2024, has the largest number of Medicaid enrollees of any employer in Washington state. Corporate fat cats are welfare’s biggest freeloaders.
CORPORATE INTERESTS SHOULDN’T TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER EVERYDAY PEOPLE IN WA’S BUDGET
Our tax code can only be described as upside-down and rigged to benefit those with the most.
For almost 100 years, our tax code has relied heavily on three main revenue sources – sales tax, property tax, and business and occupation tax – that make for an antiquated structure that doesn’t reflect today’s economic realities.
Our tax code asks those with the least to pay the highest percent of their income in state and local taxes. Working families are taxed at a rate up to six times higher than the wealthiest in our state. Even after the passage of the capital gains tax on the ultra-wealthy in 2021, our state tax code is still rated second to last in the country when it comes to tax fairness.
More – Treasure Mackley, Emma Scalzo, Eli Taylor Goss, and Rian Watt
5 THINGS $45 MILLION COULD PAY OR INSTEAD OF A MASSIVE MILITARY PARADE
Here’s a look at what $45 million could provide for education, health care, housing, veterans’ services and food assistance — and what communities stand to gain when investments are made in these critical services and programs.
The parade cost could cover funding Medicaid coverage for almost 6,000 eligible people for a year. For children alone, close to 14,900 could be covered. In Alabama, where children are more than half of all Medicaid recipients, more than 21,700 children could be covered for a year. (These figures are based on KFF data that shows Medicaid spending per enrollee in 2021 was $7,593 for all eligibility groups, $3,023 for children, and $2,069 for children in Alabama.)
More – Lindsey Shelton, Southern Poverty Law Center
ABIGAIL DISNEY: THE RICH SHOULD BE PAYING MORE – AND YES, THAT MEANS M
The last 50 years have been a sickening catastrophe for the working class, a slow-motion emergency that unfolded right under our noses. Here we stand, with more wealth disparity than ever, with the super-wealthy unabashedly demanding ever more for themselves, and with an oligarchic president and Congress readying to offer us another tax break. This cut will come in spite of poll after poll showing that the inequity is intolerable to the general public, and that the wealthy should be taxed more. All this has been happening while, at the behest and with the loyal assistance of the world’s richest man, the federal government continues to be strip-mined. As clunky and inefficient as our government is, its condition—once DOGE gets done with it—will be feeble enough to drown in Grover Norquist’s notorious bathtub.
Were you worried about corruption? Well, I hope you’ve had your seat belts buckled while Elon Musk wielded his sword of Damocles over the departments from which he stands to gain contracts, payment, and influence, and by which he would otherwise be regulated. Watch as Peter Thiel and Bill Ackman cheer on the disassembly of the American university system, all the while preparing their business plans for the for-profit system with which they’d like to replace it. Were you worried about war? Well, our billionaire president has all sorts of fresh ideas about that. Nepotism? We are about to see what real affirmative action looks like.
More -Abigail Disney, The New Republic
POOREST AMERICANS DEALT BIGGEST BLOW UNDER SENATE REPUBLICAN TAX PACKAGE
Americans who comprise the bottom fifth of all earners would see their annual after-tax incomes fall on average by 2.3 percent within the next decade, while those at the top would see about a 2.3 percent boost, according to the analysis, which factors in wages earned and government benefits received. On average, that translates to about $560 in losses for someone who reports little to no income by 2034, and more than $118,000 in gains for someone making over $3 million, the report found. Martha Gimbel, the co-founder of the budget lab, described the Senate measure as “highly regressive.”
More – Tony Romm, The New York Times
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