April 11, 2025 - Medicaid Killer Budget Takes The Next Step
Plus: we're back out on the streets this recess, starting a tenants union, some recommended reading, and more!
Contact all members of Congress:
By phone: (202) 224-3121
By email: Congress.gov
By US mail: Representatives / Senators
By fax: Representatives / Senators
By Resistbot: Resist.bot
If you have questions, comments, and especially submissions for actions, please email us at roganslisttips@gmail.com!
PROTESTING AND CALLING OUT CONGRESS DURING THIS RECESS
We all know just one day of protest isn’t going to cut it. We’re going to need to be out in the streets a lot more, getting organized, getting to know our neighbors, and taking the next step in taking our country back. Over the coming days we can:
Join our local #TeslaTakedown protests! We can find one near us *THIS WEEKEND* and every weekend here. And if there isn’t one near us, let’s organize one of our own! We can do so at local Tesla galleries, charging stations, or really any busy intersection. A guide to hosting can be found here.
Check out the Coalition for Action in Higher Ed’s planned day of action for higher education on *APRIL 17TH* – they’re fighting for the right to organize on campus, the right to teach and learn without being censored and the right to affordable higher education that doesn’t put us in debt! We can find virtual events here or join one in our area marked on the map here.
Also on *APRIL 17TH*, groups in the Detention Watch Network are holding a national Communities Not Cages Day of Action to stop the deportation machine and the expansion of detention centers. We can sign up to get updates on events near us here.
Join the 50501 Movement for their next big protest day on *APRIL 19TH*! This movement for American values is honoring the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord by fighting for the self-same freedoms the original revolutionaries did. We can check their calendar for events near us here.
The Resistance Rangers will be holding another round of events at national parks around the country for Earth Day on *APRIL 22ND*! We can sign up here to get notified of events near us.
GOP TAKES ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS CUTTING MEDICAID, SNAP
Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune managed to make enough commitments to slash $1.5 trillion in government services to get the hard right in line and pass the Senate’s magic math budget through the House yesterday on a 216-214 vote (all Democrats plus Reps. Thomas Massie and Victoria Spartz were nays). They’re hoping to get the full bill gutting Medicaid and food assistance to pay for tax cuts for billionaires through by Memorial Day (we can read a good walkthrough of the next step from the Center for American Progress’ Bobby Kogan here). But now they’ve arrived at the tough part: they need to decide on the exact figures they keep kicking the can down the road on, resolving significant differences in approach between the House and Senate and various Republican factions. And we need to make it clear their plan is unacceptable no matter what. Here’s how:
Calling our members of Congress and telling them no Medicaid cuts, no SNAP cuts, no tax cuts for billionaires. We can use language from this 5Calls script, and be sure to add in our personal stories of how these cuts would hurt us and our families. And we can supplement our calls with details from these resources on the district-by-district impact.
Encouraging folks around us who aren’t engaged – especially those who might be directly impacted by cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, Pell Grants and school lunches – to make these calls as well.
Raising the pressure on our elected officials to their faces. Indivisible groups are organizing another round of recess events at members’ offices and town halls to take the fight to them. We can find some near us here. We can also ask to arrange a meeting with staffers at our in-district offices now or any time.
Joining phonebanks to reach out to folks in key districts and get them to pressure their own members of Congress. People’s Action is holding these every Thursday (sign up here) and the Working Families Party has multiple events on the books here.
REPUBLICANS HANDED BIG BANKS A BIG WIN – MAKE SURE EVERYONE KNOWS
Congressional Republicans just screwed over regular Americans to ensure big bank profits. One of the last acts of the Biden-era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was a new rule limiting bank overdraft fees to $5, which would save working people $5 billion a year. This infuriated the billionaires, so naturally eliminating it was high on the GOP agenda for this Congress. Over the votes of every Democrat (roll calls here and here), they pushed through a Congressional Review Act resolution to roll back the rule and let overdraft fees run wild, with the House finishing the job on Wednesday.
With the GOP’s help, the billionaires won and we lost. And we need to make sure they’re held accountable for it. Let’s be sure we’re talking about this on social media and write a letter to the editor to our local media highlighting this vote – especially if our members voted for it. We can find tips on writing an LTE here and some submission guidelines for our local papers here. We can find talking points to work from Americans for Financial Reform here and here, language from our friend here and background from the CFPB here and the American Prospect here and here.
INTERESTED IN STARTING A TENANTS UNION?
The role of community organizing will be critical in stopping the oligarchs and rebuilding American democracy. Central in that field are tenants unions, who are at the forefront of the movement for affordable housing and balancing the scales in an increasingly corporate-controlled housing market. But it’s not an easy thing to begin from scratch. The Autonomous Tenants Union Network is hosting a virtual training Sunday at 7:30PM on how to start organizing our fellow tenants. Let’s sign up to learn more here.
DEADLINE DAY FOR PUBLIC COMMENT ON TRANS HEALTH CARE, IMMIGRANT REGISTRATION
Today is the final day to make our voices heard against two proposed new rules by the Trump Administration. They’re attempting to force undocumented immigrants to “register” with the US government – threatening them with criminal charges along with detention and deportation if they fail to do so, but making it easier for ICE to imprison or remove if they comply. They’re also proposing to ban states from requiring coverage for gender-affirming care as an essential health benefit under the Affordable Care Act, making medically-necessary care much harder for trans people to access even in states that want to do right by their citizens. Advocates are asking us to use this chance to weigh in:
FORCED REGISTRATION: We can learn more here, submit a public comment here, and NILC has a form we can sign on to here.
TRANS HEALTH CARE UNDER ACA: We can submit public comments here, and work off of this sample comment from Advocates for Trans Equality here.
RECOMMENDED READING: GENERAL STRIKES
There’s been plenty of buzz in the air, from union leaders to members of Congress to the executive director of the ACLU to street activists everywhere, that rescuing our democracy is increasingly likely to require a general strike or similar mass direct action. (There’s even already an organization asking folks to commit to participating – we can sign our strike cards here.)
The general strike is incredibly difficult to organize – and an incredibly powerful weapon for the people. Here’s some recommended readings so we can start thinking more concretely about this tool and what it would require of us:
Journalist Kim Kelly’s general explainer of general strikes from Teen Vogue
Academic Erik Loomis’ history of the general strike in America from In These Times
The Beautiful Trouble toolbox has a guide to general strikes
KEEPING AN EYE ON…
The disruption of the world economy sends tremors to the foundations of economic norms. Where cocoa and palm oil come from won’t change. Let us think about palm oil. So we buy a lot more palm oil, like 4.6 billion pounds from Indonesia in 2023. So Indonesia buys $10 billion from the U.S., but ships us $38 billion in palm oil, footwear, clothes, etc. Trade imbalance? So what? https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/casinos-is-revenue-trump-thunk-then?r=3m1bs