The Trump Administration and Republican lawmakers’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” that passed last week and signed into law “is the most harmful, immoral budget we have seen in modern American history,” U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, flanked by local elected officials and nonprofits heads, declared in a July 10 press conference in Minneapolis.
Omar spoke from a community food shelf in the basement of Sabathani Community Center, where she was joined by state Sen. Omar Fateh; Hennepin County Commissioner Irene Fernando; state Rep. Sidney Jordan; Moriah O’Malley of UNIDOS; Peter Wiggins of the Sierra Club; and Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States.
Rep. Omar’s District Office is also housed at Sabathani.
Since Trump’s signing of the bill, early polling, as reported by the Associated Press suggests it is deeply unpopular, including among independents and Republicans due to the projected cuts in funding and services that will affect even Republican states.
The bulk of the press conference centered on the severe cuts and cessation of services that are expected, with Rep. Omar stating “this bill rips $186 billion from SNAP. That’s food off the tables of our seniors, of children, and single mothers, people who are already struggling to get by. Here in the 5th District, that’s nearly 90,000 people who rely on SNAP. I’ve spoken to them and many of them are asking, ‘how do I feed my kids and still pay my bills?’ This is the United States of America. No one should ever have to make that choice.”
Omar warned that the bill will further widen the income and wealth divide between the rich and poor in America.
” While families are being told to tighten their belts, billionaires are getting a windfall, permanent tax cuts for the rich and temporary scraps for everyone,” she said. “This is the largest upward transfer of wealth in our lifetime. It makes the rich richer and leaves working people behind.”
President Trump signed the bill into law on his self-imposed deadline of July 4 after a narrow 218-214 vote in the House with all Democrats voting against it. In the Senate, it required President JD Vance to cast a tie-breaking vote after a 50-50 tie.
The massive bill makes permanent his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was set to expire at the end of this year. When it was passed in 2017, it lowered taxes for corporations.
The bill boosted greatly the budget for the military by $150 billion. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received a whopping $100 billion so it can hire more personnel, and also build and expand detention centers.
ICE’s budget before this massive allocation was $8 billion and the non-profit Brennan Center for Justice has said this will make it the largest federal law enforcement agency.
Prior to the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the federal government fully funded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), but with the new law, states will be required to contribute more, which has raised fears that many states will not be able to do so. The 90,000 in Omar’s district that use SNAP are part of the 40 million people nationwide that use the program.
Those at the press conference Thursday took turns outlining the impending catastrophic impact of the new law.
Commissioner Fernando who followed Omar at the podium described the new law as “completely nonsensical.”
“Last year in Hennepin, we were able to connect residents with $200 million in SNAP benefits. $200 million. If that goes away, where else will those funds come from? How will we nourish our residents, our neighbors, our youngest children to dream and live the future that they deserve to have?” Fernando said.
Fernando also criticized the law over its cuts on Medicaid, noting that cutting healthcare to society’s most vulnerable runs counter to the shared humanity of all Americans.
“Most elderly are receiving their health care through Medicaid. So, if we are enriching, further enriching a small population at the expense of our children and elders, then what does that say about us? What does that say about us collectively?” Fernando said.
State Sen. Omar Fateh, who represents south Minneapolis and is also a candidate for Mayor of Minneapolis, said the bill will slash Pell Grants by an average of $3,000 per grant and will have an “outsized” impact on marginalized communities that rely on them to attend college. He added that the Pell Grant reduction will see students of color, working class students, and students from rural areas lose their ability to attend colleges and universities.
“As announced yesterday in the Star Tribune, the University of Minnesota will be forced to lay off 60 SNAP county educators that are funded by grants that will abruptly be eliminated. SNAP educators provide vital resources for students to be able to access food and critical nutrition services.,” Fateh said. “This will be extremely destabilizing both for the people losing their jobs suddenly and to students losing this needed service.”
Moriah O’Malley of UNIDOS delivered perhaps one of the most scathing remarks, calling the new law “One Big Evil Bill.”
“The Trump administration and his kowtowing lackeys in Congress have put their fascist tactics on full display. They use the word criminal. They use the word illegal. They use the word alien to justify this treatment, to dehumanize our fellow humans,” O’Malley said. “But I will not, and we will not, all people of conscience will not be fooled. These are our neighbors, our friends, our fathers, our mothers, our grandparents, and our children. ICE is stealing away human beings, disappearing the very people who make our lives and our communities stronger.”
State Rep. Sidney Jordan, who represents northeast Minneapolis and southeast Como, and was the chief author of the state’s Universal School Meals law which provides breakfast and lunch to every child in the state of Minnesota, described the law as reckless and would have catastrophic effects that the state might not be able to fix.
“This bill not only hurts students at school, but at home where they and their families count on nutritional supports like SNAP,” Jordan said. “Our food shelves and banks, like the one we’re standing in, count on nutritional supports and are bracing for the impacts of these cuts. They need stable and predictable funding, which this bill throws into question.”
Peter Wiggins of the Sierra Club accused Trump of corruption, recalling a Washington Post story that reported during the campaign last year candidate Trump held an energy roundtable with oil and gas executives at Mar-a-Lago where he sought $1 billion in campaign contributions from them in exchange for helping their industries when he becomes president.
“Because of the big ugly bill, Americans are now going to start to feel the impact of Trump’s corruption. Americans will feel it. Minnesotans will feel it in higher energy bills, job losses, and more pollution.,” Wiggins said. “It will eliminate thousands of good paying jobs and raise everyone’s energy bills, increasing the average family’s power bill by $110 next year and as much as $400 a year in the next 10.”
One of the immediate effects of the new law was felt at Planned Parenthood North Central States where the law said Medicaid cannot be used and did not distinguish between birth control services that Planned Parenthood provides and medical services such as cancer screenings that can also be obtained at their clinics. The new law stated that health care organizations that provide abortions from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursements.
Planned Parenthood has sued the Trump administration over this provision in the law and a judge issued a temporary injunction to allow the organization to continue receiving funding for services unrelated to abortion.
“When President Trump signed the bill last week, it had an immediate impact on Planned Parenthood patients who rely on Medicaid. The bill blocks patients from using Medicaid funds to pay for our services, including birth control, cancer screening, annual wellness visits, mental health and STI testing and treatment,” said Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States.
Richardson who rounded up the list of speakers said Medicaid enabled 27,000 patients to access healthcare at the clinics she heads in the region through $11 million in funds.
How services and food to the most vulnerable can continue to be provided with this new law is to “fight this enormously devastating plan to make sure that those of us who do not have a million dollars, or a billion dollars to donate to a presidential candidate are protected. And we only do that when we collectively understand that our destinies are tied together,” Omar said as she ended the press conference.
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About Tom Gitaa Gitaa, Editor-in-Chief
Born and raised in Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa, Tom is the Founder, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Mshale which has been reporting on the news and culture of African immigrants in the United States since 1995. He has a BA in Business from Metro State University and a Public Leadership Credential from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He was the original host of Talking Drum, the signature current affairs show on the African Broadcasting Network (ABN-America), which was available nationwide in the United States via the Dish Network satellite service. On the show, he interviewed Nobel laureates such as 2004 Nobel Peace prize winner, Professor Wangari Maathai, the first woman from Africa to win the peace prize and heads of states. Tom has served and chaired various boards including Global Minnesota (formerly Minnesota International Center), the sixth largest World Affairs Council in the United States. He has previously served as the first Black President of the Board of Directors at Books for Africa. He also serves on the boards of New Vision Foundation and the Minnesota Multicultural Media Consortium. He has previously served two terms on the board of the United Nations Association. An avid runner, he retired from running full marathons after turning 50 and now only focuses on training for half marathons.
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