PHOENIX – AFSCME members and retirees spoke out over the weekend here to oppose budget cuts to fund tax breaks for billionaires.
“We’re watching the whole-cloth hostile takeover of America’s middle class in real time by billionaires,” Jason Henley of AFSCME Local 2384 told the crowd of about 80 people on Saturday.
Henley was one of several members of AFSCME joined by U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari at an event decrying the attacks on public services by billionaire Elon Musk and his allies in Congress and the White House.
Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has run roughshod over the federal workforce, laying off thousands of essential employees. Now Musk, the White House and their allies in Congress want to make big cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to fund tax breaks for billionaires.
Those cuts would be devastating to communities that need and deserve public services and the workers who provide them.
“We are out here every day making sure that trash gets picked up, that your 911 calls get answered, that all children get to go to school and have an education,” Frank Piccioli, president of AFSCME Local 2960, said in a statement. “And the ultra-wealthy billionaires are trying to take all that away, for what? To line their own pockets with tax breaks for themselves on the backs of all of us.”
Retirees who could see their livelihoods and health care devastated by the proposed cuts spoke out at the event.
“I checked all the boxes, paid my dues, and now my hard-earned Social Security benefits are at risk while health care costs skyrocket,” said Patti O’Neil, a member of AFSCME Arizona Retirees Chapter 97.
Louisa Pedraza, first vice president of Retirees Chapter 97, said Social Security was “critical for me to able to live.” Pedraza added, “The real fraudsters are the billionaires who are trying to gut Social Security to line their own pockets. It’s despicable and wrong.”
The event in Phoenix was one of a series of events around the country in which AFSCME members are speaking out against threats to public services. As members of Congress take their spring break, AFSCME members are showing up and standing together to fight for public services, their communities and working families and retirees.
The efforts by Musk and anti-union extremists are the reason we need to Get Organized. Get Organized, or AFSCME GO, is all about making sure every AFSCME member knows what’s at stake and joins the fight to protect the services we provide.
The bigger we are, the more power we have to say working people shouldn’t just get by — we demand to thrive.