‘A Big Bad Betrayal’: San José Groups Protest Trump’s Tax Bill

A broad coalition of South Bay organizations rallied Thursday in San José against what they called President Trump’s “Big Bad Bill,” aiming to highlight the harmful effect the Trump administration’s tax and immigration proposal, if passed, will have on large swaths of working class and lower income people, immigrants and the environment.

Protesters representing two dozen progressive groups said they are gravely concerned that the budget bill would spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defense and immigration enforcement, and make deep cuts to bedrock health and safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps, while extending tax breaks for the rich. The bill is currently working its way through the U.S. Senate after squeezing through the House.

“I think people are just now getting out of their cocoons and realizing that we need a mass movement to address the problems that the country is facing,” Richard Hobbs, an immigration attorney and founder of the nonprofit Human Agenda, told KQED.

Hobbs said the common thread among the protesters was care for the basic needs of residents, including people of color, workers, students and immigrants.

“They don’t believe that we can get fundamental change in this country without changing the institutions that are currently dominating the United States and that are causing great harm,” Hobbs said, of the participating groups, which included the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the NAACP of San José/Silicon Valley, Asian Law Alliance, Amigos de Guadalupe and the Silicon Valley Immigration Committee.

In front of the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, the group of about 45 protesters held a brief rally, chanting slogans in support of immigrants and opposing Trump and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while holding anti-war signs.

Leaders of various groups called out Congress and Trump for their support of the budget bill. While Trump has dubbed the legislation “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the group’s leaders called it “bad,” “brutal” and a “betrayal,” among other derisive comments.

Kimberly Woo, an organizer with immigrant rights organization SIREN, said the bill’s proposed changes to eligibility requirements for nutritional assistance programs like SNAP, and new restrictions to Medicaid and Federal Student Aid would have a sweeping effect, cutting benefits to millions of U.S. citizens and immigrants with or without green cards.

“The Trump administration has weaponized our money to spend billions on fear, violence, kidnapping our community members from our streets, detaining and abusing children and families without proper access to medical attention, separating and deporting our loved ones without so much as a court hearing, and forcing us to drain our savings for necessary health care and education expenses,” Woo said during the rally.

The changes to Medicaid alone, known as MediCal, could push more than 1 million Californians out of the program, a recent analysis by the Urban Institute found.

Darcie Green, the executive director of healthcare nonprofit Latinas Contra Cancer, said the bill is “shameful.”

“It isn’t a budget, it’s a heist. In our communities, MediCal isn’t optional. It’s how people access cancer treatment, medication, prenatal care, it is how our families survive,” Green said during the rally. “We will not let this system sacrifice our people so billionaires can buy a third yacht and ICE can build another detention center.”

The cuts to SNAP, which currently provides money for groceries for 40 million Americans, could be up to $300 billion, crippling the program and putting greater strain on already stretched thin food banks.

Bay Area food bank leaders said earlier this month that the bill could lead to hundreds of thousands of residents locally losing a major chunk of their monthly food budget, or being cut off altogether.

Scott Myers-Lipton, a professor emeritus of sociology at San José State University, who until last year led the publication of the annual Silicon Valley Pain Index — which reports on the region’s disparities in health, wealth and education — said the federal budget bill will only exacerbate worsening inequality, locally and nationwide.

“So here we have a Trump tax cut, a budget bill, that’s really going to give 68% of all the benefits to the top 10%, and the bottom 10%, the ones that have been struggling the most, are going to get a $1,600 cut in their annual budget. So to me, it just doesn’t seem right,” Myers-Lipton said.

“Really, this is about the American dream, and cutting the possibility for so many people in our community to achieve the American Dream, which is the right to have enough food, to have a place to live, to send your kid to a good school, to have health care. Just the basics,” he added.

Hobbs said Thursday’s action is a small example of the kind of intersectional protests and solidarity that will be needed to push local, state and national leaders to fight back against these proposed changes to American life.

“People are beginning to recognize that they need to get out of their bunker — out of their house, and … out of their silo,” Hobbs said.

“If they stay in their silo, for example, and only represent women or only represent immigrants or only represent the environment or only represent labor, then we’re never going to reach a point where we can have the mass protest that’s going to be necessary to make change in this country.”