Rep. Ansari: “When Donald Trump and Republicans talk about ‘affordability,’ what they really mean is taking away food assistance and health care from working Arizonans.”
WASHINGTON, DC — Today, ahead of Donald Trump’s appearance in Arizona, Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ-03), State Senator Analise Ortiz, former White House Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Jared Bernstein, and Protect Our Care Arizona’s Morgan Finkelstein participated in a press call to discuss Trump and Congressional Republicans’ affordability crisis. The call came on the heels of a new report from Defend America Action laying out the crisis and its consequences for Arizonans.
The speakers highlighted how, as a result of Trump and Congressional Republicans’ tariff-driven inflation, food, energy, and health care costs are skyrocketing for everybody in the state, while big corporations and the ultra-wealthy cash in on tax breaks. Trump’s anemic economy is hitting the poorest Arizonans the hardest, and as a result, migration to Arizona is slowing for the first time in decades.
“When Donald Trump and Republicans talk about ‘affordability,’ what they really mean is taking away food assistance and health care from working Arizonans,” said U.S. Representative Yassamin Ansari. “All of that was either to give tax breaks to the rich, or to give billions and billions of dollars to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. I hear from my constituents every day about how awful these policies are and how they are affecting them.”
“We have out-of-touch politicians like Andy Biggs, who has called Trump’s tariffs a ‘brilliant economic strategy.’ We have David Schweikert, who’s bragged about the tariffs, and the leader of the Arizona Senate GOP recently said that gas is not unusually high. What world are they living in? They own these policies, and they own the rising costs that come with them,” said State Senator Analise Ortiz.
“Every one of those policy initiatives pushes hard in the wrong direction on affordability. It’s as if Donald Trump doesn’t just think affordability is a ‘hoax.’ He must think that life is too affordable for lower and middle class Americans, so he has to get to work to make life more expensive for them,” said former White House Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Jared Bernstein.
“We have a very real health care crisis as a direct result of this administration,” said Protect Our Care Arizona’s Morgan Finkelstein. “Premiums are up, hospitals are struggling, and coverage that people counted on is disappearing. Specific policy decisions, cutting Medicaid funding, letting ACA tax credits expire are having direct, measurable consequences on Arizona families. Roughly 400,000 Arizonans could lose health care because of Trump’s cuts. That is a crisis.”
A recording of the press call is available here. Defend America Action’s Arizona affordability report is available here.
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