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For Immediate Release
May, 18 2011, 11:32am EDT
Contact:
Tanya Aquino, 321-960-3802
Nancy Kohn, 617-522-9478
Working Families Lobby for Financial Transparency in Public Contracts
State legislators stand with janitors, security officers, and cafeteria workers calling for financial transparency, increased accountability in publicly funded contracts
BOSTON
Today at the state house, nearly 50 janitors, security officers, cafeteria workers and community organizations stood alongside three elected officials supporting legislation to ensure accountability and transparency with taxpayer dollars. Companies and institutions that receive public funding should meet high standards of financial accountability and transparency, especially at this time of great budgetary strain.
Lead sponsors Senator Karen Spilka, Representative Martin Walsh and Senator Patricia Jehlen spoke respectively to three bills which will root out hidden money that should be feeding and nourishing students at public colleges and universities, improve the safety and security services in public spaces, and increase financial transparency and strengthen reporting in private, non-profit higher education institutions which receive big tax breaks.
"Some universities have made poor financial decisions mimicking Wall Street's bad behavior," said Senator Patricia Jehlen referring to An Act to Establish Tax Transparency and Strengthen the Reporting Requirements of Public Charities and to Establish Reporting Requirements for the Trustees and Directors of Public, S790 and H3003. "That is why we require new tools such as transparency and conflict of interest laws to encourage accountability and informed policy."
Westfield State University student Patrick Burke spoke to An Act to Preclude Contractors from Retaining Rebates that would Undermine the Integrity of the Public Procurement Process, S577 and H355 saying, "While many students are working to make their campuses healthier and more sustainable, food service outsourcing giants could be undermining our efforts by cheating our public colleges and universities out of up to $7.7 million annually in hidden discounts. That money can be used to restore programs and services we have lost during the economic downturn or go toward healthy, local options in the cafeterias."
"I think the companies that our cities and state hire to provide security services should be offering good jobs to Massachusetts residents," said security officer Antonio Miles in reference to proposed legislation, An Act to Enhance the Quality of Security Services on State Property, S1572 and H548. "When our taxes go to hiring companies, they should offer a high quality of service, and a willingness to contribute to our community, not cut corners at our community's expense."
With 2 million members in Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico, SEIU is the fastest-growing union in the Americas. Focused on uniting workers in healthcare, public services and property services, SEIU members are winning better wages, healthcare and more secure jobs for our communities, while uniting their strength with their counterparts around the world to help ensure that workers--not just corporations and CEOs--benefit from today's global economy.
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A Year After Trump Package, Report Shows Rich 'Got a Handout, and Working Families Got the Bill'
"I've never seen a more dangerous and purposeful attempt to make people sick and hungry," said one Pennsylvania state lawmaker.
Jul 10, 2026
Last week marked the first anniversary of President Donald Trump signing H.R. 1, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
But a new report from the progressive advocacy group Defend America Action, obtained exclusively by Common Dreams, demonstrates that while the bill has indeed been beautiful for the richest households, it has been anything but for working-class Americans.
"Republicans sacrificed the American people's financial future, healthcare, and food security to pay for massive tax breaks for big corporations and the ultrawealthy," the report said. "The richest people on the planet got a handout, and working families got the bill."
According to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the richest 1% of Americans will see $117 billion in net tax cuts in 2026, an average windfall of roughly $66,000 each and more than the entire bottom 60% will receive combined.
At the same time, the law contained the largest cuts to federal healthcare funding in US history, slashing over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) over the next decade.
The report found that as of March 2026, less than a year after the bill passed, enrollment in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) had already fallen by 3.8 million.
And after Republicans allowed ACA marketplace subsidies to expire, insurance premiums are projected to increase 114% on average, leading one in five enrollees—over 4.2 million people—to drop their coverage entirely.
Additionally, 11 million low-income Americans no longer receive zero-dollar premiums through the marketplace, while deductibles rose an average of 37% for those buying insurance on their own.
In total, more than 8 million people are estimated to have lost insurance coverage due to cuts to these programs, according to Protect Our Care. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that as many as 15 million could lose insurance by 2034 as a result of the law and other policy changes over the next decade.
US Rep. Dina Titus (D) said that the cuts have hit her state of Nevada especially hard, as many people work in the service industry and don't receive employer-sponsored insurance.
"An estimated 100,000 Nevadans are impacted by this, [could be] kicked off Medicaid, including 22,000 just in my one congressional district, and it's children, it's seniors, and it's people with disabilities who are going to be impacted so directly."
"The failure to continue the [ACA] tax credits... has knocked more people off," she said. "Then people who do have it pay higher rates to cover that. So it doesn't just impact the people who are on Obamacare. It impacts everybody."
According to an analysis by Protect Our Care, more than 1,000 hospitals, nursing homes, maternity wards, and other critical care facilities around the country have either shut down, are at risk of closing, or have cut essential services since the law went into place.
"In my more than 25 years as a practicing physician and now a legislator for the last four years, I've never seen a more dangerous and purposeful attempt to make people sick and hungry," said Pennsylvania state Rep. Arvind Venkat (D-30), an emergency physician who represents the suburbs outside Pittsburgh.
"There are a number of hospitals in Pennsylvania that have closed or are under threat to close as a result of the devastation that's being caused by this legislation," he said.
After $187 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more than 4 million low-income people—10 % of enrollees—no longer receive food assistance, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Millions more are expected to also lose benefits as stringent new work requirements go into effect. This includes 3 million people aged 18-24, according to a report from the Urban Institute, which noted that young adults often have greater difficulty finding stable jobs that allow them to meet the work requirements.
An analysis from ProPublica last month found that across just 12 states that break down data based on age, at least 776,000 children are no longer appearing on SNAP rolls.
"I think when we're talking about SNAP, we should start from the fact that the average benefit per person is [less than] $3 per meal," said Jared Bernstein, who served as the chair of the United States Council of Economic Advisers under former President Joe Biden.
"Nobody's getting rich off of SNAP," he said. "What's happening is people, including a lot of children, are getting fed."
"There's a long line of careful research showing long-term benefits for not just the beneficiaries themselves, but for the broader society," he said, noting that receiving benefits early in life is associated with "better academic performance, long-run health, educational attainment, and economic self-sufficiency."
The report from Defend America Action also said the Trump budget law squashed "an unprecedented American clean energy and manufacturing boom" that began during the Biden years, which created hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The law eliminated clean energy tax credits and led hundreds of projects to be canceled. Citing an analysis by Climate Power, the report said that over 140,000 clean energy jobs have been lost, are at risk, or have been delayed due to H.R. 1, stemming from 382 canceled or delayed projects that represented $69 billion in investment.
This has also contributed to the $92 billion spike in energy bills since Trump took office, the report said. Those canceled projects could have powered more than 17 million homes.
The law also killed the $7,500 electric vehicle (EV) tax credit, which has locked consumers into driving gas-powered cars that cost more to power, especially as Trump's war with Iran has sent gas prices soaring.
Bernstein noted that EV sales "fell off a cliff" after the tax credits were canceled.
"I can't begin to describe how shortsighted this is," he said. "Not just in terms of the environment, but also in terms of the US ever having a chance to capture market share in what I believe already is a do-or-die product development for the auto sector."
He noted that the US abandonment of clean energy, even as its use grows worldwide, has led China to dominate the market.
"This isn't China just eating our lunch," Bernstein said. "This is us serving our lunch to them."
Defend America Action's report notes that at the time of its passage, H.R. 1 was the most unpopular piece of legislation to pass through Congress since at least 1990, with just 31% approving and 55% disapproving, according to an average of four major polls.
Just months before the midterm elections, the bill remains equally unpopular, with only 33% of Americans saying they favor it and 48% opposing it, according to a recent survey by Navigator Research.
Titus told Common Dreams that one year ago, her colleagues in the GOP were very excited to pass H.R. 1.
Now, she said, "They don't really talk about it."
"They always are up for cutting programs," Titus said. "They call it fraud, waste, and abuse, but it's not. It's benefits that people needed."
"I think as you get closer to the election, there will be more concern about it," Titus said. "You know they cleverly made some of these cuts not go into effect until after the election, so they had to have been aware that they weren't very popular."
"I think we need to get the message out as much and as often as we can," she said, "and that's been kind of focused on affordability because all these different programs that we mentioned tie together."
"It's not just one little hit," Titus said. "It's across-the-board hits."
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In 'Death Knell for America's Wildlife,' Trump Admin Guts Habitat Protections for Endangered Species
"If animals don’t have a place to live, they can’t live," said one critic.
Jul 10, 2026
President Donald Trump's administration on Friday paved the way for letting US corporations destroy the habitats of endangered species by rescinding a longtime interpretation of the Endangered Species Act.
As reported by The New York Times, the Interior Department and the Commerce Department announced that they were narrowing the law's definition of what constitutes harming endangered species.
Whereas the law has for decades been interpreted as protecting endangered animals' habitats from significant "modification or degradation," the administration said that offenders would have to directly injure or kill an endangered animal to be considered in violation of the law.
"The change could open the door for fossil fuel companies, agricultural interests, land developers, and others," wrote the Times, "to disturb or even destroy the habitats of vulnerable species."
The Endangered Species Act has been interpreted as protecting animals' habitats for decades, and that interpretation upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1995.
Environmental advocates expressed horror in response to the rule change, which they said would put endangered species at unprecedented risk.
Kristen Boyles, attorney for Earthjustice, vowed that the administration would face legal challenges for its rule change, which she said would jeopardize endangered animals' ability to "raise their young, or search for food."
"Let’s be clear: There is no support for the Trump Administration’s rule—no scientific support, no legal support, no public support," Boyles said. "We will see the Trump Administration in court."
Ben Greuel, wildlife campaign manager at the Sierra Club, called the rule changed "a direct attack on the foundation of the Endangered Species Act" that, if kept in place, would put species "on a path to extinction."
"This rule ignores that reality in an unlawful attempt to open the door for corporate polluters to degrade vitally important habitats, wildlife be damned," Greuel emphasized. "The Endangered Species Act is a bedrock law that must be followed."
Tara Zuardo, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, pointed out that "habitat destruction is the number one threat to endangered species," while calling the Trump administration's new policy "a death knell for America’s wildlife."
"If animals don’t have a place to live, they can’t live," Zuardo said. "Spotted owls, Atlantic salmon, Florida panthers, and thousands of other species need protections for the wild places where they make their homes."
Andrew Bowman, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, accused the Trump administration of embracing an "erroneous and nonsensical interpretation" of the Endangered Species Act that he vowed to challenge in court.
"We intend to fight back with the full force of the law," said Bowman, "to defeat this attack and innumerable others by the administration on the statutes and regulations that protect America’s cherished wildlife."
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Trump Accused of ‘Mugging’ Americans as War on Clean Energy Set to Cost US Economy $55 Billion a Year
“Trump is getting Americans coming and going. He’s forcing higher power bills on them by blocking clean energy, then he’s fattening the wallets of his cronies," said former Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
Jul 10, 2026
President Donald Trump's obsession with canceling clean energy projects is bad not just for the climate, but for the US economy as a whole.
An analysis released Thursday by nonprofit green energy advocate E2 and conducted by consulting firm BW Research estimates that clean energy projects that have been shut down or downsized during Trump's second term would have added $55 billion to the annual gross domestic product (GDP).
The analysis finds that, in addition to delivering a hit to GDP, scrapping the projects lead to 470,000 fewer jobs, including 42,000 construction jobs related to battery storage, 33,000 construction jobs related to solar projects, and 28,000 construction jobs related to electric vehicle projects.
The cancelations will also hit governments' coffers, as they are projected to deliver a $12 billion annual reduction in tax revenues.
The report points to two big components in Trump White House's attack on clean energy: the Republican Party's 2025 budget law, which rolled back tax credits for clean energy programs, and the administration's own policies, including payoffs to companies to halt project development and a permitting ban on new solar and wind projects.
Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, said the numbers outlined in the analysis show that "making it harder to build clean energy projects means lost jobs, lost investments, lost electricity supplies, and lost local tax revenues."
"Add it all up and it’s clear," Keefe added, "that federal actions to stop clean energy are costing all of us—consumers, businesses and our national economy—big time."
Michael Timberlake, director of research and publications at E2, commented that Trump's policies are "hitting exactly the kinds of projects America needs most: domestic manufacturing, battery storage, solar, wind, and electric vehicles."
“The losses go far beyond the direct jobs announced by companies," Timberlake said. "Every cancelled factory or power project means fewer construction workers on site, fewer suppliers filling orders, fewer dollars flowing through local economies, and fewer tax revenues for schools, fire departments, roads, and public services."
A Friday report in The Guardian similarly highlighted the economic damage being done by Trump's war on clean energy, with a particular focus on the Trump administration's unprecedented policy of paying energy companies to relinquish leases for offshore wind projects they had already purchased.
Jenny Rowland-Shea, senior director for conservation policy at the Center for American Progress, told The Guardian that the administration is "trying to snuff out an entire form of energy," which she said was a particularly irrational thing to do when Americans' utility bills are spiking.
"It’s at a time when the United States needs more energy," said Rowland-Shea. "As people’s rates are going up for electricity, as we see data centers gobbling up more energy."
Former Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, whose 2020 presidential campaign focused heavily on combating the climate crisis, accused Trump and his administration of "mugging" the American public by forcing them to needlessly pay more for energy.
“Trump is getting Americans coming and going,” said Inslee. “He’s forcing higher power bills on them by blocking clean energy, then he’s fattening the wallets of his cronies—all with billions of our tax dollars.”
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