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House Progressives Unveil 'Defund the Oligarchs, Fund the People' Resolution
"Trump promised to lower costs for families on day one, but a year since he took office, grocery, housing, and healthcare costs are out of control," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib. "It's time to tax the rich."
Jan 30, 2026
As President Donald Trump continues to serve billionaires over working people and degrade the US economy, a trio of progressive congresswomen on Friday introduced the Defund the Oligarchs, Fund the People Resolution.
"Trump promised to lower costs for families on day one, but a year since he took office, grocery, housing, and healthcare costs are out of control," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who is leading the measure with Congresswomen Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.). Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) is an original co-sponsor.
Tlaib took aim at Trump and Republicans who control both chambers of Congress for forcing through their so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year: "He signed into law the largest cuts to healthcare and food assistance in the history of our country, all to give trillions of dollars in tax breaks to his rich donors and their massive corporations."
"Meanwhile, 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and CEOs are making 281 times more than their average worker," she stressed. "It's time to tax the rich, defund the oligarchy, and invest those funds in the needs of working families."
"Every dollar that gets plundered by billionaires through tax breaks, corporate giveaways, and political favoritism is a dollar that is taken away from healthcare, housing, education, and good jobs."
The resolution declares that "the United States was created to be a democracy, founded on the principle that all people are created equal, governed not by kings or corporate masters but by themselves as free citizens," and "the gravest threat to democracy and individual freedoms is the alliance of private wealth and authoritarian government."
At various moments over the past 250 years, Americans have "sounded the alarm" over oligarchy and the federal government "has vigorously combated excessive concentrations of power and wealth," the measure notes. However, in recent decades, the government "has forfeited its role safeguarding democracy."
The resolution highlights that the combined wealth of the country's 900 billionaires exceeds that of the 67,000,000 households in the poorest 50%, as working people contend with stagnant wages and struggle to afford everything from healthcare to housing. Trump notably said during a Thursday Cabinet meeting that "I don't want to drive housing prices down, I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes. And they can be assured that's what's going to happen."
While many measures introduced by progressives don't even receive votes in the GOP-controlled Congress, this one is especially unlikely to go anywhere, given that it explicitly calls out not only the superrich donors who use their money to control the US political system but also the president, whom many lawmakers in his party are afraid to criticize.
Blasting "the quid pro quo" between Trump and the ultrawealthy oligarchs and corporations, the resolution emphasizes that they "are corrupting United States politics through billions in open and hidden campaign contributions and by exploiting their monopoly control in key sectors of the economy, and especially over media, information, and emerging digital technologies."
"Trump has permitted pay-to-play schemes to become endemic, as oligarchs leverage political contributions to win hundreds of billions in taxpayer-funded federal subsidies, tax breaks, regulatory rollbacks, and government contracts despite exploiting workers and polluting communities," it continues, specifically pointing to spending by the fossil fuel, tech, and cryptocurrency industries.
"Public funds belong to the people of the United States and should be invested in education, healthcare, housing, clean energy, and infrastructure, not used to enrich the wealthiest individuals and most powerful corporations," the resolution argues. It also expresses concern about a decline in union membership that "has diminished the ability of the labor movement" to continue its "significant historical role in counteracting corporate power, reducing inequality, and ensuring the political system is responsive to the interests of ordinary Americans, not just wealthy elites."
The resolution includes various demands for the president and Congress. It says that Trump "must not reward oligarchs and billionaire-controlled corporations with lucrative, publicly funded contracts, loans, and grants" when they engage in corrupt scheming, fail to fairly compete in open markets, and break federal laws.
It also says that the president and Congress must:
- Act with all deliberate speed to protect election integrity;
- Break up all concentrations of economic and political power;
- Drastically reduce levels of economic inequality and concentrations of inherited wealth;
- Reform the Supreme Court;
- Support the dramatic expansion of unions;
- Explore ways to promote alternative, noncorporate forms of ownership; and
- Use public money to fund programs that raise the standard of living.
"While working families have to choose between paying rent, buying groceries, or keeping the heat on, billionaires are just getting richer," said Jayapal. "We must rein in corporate power by breaking up monopolies and reforming campaign finance laws."
"It's time to make billionaires pay their fair share of taxes and reinvest those funds to provide for our communities—housing, healthcare, and education," she continued. "Our resolution calls for a political and economic system that benefits working families, not one that enriches the ultrawealthy."
The resolution comes just months before the midterm elections and amid pressure on Democrats to prove they can offer a true alternative to Trump's government full of loyalists, weak labor market, persistently high inflation, and tax giveaways to the rich—including Elon Musk, a former presidential adviser and the richest person on the planet.
Some of that pressure has come from the grassroots group Our Revolution, which is backing the resolution alongside organizations including Americans for Tax Fairness, Climate and Community Institute, MoveOn, National Nurses United, Patriotic Millionaires, People's Action, Public Citizen, RootsAction, and Social Security Works.
"Every dollar that gets plundered by billionaires through tax breaks, corporate giveaways, and political favoritism is a dollar that is taken away from healthcare, housing, education, and good jobs. That is not just corruption, it is a betrayal of who government is supposed to serve, and it is why so many people feel that democracy is not working for them," said Our Revolution executive director Joseph Geevarghese.
"The truth is, none of the policies working families are fighting for can ever fully materialize as long as corporate money and billionaire influence are writing the rules," he added. "Lawmakers cannot keep pretending to serve both the corporate class and working families at the same time. If we want real progress on wages, healthcare, housing, and climate, cutting off corporate corruption and reinvesting in our communities has to be part of how we govern, not just something we talk about during elections."
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A $1.2 Trillion ‘Rip Off’: Report Spotlights Massive Scale of Medicare Advantage Fraud
"These private insurer-run plans are more expensive AND lead to worse outcomes for patients," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. "It’s time to rein in Medicare DisAdvantage and protect traditional Medicare."
Jan 28, 2026
A report released earlier this month to little fanfare estimated that federal overpayments to privately run Medicare Advantage plans could total $76 billion this year—or potentially a staggering $1.2 trillion over the next decade if current trends persist.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), an independent congressional agency that advises lawmakers on Medicare, calculates overpayments by comparing spending on Medicare Advantage (MA) plans to what the federal government would have spent if MA enrollees were on traditional fee-for-service Medicare.
In a report published earlier this month, MedPAC showed that overpayments to MA plans this year are projected to be around $76 billion. Roughly $22 billion of that total is due to coding practices by MA providers, which are notorious for making patients appear sicker than they are to receive larger payments from the federal government. MA plans are paid lump sums to cover expected future healthcare services for patients based on their risk scores.
Another factor driving overpayments to MA plans—which now cover 55% of eligible Medicare beneficiaries—is a phenomenon known as favorable selection. MA enrollees tend to be healthier on average than recipients of traditional Medicare, resulting in higher payments to Medicare Advantage plans than are necessary based on patients' healthcare needs.
According to MedPAC, favorable selection will account for $57 billion of the expected overpayments to MA plans this year. The Trump administration gave Medicare Advantage plans a more than $25 billion boost in federal payments for 2026, even amid mounting bipartisan concerns about fraud in the program.
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) said the MedPAC analysis "confirms that these private plans are bleeding taxpayers for billions of dollars more than traditional Medicare would cost for comparable enrollees."
US Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote in response to the MedPAC findings that "Medicare DisAdvantage will rip off American taxpayers to the tune of $76 billion in 2026."
"These private insurer-run plans are more expensive AND lead to worse outcomes for patients," Jayapal, a leading supporter of Medicare for All legislation in the House, wrote in a social media post. "It’s time to rein in Medicare DisAdvantage and protect traditional Medicare."
The MedPAC analysis was released days after Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee published a report revealing how UnitedHealth Group, the largest provider of MA plans in the US, "has turned risk adjustment into a major profit-centered strategy," reaping massive payments from the federal government through upcoding.
NCPSSM noted that "while UnitedHealth... has emerged as the worst offender, it’s abundantly clear that many MA insurers are engaged in these shady practices."
"Look no further than insurers’ reliance on prior authorizations for procedures and treatments that normally would be automatically covered in traditional Medicare," the group said. "This includes denying skilled nursing care that jeopardizes older patients who have nowhere else to turn."
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Meta, Google Under Fire for Letting ICE Run ‘White Nationalist-Inspired Propaganda’ to Recruit Agents
"The impact of an unqualified army of ICE agents being unleashed across the country has been severe," wrote Reps. Becca Balint and Pramila Jayapal.
Jan 23, 2026
A pair of House Democrats on Thursday demanded that the tech behemoths Google and Meta stop allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use their platforms to bolster the Trump administration's efforts to recruit agents for its mass deportation campaign and lawless assault on communities across the United States.
In letters to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Reps. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote that they are "alarmed by recent reports that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has partnered" with the tech giants "as part of a large-scale campaign that uses white nationalist-inspired propaganda to recruit immigration enforcement agents."
ICE, the lawmakers wrote, has "taken to Google’s platforms to draw in more applicants using advertisements that use white nationalist themes." As for Meta, Balint and Jayapal pointed to a recent Washington Post story showing that DHS "spent $2.8 million on recruitment ads across Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram" last year.
"Since August, the agency has paid Meta an additional $500,000 to run recruitment advertisements on its platforms," the House Democrats wrote. "In the first three weeks of the government shutdown last year alone, ICE spent an astounding $4.5 million on paid media campaigns."
DHS, which oversees ICE, has repeatedly used white nationalist-linked rhetoric in social media posts and recruitment ads. Investigative journalist Austin Campbell reported for The Intercept earlier this month that "the Department of Homeland Security’s official Instagram account made a recruitment post proclaiming, 'We'll Have Our Home Again,' attaching a song of the same name by Pine Tree Riots."
"Popularized in neo-Nazi spaces, the track features lines about reclaiming 'our home' by 'blood or sweat,' language often used in white nationalist calls for race war," Campbell noted. "It isn’t new to see extremist right-wing ideology perpetuated in online culture. What is new is seeing it echoed in official messaging from a federal law enforcement agency with the power to detain, deport, and use lethal force."
In their letters on Thursday, Balint and Jayapal demanded that Meta and Google "cease further enabling this conduct," arguing the companies are "complicit" in the Trump administration's dangerous onslaught against US communities.
"The impact of an unqualified army of ICE agents being unleashed across the country has been severe," they wrote.
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