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unrig our economy
National 'Billionaires Eat First' Campaign Aims to Make Trump and GOP Pay for Aid Cuts
Organizers of the new campaign said Republicans are slashing nutrition assistance and other programs "after giving Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other billionaires a massive tax break."
Nov 13, 2025
A nationwide campaign announced Thursday aims to rally Americans against US President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's unpopular effort to demolish what's left of the country's social safety net to help fund tax breaks for the ultrarich.
The Billionaires Eat First campaign officially launches Friday with events in the nation's capital and Montgomery, Alabama, where local leaders, advocates, and impacted families will gather to spotlight the harms of the GOP's cuts to federal nutrition assistance. Over the summer, congressional Republicans approved the largest-ever cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the Trump administration used the prolonged government shutdown to throttle food benefits for millions.
During the shutdown, which ended on Wednesday, the more than 900 billionaires in the United States saw their combined wealth grow to a record $8 trillion as tens of millions of low-income people watched the Trump administration illegally withhold their nutrition benefits.
"Trump and congressional Republicans are taking food off the table for kids, seniors, and veterans, while families already struggle with high grocery costs," said Leor Tal, campaign director of Unrig Our Economy, the coalition that organized the new campaign in partnership with local organizations.
"And they’re doing this after giving Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other billionaires a massive tax break," Tal added. "Families need to feed their loved ones; billionaires don’t need yet another tax break. It’s wrong."
Unrig Our Economy said that the Billionaires Eat First events will feature speeches from local leaders and people directly affected by the Trump-GOP SNAP cuts. The campaign is also a mutual aid effort, with volunteers expected to donate hundreds of thousands of meals to local food banks ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
"Across America, kids, seniors, and veterans have lost vital food assistance. Why? Because Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress chose to give billionaires and big corporations massive tax breaks, while cutting SNAP benefits in their tax law, and heartlessly withholding SNAP benefits during the government shutdown," the campaign's website states. "We’re standing up to say: it’s callous, it’s cruel, and it’s wrong."
In addition to Friday's events, the campaign will have stops in West Virginia and Pennsylvania on Saturday, and Louisiana, New York, and Arizona next week.
The campaign was announced hours after Trump signed funding legislation that ended the government shutdown—though the impacts of the standoff are expected to linger, with SNAP benefits still in chaos and health insurance premiums set to rise further as Republicans refuse to back an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year.
Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, implored the Trump administration and states to quickly deliver full November benefits to those who have not yet received them.
"It remains shocking that the administration did everything it could during the shutdown to keep much-needed food assistance from reaching those in need," said FitzSimons. "The administration went as far as the Supreme Court to keep SNAP benefits out of the hands of those in need. This unnecessary and harmful decision left millions of Americans hungry and in limbo."
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Trump Critics Fear 'Presidency Without Limits' as Supreme Court Hears Tariffs Case
One critic warned a Trump win “will cement a precedent that expands his power as executive in a dangerous and unprecedented way.”
Nov 05, 2025
As the US Supreme Court on Wednesday began hearing arguments on the sweeping powers claimed by President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on foreign goods, many critics warned that the court would create a "presidency without limits" if it ruled in his favor.
In April, Trump unveiled unprecedented tariffs on nearly every nation in the world using powers granted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law passed in 1977 that allows the president to regulate international commerce during major emergencies such as wars.
Many Trump critics believe that using this law as the legal foundation of a global tariff regime is a gross abuse of the law's original intent, and are urging the Supreme Court to shut it down.
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, warned that granting the president this level of authority over the taxation of imported goods would "open the door to broader abuses of power" by emboldening Trump to usurp even more authority from the US Congress.
“We’re already dangerously close to a presidency without limits," he said. "It’s time for the right-wing majority on the court to stand up for our Constitution and serve as a check on Trump’s power, starting with this case."
Josh Orton, president of progressive legal advocacy organization Demand Justice, also said that the tariff case before the Supreme Court "is about far more than an economic debate or a trade-law dispute," given its implications for the separation of powers laid out in the US Constitution.
"Trump is demanding that the court hand him raw power over the economy," said Orton. "If Trump wins here, he won’t just raise costs on American families. He will cement a precedent that expands his power as executive in a dangerous and unprecedented way—letting any president unilaterally rewrite trade law, punish certain industries, harm consumers, or leverage international allies for personal gain."
Leor Tal, campaign director at the progressive advocacy coalition Unrig Our Economy, argued that the Supreme Court wouldn't even need to hear the case on the Trump tariffs if Congress reasserted its authority given under the US Constitution to levy taxes.
“As the Supreme Court hears a case with implications for whether Americans can afford groceries, school supplies, and more, people will remember that Republicans in Congress could end these disastrous tariffs today and should have done so a long time ago," she said. “These tariffs are nothing more than a tax on working Americans, and Republicans in Congress have voted time and again to keep them in place... Republicans in Congress must act immediately to repeal Trump’s tariffs and finally put working people first."
During Wednesday's hearing on the tariffs case, conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch raised concerns about allowing the president to usurp congressional powers in perpetuity by issuing emergency declarations that Congress must then vote to revoke before it can resume its duties outlined in Article I of the US Constitution.
"So Congress, as a practical matter, can't get this power back once it's handed it over to the president," Gorsuch remarked. "It's a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people's elected representatives."
Sauer tried to counter this by pointing to former President Joe Biden agreeing in 2023 to sign bipartisan legislation ending the national health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Gorsuch, however, countered that this only occurred with the president's consent, and that it would otherwise take a supermajority to end a declared emergency if the president elected to veto the congressional resolution.
Gorsuch: So congress as a practical matter, can't get this power back once it's handed it over to the president.. one way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people's elected representatives. pic.twitter.com/secLyWMX7H
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 5, 2025
Justice Sonia Sotomayor also grilled Sauer on concerns about separation of powers, and she noted that the Constitution explicitly delegates taxation powers to Congress.
"It's a congressional power, not a presidential power, to tax," she said. "You want to say tariffs are not taxes, but that's exactly what they are. They're generating money from American citizens, revenue."
Justice Sotomayor asks about tariffs being a kind of tax on Americans and compares President Trump's emergency tariff Executive Orders to President Biden's student loan forgiveness policy and a hypothetical climate emergency. pic.twitter.com/nD0MYgVjv3
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 5, 2025
Ahead of the Supreme Court hearing this week, Trump posted a frantic message on his Truth Social platform warning justices that his power to unilaterally impose tariffs was a matter of "life or death" for the United States.
""With a Victory, we have tremendous, but fair, financial and national security," he claimed. "Without it, we are virtually defenseless against other countries who have, for years, taken advantage of us."
Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said on social media Wednesday that "Trump’s tariffs are sending small businesses to an early grave."
"Trade authority begins and ends with Congress," the senator added. "I’ll keep battling to rein in Trump’s tariff madness and protect small businesses, farmers, and families."
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GOP Ripped for 'Holding US Economy Hostage' as Nearly Half of States Face Recession
"At a time when costs are rising and tariffs are wreaking havoc on people's pocketbooks, Republicans are doubling down on their agenda of raising healthcare costs on millions of Americans."
Oct 20, 2025
US states accounting for roughly a third of the nation's gross domestic product are currently in recession or on the verge of one as the federal government shutdown enters its fourth week, with congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump refusing to support an extension of key healthcare subsidies that are set to lapse at the end of the year.
A recent analysis by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi estimates that 22 states are experiencing an economic downturn or are at serious risk of recession, a nascent crisis fueled by Trump's tariffs, mass deportations, and sweeping attack on the federal workforce—an assault that has intensified since the federal government shut down at the beginning of October.
States currently in or on the brink of recession include Maine, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, and Georgia. Among the states “treading water” are California and New York, according to Zandi, whose analysis was based on figures that predated the government shutdown.
Leor Tal, campaign director at the progressive advocacy coalition Unrig Our Economy, said Monday in response to the analysis that "Republicans in Congress are holding the US economy hostage, and working families are paying the price."
"At a time when costs are rising and tariffs are wreaking havoc on people's pocketbooks, Republicans are doubling down on their agenda of raising healthcare costs on millions of Americans," said Tal. "It's time for congressional Republicans to reopen the government, extend the healthcare tax credits, and start lowering costs for working families."
The shutdown, which Trump has embraced and exploited to advance his far-right agenda, began at a time when the country's economy was already on uneasy footing, with food prices continuing to rise despite the president's campaign promises, GOP Medicaid cuts causing chaos across the nation, and the labor market flashing signs of distress.
With no end to the shutdown in sight, The Associated Press noted Sunday that the "the U.S. Travel Association said the travel economy is expected to lose $1 billion a week as travelers change plans to visit national parks, historic sites, and the nation's capital, where many facilities such as Smithsonian Institution museums and the National Zoo are now closed to visitors."
If the government remains shut down in November, tens of millions of Americans could see cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—which boost the economy while reducing hunger—and other aid.
Meanwhile, even as the Trump administration withholds federal labor market data amid the shutdown, economists say private and state-level figures signal escalating pain for workers that is sure to intensify the longer the closure persists.
"The fingerprints of Trump policy decisions are most clearly found in the distinct rise in federal [unemployment insurance] claims—claims filed specifically by workers laid off from federal agencies," Elise Gould and Joe Fast of the Economic Policy Institute wrote last week. "However, we are also seeing troubling trends in UI claims in regular state programs, particularly in the Washington, DC metropolitan area."
"The shutdown (and potentially the attempted politicization of key government data-collection agencies) could leave policymakers flying blind just as the economy encounters real turbulence," they cautioned.
John Diamond, director of the Center for Public Finance at Rice University's Baker Institute, warned earlier this month that the shutdown "could be a tipping point to recession."
"If it is resolved quickly, the costs will be small," Diamond argued, "but if it drags on, it could send the US economy into a tailspin."
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