Demonstrators demand Arkansas senators vote against ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’

A dozen demonstrators gathered half a block from the state Capitol Wednesday morning to urge Arkansas’ U.S. senators to vote against President Donald Trump’s suite of tax and spending cuts currently pending in the upper chamber of Congress.

Organized by chapters of the Arkansas Community Organizations, the demonstrators carried signs, spoke of how the legislation — dubbed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” by Trump and adopted by the GOP — would affect them and other Arkansans personally. They then entered the Victory Building and submitted comments to staff of Sen. Tom Cotton’s and Sen. John Boozman’s Little Rock office’s, which are in the structure.

William Gerard, the Southwest chapter vice president of ACO, said he receives Medicaid and SNAP benefits and Section 8 housing vouchers. If the tax and spending legislation makes it into law, he said, he was likely to end up homeless and unable to afford his medications due to being unable to meet work requirements that are part of the bill. 

“My medicines are in the thousands; I have seizures, I have cerebral palsy,” Gerard said. “I only get $50 in food stamps. What’s $50 going to buy these days? Nothing.” 

U.S. Senate GOP tries to ease the pain for states in sharing costs of SNAP benefits

When the group went to Boozman’s office to fill out comment forms, William Mitchener, a farmer from Jackson County and self-described registered Republican, told staff that he had two bins full of rice he wasn’t able to sell, which he said was due in part to cutbacks in federal programs that would buy his crops to “feed the world.” He said he’d been in Washington, D.C., over the weekend to see the military parade celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army — on the same day as Trump’s birthday — and said Boozman “couldn’t see me then.”

“I lost $100,000,” Mitchener said of his unsold rice. “How long do you think I’m gonna be able to continue doing that? I can’t make my payments, I can’t pay my taxes, and he’s going to cut my Medicaid. Man, I got to have some help.”

As the group streamed out of Boozman’s office to head to Cotton’s, they chanted: “This bill will kill.”

The so-called Big, Beautiful Bill is projected to increase the federal deficit by $3 trillion, despite GOP promises to cut back federal spending. That’s despite changes to benefits programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that are relied upon by millions of low-income Americans. 

Driving the increases are the GOP’s inclusion of Trump campaign promises such as no taxes on tips and overtime and extensions of the tax cuts passed in 2017, which are set to sunset this year if they aren’t extended.