Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., sounded off on President Donald Trump’s “tax scam” during a Tax Day press call hosted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), accusing the Trump administration of prioritizing handouts for the “ultra-wealthy” over American families.
Pressley said Trump, who is less than 100 days into his second non-consecutive term, has yet to deliver on his 2024 campaign promise to bring down costs for working Americans.
“How’s that going? Are things cheaper? Is housing more affordable? Tell me how letting Elon Musk put his paws in the cookie jar is helping a single person,” Pressley said. “This was never about improving our quality of life or lowering the cost of our groceries, our rent or our pursuit of higher education. It was always about gaining power, always about abusing power, ripping away our hard-won civil rights and our economic freedom.”
The progressive “Squad” member added that congressional Republicans are Trump’s “enablers” and are “complicit in the harm” Trump is creating for the American people as Republican leadership works to extend Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which expires at the end of the year.
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Pressley also slammed Trump’s tariff proposals and the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) massive layoffs and federal spending cuts.
“Efficiency is not about slashing budgets for the sake of headlines,” Pressley said. “It’s not about gutting the programs people rely on. True efficiency is about government working better for the people, protecting their rights, strengthening essential services and ensuring tax dollars go to the public good and not private profit.”
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Pressley, who joined House Democrats in voting against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” said the Republican budget incentivizes “billionaire tax giveaways by putting Medicaid, Social Security, and SNAP on the chopping block.”
DNC Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta and former Labor Department chief economist Heidi Shierholz joined Pressley in discrediting Trump’s tax plans on Tuesday.
“Many of our small business owners are getting f—– over and nothing this guy has done or will do is going to make life better for them,” Kenyatta said.
Shierholz warned that uncertainty surrounding Trump’s aggressive tariffs and “Draconian budget cuts” could usher the U.S. into a recession, which she said could cost millions of Americans their jobs and threaten cuts to social programs, like Medicaid and Social Security.
The White House has maintained there will be no cuts to Social Security for Americans during the Trump administration, despite Democrats’ claims to the contrary.
“President Trump is absolutely certain about protecting Social Security benefits for law-abiding, taxpaying American citizens and seniors who have paid into this program,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday. “He will always protect that program. He campaigned on it. He protected it in his first term. And he’s back again to continue protecting it.”
Leavitt was responding to a question during the Tax Day press briefing about former President Joe Biden’s remarks in Chicago Tuesday evening as the former president prepares for his first major address since leaving office. Biden is expected to address the “urgent challenges facing the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the millions who rely on its services.”
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