THIS TAX DAY, NEW YORK’S BILLIONAIRES GET EVEN RICHER AS CONGRESS PROPOSES TAKING HEALTHCARE AND FOOD AID AWAY FROM MILLIONS

State Billionaires Are Worth 72% More Since Enactment of Trump Tax Law GOP Wants to Extend

(Corning, NY) – This Tax Day, as last-minute filers send in their returns, federal lawmakers in Congress are working to advance a bill that will make the top 1% wealthiest households in New York even richer by extending the Trump tax law that has already lavished huge tax breaks on the super-wealthy. Since the Trump-GOP tax law was enacted in 2017, the collective fortune of New York’s 126 billionaires has grown by $321 billion, or 72%, according to a new report released today by Citizen Action of New York,  Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and Health Care for America Now, (HCAN).

Although the law is set to expire in 2025, Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate have both passed budget resolutions that would extend the law in order to continue those tax breaks, potentially permanently. The $5.5 trillion cost of extending the Trump tax law would be paid for in part by slashing Medicaid, ending a key Affordable Care affordability provision, gutting food assistance under SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and making other cuts in vital public services.

Even as millions of people in New York who rely on Medicaid and food assistance are threatened with significant cuts in those services to help pay for even more tax cuts for the rich, the report also finds that households with incomes of a million dollars or more—the highest-income residents in the state—have seen their annual income grow by $48 billion, or 24%, from $220 billion to $268 billion, since the enactment of the Trump-GOP tax law.

Source: Americans for Tax Fairness

“While everyday New Yorkers are hustling to make ends meet, billionaires are raking in obscene wealth and demanding even more giveaways from Congress,” said Carolyn Martinez-Class, Interim Co-Executive Director at Citizen Action of New York. “Extending the Trump tax law is a full-on assault on working people as it means gutting Medicaid, slashing food assistance, and hiking healthcare costs so the ultra-rich can get even richer. This is economic violence, plain and simple. We need leaders with the courage to stand up to corporate greed and put people first — not politicians doing the bidding of billionaires.”

“This Tax Day, Trump and Musk are doing everything in their power to make our tax system worse for average people while giving tax cuts to billionaires like themselves. Their all-out attacks on the IRS will result in delayed refunds, denied taxpayer service, and a free pass for wealthy tax evaders,” said David Kass, ATF’s executive director. “The billionaire-backed GOP is determined to slash vital public services like Medicaid and food assistance to fund trillions in tax cuts for economic elites. The astronomical growth in billionaire wealth and million-dollar incomes since the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law reveals its true intent: make millions of Americans suffer so a handful of wealthy elites can further enrich themselves. We will fight Republican efforts to cut health care and food assistance for workers and families to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.”

To hide its true cost, the Trump law made most of its provisions temporary, with a scheduled expiration date at the end of 2025. President Trump, the Republican Congress, and their wealthy backers are determined to make those parts of the law permanent, no matter what it costs in terms of reduced services or higher debt.

In the first year of such an extension, the 1% highest-income households in New York would get an average $107,000 tax cut, while the bottom 60% would get about $1.50 a day. (This estimate includes Trump’s proposal not to extend the cap on the deduction of state and local taxes.)

To help pay for this top-heavy tax cut, Congressional Republicans are planning to cut public services like healthcare, nutritional assistance, and education aid by trillions of dollars. The GOP-controlled House of Representatives has already passed a budget that would cut $2 trillion in services, including $880 billion from Medicaid, endangering the healthcare of one in four Americans–or some 80 million people–including 6.5 million from New York.

The Republican budget proposal also eliminates enhanced premium tax credits that help consumers purchase more affordable coverage on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges. Over 20 million people are currently enrolled in ACA coverage. Over 90% of enrollees receive tax credits that make the coverage affordable.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that between four and five million fewer people will enroll in coverage if Congress ends the enhanced premium tax credits. Millions more will face tremendously steep premium increases. The average annual premium increase would, depending on congressional district, range from $360 to $1,860, a 41 to 218 percent hike. In New York, for instance, the cost of premiums for a couple making $82,000 a year in which each partner is 60 years old would increase by $5,020 [from Appendix Table 2] annually without the enhanced premium tax credits. The budget also calls for $230 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps families afford groceries at a time of high food prices. Over the last five years, the price of common food items like milk, eggs, meat and vegetables have increased by double digits. Nearly 43 million Americans rely on SNAP to stave off hunger.

“After I fell in my garage and couldn’t work anymore, Medicaid was there for me,” said Matt Guagliardo, Chemung County Resident. “It gave me the healthcare I needed while I went back to school to start a new career. Every working person deserves that kind of support—our healthcare shouldn’t be on the chopping block.”

“Medicaid made it possible for me to get treatment for substance use at Cayuga Addiction Recovery Services. It turned my life around—my health and my relationships have improved in ways I never thought possible,” said Jonathan VanScoy, Tioga County Resident. “I struggled with drugs and alcohol, put my life at risk, and got a DWI. But Medicaid gave me the tools to recover. I’m speaking out because I’m deeply afraid of a future where families like mine can’t access the care we need—especially mental health care. I’m calling on Congressman Nick Langworthy to step up, show leadership, and stop prioritizing billionaires over our healthcare.”

Taking healthcare coverage and food from millions of people and hiking healthcare costs for millions more will not only have dire consequences for families, but for local economies and communities as well. Medicaid is the leading source of federal funding for states. While the program is jointly funded by states and the federal government, over two-thirds of the funding comes from the federal government. In the case of SNAP, all the funding is federal. In addition to the direct loss of services, states would lose the economic benefits from the federal infusion of funding that includes multiplier effects like increased employment.

The proposed cuts to Medicaid and SNAP would reach $1.1 trillion over a decade, including a $95 billion loss of federal funding in 2026 alone. Nationally, these cuts would cost over a million jobs nationwide in health care, food-related industries, and other sectors. Failure to extend the ACA premium tax credits would cut an additional 286,000 jobs in 2026 alone. In addition to receiving $6,682.5 million less in federal funding, New York would lose 72,000 thousand jobs as well as $849.7 million in state revenue and suffer a $14,019 million loss in state economic output.

State budgets, already reeling from lower-than-expected revenue, have no way to make up for this loss of essential revenue and therefore, may be forced to cut other services, raise local taxes or dramatically increase the number of uninsured people in the state. New York has a lot to lose. Currently over 7 million New Yorkers rely on Medicaid, and nearly 3 million rely on SNAP. And while the state can take some steps to help protect the most vulnerable New Yorkers, our state government can’t absorb every loss of federal dollars.

“Given Elmira’s high poverty rate, it is critical that we maintain and enhance the level of affordable health care, especially for those at the margins,” said Reverend Gary Brinn, Elmira City Councilmember. “We already have families forgoing care due to problems with access and affordability. We cannot afford any cuts to funding for health care and food programs.”

“This administration has attacked federal workers and the unions that represent us from the very beginning—all in an effort to slash jobs and push people out the door,” said Shawn Halloran, President of AFGE Local 3342. “Even though the Social Security Administration is already operating with its lowest staffing levels in 50 years, the agency is being told to cut thousands more jobs just to bankroll tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. The consequences are already showing—system outages, hours-long wait times on phones and in offices, and plummeting morale among staff. SSA serves the most vulnerable people in our communities. Gutting our ability to help them, just to benefit the richest Americans, will have devastating ripple effects. Let’s be clear—denying people access to the benefits they’ve earned is a cut to Social Security, plain and simple.”

“Holy Week wasn’t just a procession—it was a protest. Jesus stood up to the Roman Empire and their exploitation, fighting for the poor and working people of his time,” said Becca Forsyth, Production Coordinator and Commissioned Minister, Freedom Church of the Poor, Elmira, NY. “Today, we’re witnessing the same kind of injustice, with Congressman Nick Langworthy and other Republicans squeezing working families while slashing funding for the healthcare and food programs our communities rely on. We need leaders in Congress who will stand with the people, listen to our cries for justice, and fight poverty—not the poor.”

At least two national studies show that proposed Republican fiscal policies would actually create higher costs for all but the highest-income Americans, who would instead reap huge savings. The Yale Budget Lab found that if enacted the tax-and-service cuts in the House budget would cost families earning less than $38,065 over $750 next year. Families earning less than $13,840 would be hurt the most, facing over a thousand dollars of higher costs. Meanwhile the top 0.1%–folks with income over $3.3 million–would save on average $180,000.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy looked at a different collection of Republican policy proposals and found the same kind of result. If one version of the Trump economic agenda were enacted–including extension of the expiring tax cuts; higher tariffs; the exemption of certain types of income from tax; an even lower corporate tax rate; and the repeal of energy tax credits–in 2026 95% of American families would face higher costs, while the top 5% would save money, the top 1% over $36,000.

Citizen Action of New York, a membership organization dedicated to social, racial, economic and environmental justice with eight chapters and affiliates across New York State.