You may have heard of President Donald Trump’s spending bill moving through Congress known as “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act” Yes, that’s the actual title of the 1,000 plus page piece of legislature.
In fact, if you’re a regular listener of Talk of the Bay have indeed because we’ve had many guests on in recent weeks to discuss the myriad ways the bill is expected to impact communities across the Central Coast and country as a whole. While the president and Republicans in Congress insist it is meant to weed out waste, fraud and abuse, Democrats in Congress and nonpartisan leaders across the Santa Cruz County region have warned for months that the legislation spells for devastating impacts to the social safety net including massive cuts to Medicaid or Medi-Cal and the decimation of budgets for local governments.
The bill proposes to cut $300 BILLION from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through 2034—the largest cut in the program’s history. The program, known in California as CalfFresh, fed an average of 42 million low-income people per month in 2023.
Host PK Hattis was recently joined in-studio by Erica Padilla-Chavez, CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank Santa Cruz County and Tony Nunez, board chair, Watsonville Community Hospital and marketing and community relations manager for the nonprofit Community Bridges.
Both have been working in this space for years and have been sounding the alarm about the damage this bill could do to so many communities across the country.
