AOC Calls for Action

AOC went live on Instagram on Saturday — here’s the video of the livestream that she posted to YouTube yesterday evening:

Her key points:

• She’s on the Energy and Commerce Committee now.

• Markup on the reconciliation bill is starting Monday.

• There are Republicans on the committee who are in tough districts (PVI EVEN or single digits).

• Medicaid is on the chopping block (as is SNAP).

• The bill will blow up the deficit and add to the debt.

• Waste, fraud and abuse is a common talking point, and if it is found, the savings should be re-invested into these programs. The claim is $50 billion in waste, fraud and abuse, though the cuts proposed are $880 billion.

• Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid even though they pay taxes to support it, despite the lies that Republicans tell.

• All of this is for tax breaks for billionaires.

• She has a tool here to look up whether your rep is on the committee and give you a call script to use.

• She suggests not just calling Republicans to tell them to oppose this bill, but also to call your Democratic rep to thank them if they’re doing the right thing.

• She would not be telling us to call unless she thought it would make a difference — she believes the Republicans are starting to crack.

• Red states have a better Medicaid reimbursement rate (Kentucky is 70% fed and 30% state vs New York which is 50/50). This means Medicaid cuts will blow a hole in state budgets.

• 40% of Pennsylvania’s total budget is the federal match for Medicaid, 36% in Colorado (Gabe Evans is on the committee).

• The committee meeting will be live streamed on C-SPAN Tuesday. Expect Democrats to propose many amendments to “grind this thing to a halt”.

• Some Republicans will probably try to “take a walk” and avoid tough votes. Committee votes aren’t well tracked by the public, but tracking them adds pressure to vulnerable members. Getting view counts high, commenting on their social media, etc. amps up the pressure.

In the Q&A, she noted that the rallies that she and Bernie held are seeing a lot of first-timers (e.g., in Vegas, 50% of their RSVPs were brand-new to politics).

She called the administration’s approach the “Wizard of Oz” approach — televised as much as possible, trying to make examples out of a few immigrants to deter millions of others. She also mentioned the arrest of Newark’s mayor, noting that it’s not clear that the prison there has a certificate of occupancy. Those facilities are also run by contractors. She emphasized that Members of Congress have an absolute legal right to conduct oversight at ICE/CBP facilities, and the lawbreakers if MoCs are not admitted are ICE and CBP.

The attitude that is actually anti-American, actually “treason” is to attack free speech, and the powers of Congress. “Kristi Noem spits on the American flag every time she does (things like that).” She says that “pissed me off”. The country does not belong to one person. This is not the “United States of Trump”.