Lois Carson is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She has been a secretary at the Columbus City Schools for 37 years. Carson is also the president of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees. OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4 represents more than 30,000 hardworking public service workers.
So she knows just how much Ohio’s children and families rely on Medicaid, federal food assistance, and other public services.
And she knows just how badly communities in Ohio’s 15th Congressional District will suffer because their representative, Rep. Mike Carey, voted for the big, ugly budget bill.
Carson spoke at an event Thursday in Columbus where working people called out their members of Congress for supporting for the bill.
“Congressman Mike Carey has made a choice, and it’s the wrong one,” she said. “(He) chose to side with billionaires and CEOs over the working people in Columbus, in Zanesville, in Lancaster, in Circleville and across the 15th District who are just trying to take care of their families.”
As AFSCME President Lee Saunders said, the bill is a betrayal of working families nationwide.
In a cruel irony, Carey and other anti-worker lawmakers rushed to pass the bill by the Fourth of July. But it won’t free millions of Americans from having to worry about their health care, their next meal or their retirement. Instead, it will make massive cuts to essential programs and make working people and retirees suffer — or worse — to enrich billionaires even more.
In Ohio, more than 400,000 residents could lose lifesaving health care, and 263,000 could lose critical food benefits through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Carson and others also talked about the more than 44,600 jobs from SNAP and Medicaid cuts that this handout for billionaires has put at risk in Ohio.
Union leaders from education, health care, and the building trades also spoke alongside AFSCME members about how this budget bill attacks working families, children, seniors, and entire communities.
“Congressman Mike Carey’s vote means that students in my schools, who already face numerous barriers, will come to class hungry, sick, or without the stability they need to succeed. And the same is true for schools in small towns across Ohio,” Carson said. “I’ve seen firsthand how poverty and lack of health care hold back our children. When families struggle, our schools, our communities, and our entire state suffer.”