Civil rights leaders react to passing of the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — With the Essence Festival in New Orleans, civil rights leaders sounded the alarm after President Donald Trump signed the budget bill into law at the white house.

“What they just championed is going to negatively impact people in this,” said president and CEO of the National Urban League Marc Morial.

The bill is estimated to add nearly 3.3 trillion to the federal debt over the next 10 years.

Morial says the new law will wreak havoc here in Louisiana. He says it’ll be more than just Medicaid cuts.

“200,000 will lose medicaid coverage, 260,000 will lose health care coverage. A quarter of a million people are going to become food insecure because of cuts to the SNAP program,” said Morial.

According to Congressman Troy Carter, Louisiana has the highest percentage of residents on Medicaid in the world.

He is afraid of how this will impact jobs and small, neighborhood hospitals.

“Rural hospitals will close. When people are unable to exercise that three, four, five-minute precious time when they have a heart attack or stroke and they can’t get to that rural hospital,” said Carter.

Attorney Damon Hewitt says the law must be changed to reflect the needs of the common people.

“Whether it be repeal and replace, whether it be the appropriations process. Now is the time for moral clarity. Now is the time for accountability. This is a place where industries like health care, education are going to take big hits,” said Hewitt.

With which Carter agrees, stating it’s time to turn up the volume and fight back.

“We’re not quitting. We’re not rolling over. We’re not letting this happen without a fight. And we will prevail. Because that’s what we do. We are resilient people, and we’ve been through a lot, and we’ve demonstrated that we get through it, together,” said Carter.

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