Amistad Opens Alliance for a Just Philadelphia Mass Budget Meeting
We were thrilled to join our partners at the Alliance for a Just Philadelphia last night, where hundreds gathered to plan our next steps in the fight for a city budget that works for all of our communities. Mayor Cherelle Parker proposed a budget that would neglect the needs of working people to line the pockets of billionaires. At a time when the Trump administration is gutting the federal government and stripping key protections from working people every day, our communities need to know that Philadelphia city leadership has our back.
Read our Co-Executive Director Nikki Grant's speech to open the mass budget meeting last night. And sign up here to receive updates and calls to action as we fight for a budget that works for all Philadelphians.
Words from Nikki Grant:
I want to let you know that you are in the right place tonight.
What do I mean by that?
Last year, during the presidential campaign, Donald Trump and his cronies told us exactly what they planned to do if he was elected again. They laid out a blueprint, called Project 2025, with all the nightmarish policies they wanted to unleash on the people of this country. Last November was the F around time and now we are living in the find out time.
We are witnessing our immigrant communities under siege. We are witnessing our neighbors losing their public service jobs. Before our very eyes, we are seeing the dismantling of our federal government by billionaires robbing the poor to line their own pockets.
With the Trump administration attempting to implement major cuts to our social safety nets and a whole host of programs our communities rely on, we all are going to start feeling the pain of this collapse of our federal government very soon, if you haven’t been impacted already.
You are in the right place tonight because we know that when we can’t rely on our federal government to do the right thing, we have a mandate to fight for the state and local resources that we deserve. That is why we are here. Our antidote to Project 2025 is to fight for a city budget that protects us––workers, poor folks, immigrants, parents, caregivers. We need a People’s Budget NOW!
At a time of uncertainty, chaos, and fear, we must be serious about how every dollar of our city funding is spent. It is imperative that our tax dollars go towards the public services that we all need to survive and thrive – like parks, worker protections, schools, and mental health services.
We need our city budget to be about US, not billionaires. Unfortunately, as you’ll hear from my friend Wei in a moment, our city leaders don’t have the best track record when it comes to standing up to billionaires. But I’m not worried, because YOU are here in the right place tonight– and when we fight, WE WIN!
Join the Budget Brigade and get in the fight for a people's budget!