I’ve lived in Nassau County since the early 90’s, when I first came to the United States from Ecuador. For the last fifteen years, I’ve worked at a local golf course, and more recently I’ve started working as an Uber driver in the evenings just to get by.
I love Long Island, but rising costs have made it nearly unlivable. The price of everything from rent to food has risen enormously. I had to move out of my last apartment because the landlord hiked the rent by $250. Even in my new place, the landlord has warned me that he may raise my rent soon.
Right now, I’m just about getting by with my two jobs, but I can’t count on that lasting. As we work hard to support ourselves, we need our government at every level to step up for us by helping to boost wages, increase access to housing that we can afford, and ensure that everyone has access to quality health care and education.
We especially need our federal government to step up for us. But unfortunately, Congress has stalled since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives this year. As a hardworking Long Islander who is struggling to make ends meet as the cost of living here soars, I’m tired of not having real representation in Congress that will fight for working people like me.
Who Long Islanders Currently Have In Congress
I was very disappointed to see that, in his first year in office, Rep. Anthony D’Esposito voted alongside other Republicans to cut funding for vital services that Long Islanders rely on, including Medicaid, K-12 education, and nutrition programs. What’s worse is that he did all this with his fellow Republicans in the House so that they could continue to hand out huge tax cuts to corporations and billionaires, who already don’t pay anywhere near their fair share.
My relatives and neighbors here on Long Island rely on Medicaid. It is a total betrayal of constituents like me that D’Esposito broke his campaign promise to “never support cuts” to Medicaid by voting for the GOP’s extreme proposal this spring. Luckily, this bill didn’t become law because Senate Democrats and President Biden refused to support it. But it’s frightening that D’Esposito was so quick to vote with extreme MAGA Republicans, and against Long Islanders’ best interests.
Medicaid is a lifeline for millions of people in communities like ours, on Long Island and across the country. My siblings and their children rely on it. If my nieces and nephews – who, like all kids, are always one step away from a fall or from picking up a bug at school – didn’t have Medicaid, it would be a disaster. Republicans like D’Esposito shouldn’t be voting to reduce access to Medicaid–they should be focused on how to ensure everyone can get the coverage they need.
They shouldn’t be voting to cut public school funding, either. My beloved nieces and nephews go to public schools–schools that are struggling to offer all the programs young people deserve. These schools need more resources, not less. D’Esposito’s vote to cut educational funding would make it harder for kids like my nieces and nephews to learn.
Long Islanders deserve politicians who will protect services for working families, not jump on the first opportunity to bail out billionaires. We’re nearing the 88th Anniversary of President Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act into law to protect the American people from falling into poverty. Virtually all of us rely on programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare to make sure we can age with dignity and get the care we need.
Meanwhile, D’Esposito’s GOP caucus is continuing efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. Republicans are trying to make former President Trump’s unpopular and irresponsible tax giveaways to billionaires permanent – which would add $3 trillion to federal deficits over the next ten years, slashing the available funding for Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, education, childcare, and nutrition programs.
If he disagrees with them, it’s time to say so and vote that way. Meanwhile, his voting record on Medicaid and more is there to make us question if he’ll ever keep his word.
So many Long Islanders are struggling to get by, and we deserve to know that we can count on our elected officials to have their back in Washington – instead of going along with a radical MAGA agenda that helps billionaires and hurts people like us.
Yehovani Villalobos is a resident of New York’s Fourth Congressional District and a member of Make the Road Action, a grassroots organization on Long Island.
