Statements Read at the Protest of Rep. Mike Collins's Support of the Big Bad Ugly Bill
Monroe, Georgia July 1, 2025
July 1 Statements to Mike Collins on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
This gathering today of constituents was organized by two local Indivisible groups: Indivisible CD10 and Indivisible Boldly Blue. What both of these groups have in common is that they are represented in U.S. Congressional District 10 by Representative Mike Collins.
We join with indivisible groups all across the state of Georgia today to encourage our members of Congress to do the right thing for all Georgians … not what's best for the ultra wealthy, special interest groups, lobbyists or political donors.
Individual members of these Indivisible groups have tried repeatedly to request meetings with Representative Collins to no avail. Several alternative actions have been carried out despite Representative Collins being MIA and avoiding our meeting requests. An empty-chair town hall was held in Athens in March and several office visits were made to the office here in Monroe. Additionally, many phone calls have been made and emails sent from concerned constituents. A visit was even made to Congressman Collins's office in Washington, DC where letters of concern were delivered personally by a representative of Indivisible Boldly Blue. No one has received a personal reply or opportunity to meet with the Congressman. Additionally, representative Collins has doubled-down on his unwavering support for the Trump regime.
We are here today to ask yet again for the opportunity to share our experiences with the Representative.
Today our primary concern is passage of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill which is, in fact, a dangerous, PARTISAN budget bill supported by Republican leadership. The effects of The Big Ugly Bill will, however, impact many Georgians… regardless of party. Cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, and other social programs will impact our most vulnerable Georgians… seniors, the disabled, and children. They could all lose healthcare coverage or face greater hurdles. Veterans are poised to lose hard-earned benefits. Rural hospitals that are being forced to close will impact Republicans as well as Democrats. When food programs for kids, like SNAP, are cut, hunger will impact children regardless of how their parents voted in the last election.
To pay for reductions in Medicaid and SNAP benefits, the poorest 20% of Georgians will lose 4% of their income while the richest 20% gain by the same percent - totaling over $10,000 a year or more.
The deficit will soar to the trillions.
All to give a tax cut to the ultra wealthy.
We're also concerned about having a safer and more peaceful world… not one where the president of the United States unilaterally commits a country to potential warfare.
We are also concerned about the lack of due process when it comes to disappearing immigrants and overreach of ICE. The huge increase in funding for ICE in the bill would empower this secretive agency to break up more families and communities, depriving lawful residents of their freedom, abducting people from their homes and workplaces, and instilling terror.
We want the Constitution to be followed and respected by ALL of those elected to serve “we the people". After all, THEY work for US.
What do we ultimately want from representative Collins? We want him to hear us. We want him to hear about the impact that legislation passed in Washington has on regular people here at home and how disappointed we are that he voted for this monstrosity of a bill.
With that goal in mind, we are joined today by 12 of our fellow constituents from Congressional District 10. They hope that the congressman will meet with them and listen to their concerns about how their lives will be negatively impacted by the Big Ugly Bill.
Personally, I am a CASA volunteer which means I am a Court-Appointed Special Advocate who works with foster children. Foster children experience a lot of trauma in their lives, which often requires access to additional physical and mental health services.
The Medicaid program in Georgia provides healthcare for approximately 27,000 children, youth, and young adults in foster care, for children and youth receiving adoption assistance, and select youth involved in the juvenile justice system. Loss of health and other benefits thanks to provisions in the proposed budget would likely have a direct impact on my “CASA kid” and many other foster children in the state.
I will let the others introduce themselves and share with you briefly their WHY for sharing their concerns with Representative Collins.
Tammy van Dongen, Monroe
I receive Social Security disability due to a lifelong condition that in 2013 rendered me unable to work. Thankfully, I spent the last 40 years paying into Social Security. Even with a Master's degree, I worked in the public sector and never took home more than a just-above-poverty-level paycheck.. SSID isn't enough to pay for all my bills so I have had to use my retirement account and savings to supplement, just to get by. I am on Medicare and SNAP and was able to sign up for Medicaid several years back due to my low income. The amount I receive from Medicaid pays my Medicare premiums, which allows me to retain $100 of money I spent my life saving. My SNAP benefits vary from month to month with no rhyme or reason. They were dropped down to $23 which is not enough for even a week's worth of healthy groceries..
When I learned that Mr. Collins supported cuts to Medicaid I called his D.C. office. I was asked if I was "an illegal immigrant" and when I said no, was told the Medicaid cuts only were to "illegal immigrants who are stealing from the system" and I had no cause to be upset.
Recently I called his local office and spoke with a more personable man who did not question my citizenship but could provide no answers to my question, which was, does Mike Collins support cuts to Medicaid?
The man I spoke with emphatically stated that Mike Collins does not support cuts to Medicaid nor has he EVER voted in support of those cuts. I asked where I could see this in writing and there was no answer. I asked if it was perhaps on his web page, and was told they were "working on it".
Mike Collins supports cuts to Medicaid–for all American citizens–regardless of what his two staffers tried to tell me. Undocumented people are not eligible for Medicaid in Georgia, and reducing the funding will not render them any more or less eligible. The people affected are regular citizens like me- who was a hard working public servant until I became disabled.
Once these cuts are made to budgets covering all aspects of American life and culture, that money will not suddenly reappear. While $100 in Medicaid and $23 in SNAP may seem frivolous to be upset over, that is $100 I do not have to pay any other bill, and $23 I do not have for food.
You cannot get food from a food bank if you receive Social Security. I now rely on church food pantries, which are also losing their federal and state funding.
I have worked and paid into the system since I was 16. I did not choose to be disabled. I do not choose this life and I do have to ask for help. If that help is gone, what will happen to me?
Suzie DeGrasse, Ila (read by Rhonda Helms)
I'm Dave Ramsey. I live in Madison County, and I am a small farmer and a Viet Nam era veteran. I serve on the County's Chamber of Commerce Agriculture Committee, and I'm proud to be a small contributor to our local economy. My products are meat goats and hay. You probably know that Madison County ranks 3rd in the State in farm gate value for goats, and in the top 5 for hay production.
I can tell you that many small-time farmers are not happy with the treatment we have received from this administration, and that carries over in how we are treated in this current bill being considered by the Congress. Some of our farmers are already hurt by the termination of the national one billion dollar Local Food Purchase Assistance Program that provided help to small farmers growing produce for farm to school programs and farmers markets. We were told that the money for this program along with an additional 50 billion dollars would instead go toward big increases in the commodity support programs. I'm sure that you know that 90 percent of the money for commodity support goes to big corporate farms and the wealthiest farmers, and none of our small farmers who were getting local food purchase assistance benefit from the commodity support program. This was just another rip-off of small farmers so that more government support could go to the wealthy corporate farms.
Now we are suffering an additional blow by the cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly called SNAP, or "Food Stamps" which is now EBT, not stamps). As the bill currently proposes, many thousands of your constituents will lose their SNAP benefits, and many thousands more will be threatened with loss of benefits because they will now be required to meet a 20 hours per week work requirement if they do not have certain exceptions. In addition, the bill currently requires that the State of Georgia will have to pick up a share of the SNAP Program costs, which means that every Georgia taxpayer will have to pay more for these benefits. These cuts will directly affect the poorest and most food insufficient families in your district. Do you care?
Farmers, especially small farmers, are not the only ones impacted by this bill. Grocers, retailers, and others who produce, package, and sell food and food-related products will be adversely affected. A SNAP study showed that for every SNAP EBT purchase, $1.50 is returned to the local economy for every dollar spent. Do you care about this negative impact on the economy of our district?
If you do, then I ask that you make every effort to eliminate the SNAP cuts in this bill that takes support from our poor and middle class families and transfers it to our wealthiest citizens and corporations.
Dave Ramsey, Commerce
In the mid 1960s I collected ambient air quality data used to set the health related air quality standards for the 1970 clean air act - the most sweeping and consequential environmental legislation on the books. I’m proud of the small part I played. Achieving the clean air standards in 1976 was a tremendous effort by industry, citizens groups and government.
But there’s much crucial environmental work yet to be done. The MAGA regime has already fired thousands of EPA professionals and cut dozens of programs. This disastrous megabill will eliminate many initiatives like research funding for toxics in low-income areas. I’m focusing only on climate change - the major threat to humanity. It’s too late to reverse some of its catastrophic effects that we’re already seeing but we must try harder to at least slow it down.
Here’s how it works: The heat from the sun warms the earth and is radiated back into the atmosphere. But man made pollutants like carbon dioxide (greenhouse gases) blanket or traps the escaping heat so the planet slowly gets hotter. Anyone can understand that.
We are causing it and we can slow it down it by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted mainly from fossil fuel burning. Fossil fueld fuels like coal and oil and gasoline.
This bill will remove rules to reduce carbon emissions from sources like coal fired power plants. I don’t see how any politician can seriously consider it. In my opinion that’s the main reason - among many others - why this bill must be defeated.
Duke Geddis, Athens
Our Georgia Public Libraries get help through funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The state library leverages these federal dollars to provide the same high-quality library programming and services no matter which of the sixteen counties of District 10 your constituents live in.
Eleven-year-old Kyrieann was diagnosed with dyslexia. Her mom already knew that her local public library could get Kyrieann audiobooks mailed directly to their house through the federal program BARD: “National Library Service’s Braille and Audio Reading Download” program. Kyrieann can comprehend her reading when she listens to books, but words on a page get mixed up and she can’t speak them out loud.
With the public library’s access to any textbook, any book Kyrieann wants to read, she now excels in her schoolwork, scoring 98th percentile for verbal IQ.
None of this will be available to Georgia students like Kyrieann if the federal funding disappears.
Our public libraries allow your constituents to apply for jobs using library computers, check out laptops and tablets, check out hotspots so vendors in rural areas without broadband can take credit card payment for their merchandise at festivals, as Oglethorpe County vendors do.
This July all our District 10 libraries helping children read all summer to prevent the summer reading skills lag. It’s our federal dollars that help each library with the resources for Summer Reading Programs.
Not one federal taxpayer- provided dollar spent by our public libraries is wasted.
Jacqueline Elsner, Athens
I am an attorney.
I am a single mother to 4 children.
I am a mother of a child with severe disabilities.
My 8 year old child is a light to everyone he meets giving hugs and taking turns drumming and reading books. He just came back from a week of sleep away camp where he had the time of his life.
Medicaid for us:
Medicaid is a literal life line to Bishop’s care and health. His medicaid covers:
Speech therapy
Physical therapy
Occupational therapy
Vision Therapies
Orientation and Mobility therapies
Diapers and wipes
Developmental Pediatrician
Urologist
Cardiologist
Orthopedic
Geneticist
ENT
Hearing specialist
Opthamologist
Wheel chair
Orthotics
Specialized bed
Specialized car seat
Medication
Nursing care in the home
Medicaid Right Now:
To obtain medicaid for my child, I go through a process of obtaining hundreds of pages of documentation and having very specific forms filled out by all of his providers. There are professionals who make their living assisting families apply for medicaid because the process is so difficult. My son was illegally dropped from medicaid repeatedly during the application process so that I needed the help of another attorney to get him reinstated. Keeping medicaid requires this application process over and over and over despite the fact that his condition will never change. We have 21 hours of in-home care approved per week. Zero of these hours have been filled by a provider over the past 2 years despite changing agencies 3 times. We are on a waitlist that is 7,000 people long for a medicaid waiver program that will provide a much higher level of services and care for life. Medicaid is already tragically broken for us.
We are entangled in red tape. Do not make it worse. I work hard, and I am underemployed because of the level of care that my son needs. A drop in medicaid services for my son would be catastrophic both financially and for his care. He requires a team of individuals to fulfill all of his needs. Without his doctors, therapists, and equipment his quality life would be very low. I would not be able to work at all and would be reliant instead on other public benefits. We would have to make choices about whether to get medications covered or whether to pay for other necessities.
I am afraid.
I am angry.
I am at the mercy of your decisions. You have power to be our voice. You have been elected to be our voice. I am asking that you be my voice and the voice of my son, who cannot speak for himself. Vote against this Big Beautiful Bill.
Melissa Eagling, Watkinsville (read by Iva King)
The federal Pell Grant made school possible for me, not luxurious, not a free ride. Many Pell grant students, like me, don’t have parents to fall back on. My Pell Grant allows me to study, eat and work without fear of having to drop out to support myself. The $8-$10 an hour jobs I worked before college would never allow me to attend UGA without federal funding. Rent increases every year with inflation, but my wage at my job does not. Fresh food is a damn luxury now.
The higher barriers to funding, like increased hour requirements and stricter eligibility, WILL result in large numbers of students from THIS district deciding against going to college, staying home and working to support themselves and/or families. I watched it happen even with the aid structures prior to this attempt to cut Pell Grants. My classmates–not wanting tens of thousands of debt–choosing to keep their high school fast food job or work at a manufacturing plant.
Choosing to work out of high school is not a bad choice. This is the option both my parents chose. But they live with broken dreams, bankruptcy, debt.
Why are you, Mike Collins, voting to take this opportunity from my neighbors? Cutting education funding from the poorest in your district will only ferment broken dreams into anger and resentment. And to do what? To increase the country’s deficit anyway, to pass tax cuts for the rich? I think it’s shameful to not believe higher education should be attainable for working families and their children without putting them in debt for the rest of their lives.
I implore you to change your vote and, for the young people, parents, and all who want to benefit from an educated population, to oppose this cut to education funding that will harm this district.
Moss Joslin, Athens (former Monroe, Georgia High School student and current Pell Grant recipient)
To whom this may concern:
My name is Chloe Lacasse and I currently live in Athens Georgia.
I have been the beneficiary of public health services throughout my life as an uninsured person.
In my youth I experienced addiction to drugs and alcohol and benefited from public detox centers, support groups and Planned Parenthood.
I, like all humans, had random health issues from eye infections to thrush that I was able to seek help through public health services. I certainly would’ve lost my eyesight and who knows how else I would’ve suffered if it hadn’t been for those public resources.
Even more recently in 2021, having a breast cancer scare, I benefited from the county HD screenings and support through Breast and Cervical cancer program.
Through all the suffering and support I’ve made it to a moment where, thankfully, I am insured.
I believe that all people should have access to health care, I believe it is important to provide public care and resources to all.
Especially if we truly want to see wellbeing in our people, communities and country.
Thank you for your attention.
Chloe R. Lacasse, Athens (read by Helene Schwartz)
I'm Stephanie Astalos-Jones. I'm reading parts of two different letters from 2 different people.
This is from a 63yr old woman: I have Ehlers Danlos syndrome, orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, Histamine intolerance, Lupus, Fibromyalgia, Osteoarthritis, Diabetes, Skin Cancer, Depression, Anxiety, and Autism Spectrum Disorders. I was approved for Medicaid in 2007. It was not until I had access to Medicaid that I was able to figure out what was going on in my body. I have not been able to hold a job in my entire adulthood. The overall fatigue alone is crippling and other symptoms have added to it, preventing any consistent funcion. Social Security does not cover all my expenses, but I'm grateful for it. If it were not for Medicaid, I feel certain I would be completely non-functional. The thought of losing it is terrifying to me.
This is from a 50yr old woman: From the time I was 25 I've had autoimmune disease issues. I suffered through ulcerative colitis for over 27 years. In 2019 I had a double mastectomy due to breast cancer. I suffer from chronic migraines lasting 20 days out of the month. I applied numerous times for disability and was denied every time. I now have an ostomy. I'm not physically strong enough to go through the J pouch reconstructive surgery. For the rest of my life I will have an ostomy and required ostomy care and supplies. I was finally granted Disability at 50. Now I'm going blind from and autoimmune disease that is stereotypical for people that have ulcerative colitis. How is a deaf, blind woman with an ileostomy supposed to function in a level of poverty built to kill her?
Representative Collins, I speak to you today as a Christian clergy member and as one of your constituents.
I speak to you today embarrassed that as a fellow follower of Christ, I must remind you that in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus asks of his followers,“I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.”
I am embarrassed to remind you that by voting to pass this bill, you have very clearly ignored the heart of what Jesus calls us to do, in every time and age: love our neighbor as ourselves.
Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans that our response to faith is not just about our own souls but also about the responsibility of acting morally towards the least of these. Not the ones who fund your campaigns. Or have promised you power. But the least of these.
I don’t get to decide who calls themselves a Christian. But I do believe it is within my calling to remind those of us who do, to act like Christ. Because when you harm the vulnerable, you are harming God.
Rev. Haley Lerner, Winterville