Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Community leaders and experts from across Nassau County gathered to talk to the public about what might hurt their finances this year at a panel in Hempstead’s Kennedy Park on Jan. 30.
The federal government is considering 25 percent tariffs on goods imported from Mexico and Canada and a 10 percent tariff on China — three of the United State’s largest trading partners.
“Our goals are to hold our representatives accountable to make sure that they’re working on our behalf, whether it’s protecting Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid, SNAP benefits, or making sure that the wealthy are paying their fair share,” said Dylan Wheeler, regional organizing director for Empire State Voices.
ESV is a nonprofit that challenges New York’s elected officials to address the cost of living crisis and other problems affecting working families. To do that, the nonprofit brings local community groups together to create one larger movement for panels to address the public directly.
Panelist Joe Sackman, executive director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition’s Massapequa chapter, stated that tariffs would greatly increase the cost of living for the average resident of Nassau County.
“These tariffs are not helping us,” Sackman said.
“They’re playing games with our lives, and the lives of our friends in Mexico and Canada.”
A tariff is a tax placed on imported goods, which would make many goods more expensive for consumers.
Several other white house policies — tax cuts for the highest income earners, X Y and Z — run the risk of adding to the financial burden placed on the average American.
Dr. Matthew Record, Professor of History and Political Science at Molloy University, took issue with proposals to cut taxes for the “ultra-wealthy” — widening the income inequality gap even further.
“When you have money, it’s easier to make money,” Record said. “It’s way, way easier to make tons of money than it was 50 years ago, and as a result, income inequality goes through the roof.”
Taxing the highest income earners lightens the burden on middle and low income Americans who have less money to spare, Record said. 80 years ago the New Deal used this plan to help the United States recover from the Great Depression, he explained. Meanwhile, the president’s new tax plan would place a greater burden on lower income Americans instead.
The president’s suggested cancellation of federal grants would threaten researchers, educators and charity programs.
Mimi Pierre Johnson, president and founder of the Elmont Cultural Center, runs one such nonprofit.
“We never have enough money to do the work that we do anyway,” she said. “Most folks don’t know how their lives are easier because of the government, because of the funding that organizations like ours receive to do what we’re supposed to do in communities.”
“Imagine if that funding goes away, that’s millions of dollars that organizations won’t have help in the communities that need it the most,” she added. “I’m thinking about housing, I’m thinking about those folks that need food.”
The panelists encouraged members of the public to reach out to their local elected representatives to speak out against policies increasing their cost of living.
