In Chautauqua County, more than 45% of children, and 36% of adults, are covered by Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program). That’s nearly half of our children, and more than a third of our adults. Overall across the United States, about a quarter of Americans, and half of all children, rely on Medicaid and/or CHIP.

What is Medicaid? From HHS.gov: “Medicaid is a joint federal and state program that helps cover medical costs for some people with limited income and resources.” Medicaid also covers nursing home care and personal care services. Nursing homes cannot remain open without Medicaid.

From Medicaid.gov: “Children eligible for CHIP are in families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid, but too low to afford private coverage.”

This means “some people with limited income and resources” and “families with incomes … too low to afford private coverage” describe no fewer than half the children in the U.S., and nearly a quarter of all Americans. Forty-nine percent of U.S. children seems like more than “some” to me, but hey, let’s not get pedantic.

So let’s put this another way. The great people of Chautauqua County, New York — farmers, government workers, health care workers, etc. — labor every day to live, and pay a part of their earnings to the federal government, as do people across the U.S.

We pay taxes. Why?

United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1: “The Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.”

If the ability of Americans to take care of their and their children’s health, and thus their productivity and happiness — and even to not die untimely deaths — is not “the general Welfare of the United States,” I don’t know what is.

Elon Musk, who has so far received $38 billion in government contracts, recently called Americans who rely on government “assistance,” particularly Medicaid, “parasites.”

I have another word for them: Taxpayers. Or how about this one: Americans.

(Side note: Tesla reported profits of $2.3 billion in 2024. Federal taxes paid? $0. SpaceX made $13 billion in 2024, and many billions before that. SpaceX has paid zero in federal taxes to date.)

Let’s be clear: There is no such thing as “government assistance” or “government handouts” for taxpayers. It is our own money. The government itself is ours. We elect representatives to go to Washington and work out how to spend, or “appropriate,” as it’s called, our money “for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.” For us. For We the People. (Remember that phrase “the power of the purse”? That’s Congress’ power. But ultimately, it’s ours.)

On Feb. 21, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 217-215 on a bill that sets targets for the federal budget. At his Senate confirmation hearing in January, now-Secretary Scott Bessent of the Department of the Treasury said that the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, which would cost $4.6 trillion from over the next 10 years, was “the single most important economic issue of the day.” Disgracefully, all 53 Senate Republicans and a third of Democrats confirmed him to that position.

This House budget (and similarly in the Senate) proposes to move about $2 trillion from services essential to most Americans and funnel those tax dollars, yours and mine, into tax cuts for the wealthiest few — which naturally include many serving in Congress (Bessent himself is worth only $521 million, small potatoes next to the passel of billionaires currently in top executive branch positions.)

Medicaid would be cut by $880 billion. This budget also cuts nutrition assistance, education, housing assistance, manufacturing investments, Social Security, and many more vital things that we pay for and rely on — and moves all that money, and more, from mostly the bottom 60% of Americans, the “parasites,” to the top 10%, and in particular the top 1%.

They have proposed making college tuition scholarships taxable income to students — which it has not been for 70 years. And what of these tariffs we keep hearing about? Targeted, limited tariffs can support U.S. businesses and workers in some circumstances. But these sweeping tariffs will be, in effect, a tax on wage-earning Americans, levied with the idea that Congress will use the 20% extra we pay for everyday things to help fund these massive tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations. Like your morning coffee? The U.S. does not and cannot produce enough coffee, not anything like, to meet consumer demand. It is imported, as are many other (and more essential) things. Tariffs are taxes paid by consumers on imported goods.

(Yes, Musk probably buys coffee, and all the other things tariffs would affect. But he earns, on his current investments, $2,280,000 an hour, which is 386,000 times the federal minimum wage. Bessent’s total worth is the change rattling in Musk’s pocket).

And that list is just scratching the surface.

But back to Medicaid (and Medicare, and Social Security, because as sure as mud is coming to Chautauqua County this spring, they are making massive cuts to both).

The vote in the House to advance this budget was 217 Republicans “yea” to 215 Democrats “nay” (and one brave Republican “nay” — I called his office to thank him). One congressman left the hospital during a major medical emergency to fly to D.C. to vote no, and another flew from Colorado with her newborn to vote no, after House Republicans refused to let them vote remotely because they knew this bill would be lucky to squeak through and so tried to exclude those members, who both made heroic self-sacrifices in hopes of stopping it.

If put in the budget and passed, and an omnibus needs only 51 Senate votes, which Republicans have, these cuts will devastate Americans. They will devastate the people of Chautauqua County. Do you have a child on CHIP? Are you using Medicare? Do you or will you have a parent in a nursing home? Do you have a child in college using loans? Do you use SNAP? Do you have subsidized health insurance premiums? Do you have a child with special needs in public school?

If any of that apply to you, congratulations: You are an American. You are a taxpayer. Or maybe you’re a parasite for wanting to get things you actually paid for.

So we come to the person we hired to go to Washington and vote in our stead and advocate for us, here in Western New York: Rep. Nick Langworthy. Langworthy voted for $880 billion to be taken from Medicare to pay for the trillions in tax cuts for the wealthiest, including a substantial cut for himself. He voted to cut education funds for our children. He supports taking money from our paychecks that we pay for retirement, from Social Security to pay for these tax cuts.

But We the People are powerful. We can stop this cut to Medicaid, and the other redistributions from ordinary Americans to the wealthiest, from becoming part of the budget. Call Langworthy’s office. Demand that he schedule a town hall here. Tell him how you feel about his vote to take our money, which we paid for Medicaid, and CHIP, and our children’s education, and all the other things, and give it to the very wealthiest individuals. Tell him, “This budget is an immoral document.”

Langworthy is our employee. We pay his salary. We pay his travel, his perks, all his business expenses. And he is an “at will” employee. Our will. He has forgotten that, if he ever understood it. It’s time to remind him.

Lisa M. Graziano is a Fredonia resident.