CHAMPAIGN — A joint town hall meeting hosted by state legislators in Champaign focused on rising energy costs and recent cuts to social services.
The meeting was hosted by Sen. Paul Faraci and Rep. Carol Ammons at the Illinois terminal in Champaign Thursday.
Ralph Martire, a professor at Roosevelt University, opened the town hall with a presentation about how tax cuts outlined in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” are skewed to benefit the wealthy.
“The way they’re offsetting that cost is by cutting things like Medicaid and green energy, environment, student loans, food benefits, other health care,” Martire said. “They’re literally providing tax breaks to the richest and paying for them by cutting investments in health care, food and the environment that benefit everyone else.”
According to Martire, under this legislation, the wealthiest 1% will receive an annual tax break of over $300,000, while people earning $30,000 or less will experience a tax increase.
Ammons said she was motivated to initiate the joint town hall after hearing complaints from residents about Ameren Illinois, a utility company that provides electricity and natural gas services.
“We had a lot of constituents calling our offices concerned about the rate increases that took place with Ameren in our territory, and we didn’t have good answers for that,” Ammons said in an interview. “And we wanted to bring together people in our community so they can get information firsthand, directly from Ameren and find out what they can do to lower their costs.”
The issue was addressed in an energy panel led by Faraci.
“There are programs out there with people who are income-eligible that will cut your electric portion of your bill in half, and there are people here that will help you navigate through it,” Faraci said, referring to Ameren representatives who were present at the meeting.
Faraci encouraged attendees to also find cost savings by signing up for community solar programs that can be cost-effective for those who aren’t able to purchase their own solar panels.
Martire said Trump’s bill is impacting Medicaid as well. Medicaid is a federal-state program that provides health care coverage to 71 million lower-income Americans — almost a quarter of the population. The trillion-dollar cut in Medicaid is projected to cause between 10.3 and 17 million people to lose coverage.
Another program impacted by the bill is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The SNAP program is a federally funded, community-based program thar provides food assistance to families and collaborates with community organizations to make sure high-quality food is accessible in food deserts.
Jennifer McCaffrey, the director of nutrition programs at University of Illinois Extension said the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been implementing the SNAP program over the years. She was among the speakers at the panel on social service cuts.
For instance, the SNAP program collaborates with the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the Illinois Department of Human Services to purchase food from local Illinois farmers and distribute it to food pantries and those in need. By doing so, the program benefits low-income households in addition to farmers and the agricultural community.
It has also been offering information regarding resources and support organizations, like the Find Food Illinois Map, which shows places in the community offering free meals.
McCaffery said SNAP is funded by the USDA — but the funding zeroes out on Oct. 1.
“We have almost 650 employees, and we’re laying off 212 of them, so almost cutting our workforce by a third,” McCaffery said. “That, as you can imagine — somebody who’s been doing this work my whole career — is pretty devastating.”
But even with fewer resources, McCaffrey said there is hope — if community members band together.