Who's Taking Down What America Built?
A Speech on What We All Depend On
Think about the last time you fed your family without worrying whether the food was safe. The last time your child needed a doctor and help was there. The last time a flood struck your community and emergency workers showed up ready. What made those things possible? Who was keeping watch?
For most of our lives, the answer has been a web of programs — built by America across generations— not perfect, but always present. Programs that tracked illness before it spread. Inspectors who caught fraud and waste inside government. Health coverage that kept working families from going without care. Emergency systems that picked up when disaster struck. These are not political favors. They are what America built — because experience taught us that without them, people suffer.
So here is my concern — and I want to share it honestly, because I think you deserve to know what is happening, and I trust you to think it through.
What Has Changed
Beginning in January 2025, the federal government undertook a rapid and sweeping dismantling of agencies, programs, and the people who run them. Some reductions were called efficiency. Some reorganization. But when you look at what was actually eliminated — and who was affected — a different picture comes into view.
The inspectors whose job was to catch waste and fraud inside government agencies were fired —in violation of federal law, as federal courts have found. The national program that tracked dangerous food-borne illnesses across 54 million Americans was cut from eight pathogens to just two. The Department of Justice eliminated more than 4,500 positions, with plans before Congress to cut an additional 1,500 FBI
positions. The DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis — the only federal agency legally mandated to share threat information with state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement — announced plans to cut 75% of its staff.
What does it mean when the systems designed to protect us are taken apart, one by one?
Real People. Real Consequences.
These are not abstractions. They are our neighbors — and our law enforcement partners. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, County Sheriffs of America, and the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies wrote directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security, warning that cutting the intelligence office would create "dangerous blind spots in our homeland security network" and leave local officers unable to "detect and prevent threats before they occur." This was not a partisan warning. It came from America's own law enforcement community.
Dr. Jason Deen, a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Washington, said in February
2025:
"Medicaid cuts would mean that
thousands of children in Central and Eastern
Washington would have very poor access to
subspecialty care. These babies could die,
frankly, because they wouldn't be able to get
diagnosed and they wouldn't get the care that
they need."
Mat Slaybaugh, CEO of Garfield County
Hospital District:
"Even a small reduction in our Medicaid reimbursement… would push our facility into the red and could put us at risk of closure."
Cathy Bambrick, administrator of Astria
Toppenish Hospital:
"We're struggling to keep our doors open… the only thing left to cut is the hospital itself."
Washington Governor Bob Ferguson estimates at least 250,000 Washingtonians will lose Medicaid, and another 150,000 will lose affordable coverage from the exchange. KFF —the Kaiser Family Foundation — projects Washington State will receive roughly $41 billion less in federal Medicaid funding over the next ten years, a reduction of nearly 20%.
The Harms Are Already Here
Measles cases have exploded — from 58 confirmed cases in 2023 to 2,288 in 2025, with 2,073 more confirmed by June 11 of this year. Kindergarten vaccination rates have fallen below the level needed to keep children safe. A disease that America worked for generations to eliminate is back, partly because federal vaccination outreach weakened.
The CDC's FoodNet program — the only system
tracking multiple foodborne illnesses across ten
states — was cut in July 2025 from eight pathogens to just two.
As Dr. J. Glenn Morris of the University of Florida said:
"If you want to make food-borne disease go away, then don't look for food-borne disease."
On July 4, 2025, the President signed H.R. 1 into law. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects the law will increase the number of uninsured by 7.5 million through Medicaid cuts, rising to 10 million including Marketplace changes. The administration also canceled $3.6 billion in disaster mitigation grants already awarded to communities nationwide; a federal court ordered the funding restored in December 2025, and compliance remains uncertain. During the July 4th Texas flooding, Government Executive reported nearly two-thirds of calls to FEMA's emergency line went unanswered. This is only a sampling. The damage is widespread across government.
Check It Yourself
Every assertion here has a source. CDC: cdc.gov.
FoodNet: nbcnews.com. Medicaid: kff.org and ccf.georgetown.edu. DHS cuts: cbsnews.com.
FEMA court order: ctmirror.org, December 12,
2025. Governor Ferguson's statements are on
the public record. Please — check it out. The facts are available and they belong to all of us.
Communities Are Fighting Back
Here is something important: your community is not standing still. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia took the FEMA grant cancellations to court — and a federal judge agreed with them. Local health departments across Washington are filling gaps. State legislators are pushing to protect Medicaid. Hospital associations are speaking up. Pediatricians are calling Congress.
Faith communities are organizing. Law enforcement agencies across the country are writing warning letters. The doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, food safety inspectors, and emergency managers who built and maintained these systems understand what is at stake. They are asking us to pay attention alongside them.
Where Do We Go From Here?
What America built across generations belongs to all of us. Use the tools of democracy to protect it. Ask your members of Congress — restore Inspector General oversight; to protect Medicaid, local health departments and rural hospitals; and to protect children's health coverage. Ask directly: What are you doing to protect what America built?
Talk about it. At your kitchen table. At church. At community events. Ask the people around you: Did you know this was happening? What do you think about it? And finally, vote. The people who hold oversight hearings, who provide funding and rules for how services are provided — while curbing unchecked presidential power — they sit in Congress. You hire them. You can fire them. With your vote. In November, vote like it's the most important vote you'll ever cast. Because for the safety and stability of this country, it may be. Make sure you and everyone you know is registered and ready to vote by checking at vote.org.
Thank you for being here — and for thinking
this through with me.
