If you’re reading this, you’re likely not a billionaire. If you are, congratulations: Trump and the Republican majority in Congress-including Rep. Nick Langworthy-have your back.

Last week, Langworthy and company voted to advance Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill. It’s big, but not beautiful for the 99% reading this. We get nothing, while billionaires and corporations grow even richer off the backs of working families. Better understand which side of this cruel line you’re on.

Langworthy and the Republicans are acting like anti-Robinhoods: stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Their plan requires cuts of $880 billion from programs like Medicaid and SNAP, support essential to thousands of county residents, in order to give massive tax cuts to the 1%. Plus, it raises the debt ceiling by $4.5 trillion while adding almost $3 trillion to the deficit-a raw deal for all of us.

The budget bill is just the latest, most brazen move in the Republicans’ campaign to dismantle the federal government, sell it for parts, and funnel the proceeds to those who need them least. Langworthy’s unwavering support for the illegal actions of “DOGE,” made clear in the form letter he sends in response to constituents’ complaints, shows that he applauds DOGE’s ransacking of the government, while abdicating his own “power of the purse.”

Musk’s DOGE “chainsaw” hollows out social services that millions rely on, hurts farmers who benefit from USAID’s food distribution, and makes us less safe-from potential pandemics to air traffic safety to nuclear security. But all this pales in comparison to the fallout of the budget bill, which makes the redistribution of wealth to the 1% official.

Leading up to this, Langworthy and the Republicans have focused on a shell game of distraction. They claim they’re weeding out fraud, waste, and abuse in federal spending, but they’ve outsourced their oversight duties. Inspectors General have been dismissed, replaced by unaccountable DOGE. The real fraud, waste, and abuse is in the budget bill. These Republicans tout the draconian crackdown on immigrants and take a chainsaw to democratic guardrails-chaos meant to cover for their crimes, dramatic misdirection from the heist going on in plain view.

Meanwhile, Langworthy focuses on what really matters: introducing a bill to require the government to purchase only American-made flags. That sounds fine, but his support for the budget bill is much more telling. He’s pledged to distort what the flag stands for. Apparently, the “land of the free and the home of the brave” is passe; coming soon, the “land of the oligarchs and the home of the suffering masses.”

Don’t expect Langworthy to find the spine to fight for his constituents. Call his local and DC offices daily and voice your opposition to this reckless smash-and-grab. Make your voice heard-on the phone, on the street, and at his office door-even if you get nothing but slick, vacuous talking points in response.

If you’re part of the 1%, I guess you can sit back and relax. The rest of us have a lot of work to do. Be a squeaky wheel and don’t comply in advance.

Eric Jackson-Fosberg is a Jamestown resident.