On the day the Republican-controlled Senate voted to give a huge tax break to billionaires, Kevin Borden was in Austin, Texas with members of Manufactured Home Action (MH Action), a nationwide organization of mobile home residents fighting the consolidation of ownership over the ground they live on. For these exurban and rural working-class people, handing more wealth to billionaires has very real consequences. Borden talked to me about bringing far-flung communities together to connect their struggles around housing to the broad struggle against inequallity.

I feel like our folks are very clear about what this really means. It is loosening up more cash for the wealthiest in our country to continue to gobble up different sectors of our economy that make it harder and harder for folks to get by. My sense from having one on one conversations with folks is folks are smart. They see this tax bill for what it is. It is going to make their lives harder and it is going to get more cash and capital in the pockets of folks like Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds, like Sam Zell who is a multi-billionaire that owns the largest publically traded company that owns manufactured home communities across the country. It is going to be a windfall for him.
Our folks definitely see the direct connection between this tax bill and how it can continue to exacerbate the situation that many families face. Our folks also completely understand that when we start to decimate our public coffers in this way with these bizarre tax bills that are based on failed trickle-down economics, they have seen first-hand what that means. A lot of seniors know, they are on Social Security, they know that it is going to get harder for them to survive. Folks who are on disability know that then the fight is around SSDI to make sure that is funded. It is going to get harder.
Climate disasters, whether it is what’s happened in Florida or what has happened in California, they really see this continuous shift toward the already-grotesquely-wealthy in the country is not going to play out well for their communities. They are moving on a national level and that is why we are trying to organize, I think. Yes, they see the direct connection. They see it. They understand it. That is why we are organizing to try to change that stuff.

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