How do I make sense of a world where cruelty is not just tolerated, but celebrated? As a single mother of three daughters, I am heartbroken — truly, soul-deep heartbroken — by what I’ve watched unfold in Congress.
House Republicans high-fived each other after passing Trump’s so-called “victory” bill, one that slashes Medicaid, SNAP and other vital safety net programs while handing massive tax breaks to billionaires and corporations.
I’m not naive to injustice. But this? This feels deliberately cruel. Emotionally disorienting. I can’t understand how anyone with a conscience could celebrate policies that will push children into hunger, seniors into homelessness and families like mine into deeper despair.
My family will feel this. Cuts to SNAP mean fewer groceries on our shelves. Changes to Medicaid and health subsidies will likely raise premiums and co-pays — especially for the vision and dental care I access through the Marketplace. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the reconciliation bill would cut billions from food assistance, health subsidies and rental aid over the next decade. These aren’t minor inconveniences; they’re daily calculations that determine whether my children and I stay afloat. These programs are not luxuries. They are lifelines.
Here in Utah, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program fund care for more than 353,000 low-income residents — about 10% of the state’s population. That includes children, seniors, people with disabilities and working parents. More than 169,000 Utah households use SNAP. These aren’t faceless statistics — they’re our neighbors, co-workers and classmates.
My current reality reflects what’s at stake. I’m nearing 40, recently graduated with a strategic communications degree and raising three daughters on my own. The job market is bleak. I apply for roles that pay no more than I made before going back to school — only now they require a bachelor’s degree. I apply anyway, clinging to the hope that one opportunity might shift the trajectory of our lives. The possibility of returning to warehouse work, delivering Amazon packages just to make ends meet, feels like a cruel irony for someone who believed education could be a way out.
This is what happens when ambition meets a system stacked against you. When lawmakers gut the very safety nets on which people like me rely, they don’t just destabilize our present — they sabotage our chances of building a future.
As I prepare to return to school this fall to pursue my Master of Public Administration at the University of Utah, I carry both hope and anxiety. I’m trying to build a career that helps fix the very systems failing families like mine. But while I’m in school, I’ll rely on Medicaid and SNAP just to get by. And now, even those supports are under attack.
Recent legislation from House Republicans doesn’t just target safety nets — it threatens the institutions many of us count on to secure better futures. The latest GOP megabill includes caps on graduate student loans, the elimination of the Graduate PLUS loan program, tighter Pell Grant eligibility and new taxes on university endowments — policies that restrict access to graduate education for working-class students. Already, some universities are freezing admissions or rescinding offers due to uncertainty over research funding.
That’s what makes this bill feel so personal. These aren’t abstract policy shifts. They’re direct threats to the few supports I have while I try to improve our lives. I’m not asking for handouts — I’m asking for a fair shot. For dignity. For a system that doesn’t punish people for trying to climb out of survival mode.
What’s most chilling is the erasure of humanity in all of this. The Republican Party’s current agenda — defined by deep cuts to social safety nets and unrelenting tax breaks for the wealthy — reveals a troubling disregard for the people these policies affect most.
The same day this bill passed, a rural hospital in Nebraska announced its closure, citing prolonged uncertainty over Medicaid funding. The legislation, hospital leaders said, was the final blow. These closures aren’t isolated, they’re warnings. Communities across the country are losing access to basic care and, yet, those in power celebrate.
Still, I search for the right words to offer my daughters. I hold them close, trying to offer reassurance in a country that keeps telling us we don’t matter. Even as our elected leaders send the opposite message, I want them to believe otherwise.
I am speaking out because silence has never protected the vulnerable. This is about more than policy — it’s about who we are as a nation. And if cruelty is what it takes to claim victory, then maybe we need to ask: What kind of victory is that?
(Kiley Wren Ryan) Kiley Wren Ryan is a single mother of three, a recent graduate and an incoming master's student at the University of Utah.
Kiley Wren Ryan is a single mother of three, a recent graduate in strategic communications and an incoming master of public administration student at the University of Utah. She lives in Salt Lake City and advocates for more equitable social policy in Utah and beyond.
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