By SUZANNE DOWNING
July 30, 2026 – Democrat US Senate candidate Mary Peltola says President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans’ Working Families Tax Cuts legislation has been “damaging” to Alaskans.
But her harsh criticism overlooks some of the largest federal investments ever directed toward two institutions critical to Alaska: rural health care and the US Coast Guard.
Peltola made the remark during an online interview hosted by Rebecca Nagle, an Oklahoma-based Cherokee Nation citizen, writer and queer, two-spirit activist. Bill Hill, an undeclared candidate for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat, also appeared in the program.
A clip shows Peltola criticizing the legislation, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, without acknowledging its major Alaska-specific benefits.
Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola says President Trump and Republicans' Working Families Tax Cuts were "damaging" to Alaskans.
The Working Families Tax Cuts secured a nearly $25 billion investment for the Coast Guard & the largest ever investment in rural healthcare. pic.twitter.com/DPzP0jTKj0
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 28, 2026
The law provided nearly $25 billion for the Coast Guard, an especially consequential investment for a state with more coastline than the rest of the country combined.
The funding supports Coast Guard readiness, ships, aircraft, shore facilities, housing and Arctic operations. Alaska depends heavily on the service for search and rescue, maritime security, fisheries enforcement, environmental response and national defense.
The Coast Guard itself has described the funding as a “historic $25 billion investment” under the Working Families Tax Cut Act.
The law also created the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, the largest federal investment in rural health care in American history.
Alaska was awarded $272.2 million for the program’s first year — the second-largest state award in the nation. The money is intended to improve access to care, expand obstetric and behavioral health services, strengthen the rural health workforce, modernize technology and help deliver treatment closer to rural and remote Alaskans.
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The Alaska Department of Health says the award reflects the state’s unusually large rural population, geographic isolation and longstanding health-care access challenges.
Peltola and Democrats have attacked changes involving Medicaid eligibility and food-assistance programs, while Republicans say the reforms protect benefits for eligible American citizens, reduce fraud, and encourage able-bodied adults to work.
The legislation also made the 2017 Trump tax rates permanent, expanded the standard deduction and child tax credit, provided tax relief for tips and overtime earnings, created a deduction for many seniors and extended tax provisions used by small businesses.
Peltola briefly represented Alaska in the US House but lost the seat to Republican Nick Begich in 2024. She is now challenging Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who helped secure the Alaska provisions and has highlighted the rural health award as a major victory for the state.
Hill is running against Begich while describing himself as undeclared with any party. His campaign has nevertheless attracted Democratic-aligned financial and political support, and his appearance alongside Peltola in the Nagle interview further places him within the Democrats’ 2026 campaign orbit.
Nagle is an activist and writer affiliated with the Cherokee Nation who has focused on tribal sovereignty, Native representation queer politics. She lives in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and has worked with Crooked Media, a progressive political-media company founded by former Obama administration staffers.
Peltola calling the law broadly “damaging” to Alaska requires ignoring or being uninformed about the record investments it made in rural health care and the Coast Guard. A recent poll shows that the majority of Americans do not remember what is in the One Big Beautiful Bill, and Peltola appears to be feeding that.
For Alaska voters, the figures are difficult to dismiss: nearly $25 billion for a service essential to Alaska’s maritime and Arctic future, $50 billion nationwide for rural health transformation and more than $272 million coming to Alaska in the program’s first year alone.
8 thoughts on “Peltola calls Working Families Tax Cut law ‘damaging’ despite record rural health, Coast Guard investments for Alaska”
puppetola does just what she’s paid to do, again
NoShow Peltola is saying exactly what she’s told to say. With help coming from RINO Murkowski.
Peltola did not use the term “Working Families Tax Cut”. She said “Big Beautiful Bill”. The latter was coined be pederast felon Trump and congress was too cowardly to give it a proper name. Congress changed the name to fake out the Republican rubes. It should be renamed the Reverse Robin Hood Act, something that hints at the true purpose of Trump’s scam which is giving the public’s money to billionaires.
Do please let us know when you intend to quit telling lies for attention here. I’m not sure you realize it, but publishing slander, which you do here frequently, can be targeted by a civil suit. And don’t you have some parked cars to chase?
First, listen to the video clip that Downing provided. Second, slander is provably harmful speech, like most of the shit Trump says. You’re thinking of libel which applies to written words. If, for example, someone wrote “ Do please let us know when you intend to quit telling lies for attention “, that would be potentially libelous.
Our entire family benefitted from Trump’s BBB. Tax savings, which will go towards our grandchildren’s education fund.
We will never vote for Peltola and either will our friends. Her accusatory commercials say about Dan S. Sullivan what she precisely does herself……and in her own words. A despicable person not worthy of the United States Senate.
Agree with Carol. Peltola is the shameless puppet of East Coast radical leftists. An uneducated woman who is desperate to get another man in her life. Husband number 7 will be her next. The woman is a psychopath.
I’m quite sure that Mary will return to the government the difference in her taxes this past year because she dislikes Trump. Quite sure. Except of course, she doesn’t want to talk about that. She just wants to call names and tell lies.