The Republican Speaker of the House wants to please President Trump, so he needs GOP House members to vote for a budget that includes $800 billion in Medicaid cuts. Donald Trump and Elon Musk need something to show the American people that we can afford to give the wealthiest people in the country $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.
The GOP House members who are pushing back aren’t stupid. They understand that Americans will be hurt and angry over a decision to vote for Medicaid cuts.
For anyone who isn’t familiar, Medicaid is insurance provided to children, anyone who isn’t employed at a company that provides health insurance, and to anyone who just can’t afford to pay private health insurance premiums.
(Personal note: I have Medicare because of a disability and because my SSDI income isn’t enough to pay the premiums or the percentage of medical expenses that Medicare doesn’t pay, I also have Medicaid just to cover those things. A lot of people rely on Medicaid for different circumstances.)
Republican governors haven’t been shy about refusing federal funding to expand access to Medicaid. Rather than accept free money to make sure everyone in their state has health insurance, they prefer to politicize any assistance from the government as Socialism. They aren’t shy because they’ve seen that Republicans will continue to vote for them against their own best interests because of the propaganda and lies they’re fed by conservative politicians and news outlets.
Red states have the highest rates of poverty, the highest rates of uninsured residents, and the worst public education systems in the country. They aren’t concerned at all because they, along with help from the Conservative media ecosystem, have gaslit Republican voters into believing that it is better for them to be poor, uneducated, without access to healthcare than to accept help from the federal government.
That’s rich considering how many Republicans in Congress took millions in PPP loans fom the government during COVID that they don’t have to pay back. In 2022, the White House pointed out the hypocrisy of those recipients when they were publicly attacking student loan forgiveness after their $1.4 billion in PPP loans were forgiven.
I have a secret to share with voters who believe assistance from the government is bad:THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A GOVERNMENT! We pay taxes so that money can be used to help us when we need it. Whether it’s disaster aid or health insurance coverage while you’re experiencing financial hardship, that’s why it exists—to protect and provide forte very citizens of a society who created the government to govern that society.
Think about it. Why are we working hard and sending so much of our income to the federal government in taxes? So our tax dollars can go to help the richest in the country pay even less in taxes while ours go up in order to cover all of that lost revenue? Of course not!
Medicare taxes go into a separate fund so the money is waiting for us when we retire to provide health insurance. Social Security taxes go to another separate fund so when we get old we‘re not homeless and starving while billionaires enjoy their tax cuts.
One thing I’ve noticed Republican politicians do to confuse their constituents is explicitly referring to these programs as entitlement programs. That’s what they are, but politicians insinuate that “entitlement” in this context means “You think you are entitled to everything because you are a spoiled brat.” In reality, it means we are entitled (owed) that money back because we paid into the fund our entire lives. It’s our money that we are entitled to.
If Republicans were to get rid of Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP (food assistance) programs, I propose we strike by no longer paying federal taxes. If our money funds wars abroad and benefits corporations and billionaires, but does nothing for us, why should we pay into it?
Let the billionaires and corporations fund their own tax breaks and government subsidies. The IRS can’t audit all of us, especially after Trump fired most of the agents. Us protesting in the street won’t affect them. If we ceased funding the government after it fu***d us over, or if every worker in the country went on strike at once, they would notice and they would feel it. It would force a change.
Several other countries have successfully used mass worker strikes to get what they wanted. Its referred to as the “Mass Strike Movement.” Granted, those countries are smaller and not as divided as we are at the moment.
Republicans are also good at making their voters think that the assistance from Social Security and Medicare is the federal government spending its own money. No. It’s our money.
Fun fact: Undocumented immigrant households paid $47.8 billion in federal taxes and around $28 billion in State taxes in 2022 alone. They paid into Social Security and Medicare knowing they’ll never be able to access those programs as non-citizens.
They didn’t refuse to pay taxes out of the money they earned because they would never benefit from it. No, a lot of them view at it as a way for them to give back to a country that is giving them a shot at a good life. That is sad on many levels now that Trump is in office. 🥺
Final point: If President Teump truly cared about the deficit, (he would ‘t have added $8 trillion to it during his first term with tax cuts, and he wouldn’t add an additional $5 trillion through even BIGGER tax cuts for the people who can most afford to pay them) he wouldn’t be deporting non-criminal migrants who pick our food and contribute billions in revenue to the government. He also wouldn’t keep making sure the wealthiest pay less and less into the government.
One more Fun fact:We paid $1 trillion just in interest on our deficit last year. If that’s not wasteful spending, I don’t know what is. 🙄
Now here is a Press Release Common Dreams Progressive Newswire shared from the organization Accountable.US regarding the Medicaid cuts.
✔️ Higher Health Care Costs For Most Americans and a Lower Insured Rate: Kaiser estimates that ending ACA premiums will increase costs for the vast majority of Americans, and lead to nearly 4 million Americans losing their health care annually. Both RSC and House Budget Committee plans would ultimately raise premiums by ending tax credits put in place in 2021, hiking premiums by as much as 300% and putting 4 million people in jeopardy of losing coverage of the premium tax credit.
✔️ Cutting Medicaid, immediately causing 3 million Americans to lose their coverage – with more to come: Current proposals to cut Medicaid could lead to nine states with “trigger” laws on the books to automatically eliminate plans if the federal funding fell below 90%, impacting at least three million adults.
✔️ Raising housing costs for working families: Previous budget proposals sought to cut vital housing assistance by eliminating 10% of funding for the Housing Choice Vouchers, while House legislation omitted bipartisan agreements set during the 2023 federal debt ceiling debates.
✔️ Cuts to SNAP, a program millions of Americans rely on to pay for food, including close to 42 million during the pandemic: The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) warns policy proposals from Republicans, Trump, and the far-right Project 2025 could “cut benefits for all” SNAP beneficiaries and remove millions from the program.
All to make way for huge tax cuts for their billionaire donors.
Faced with this reality, even House Republicans have openly admitted the truth about their budget plan:
Republican Members: “Slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open.”
Now, while some Members are on the fence, and openly questioning these drastic cuts, the only way they can be true to their word is to vote against the budget resolution.
✔️ TIME reported Rep. Jeff Van Drew was prepared to vote against the House budget resolution due to its $880 billion in potential Medicaid cuts, stating “Working class people receive Medicaid as they are working […] This is not just lazy people who are sitting around not doing their job.”
✔️ Rep. Don Bacon said he asked “House leadership to prove to us that $880 billion in cuts to E&C won’t overly cut Medicaid.”
✔️ Reps. Tony Gonzales, Nicole Malliotakis, Monica De La Cruz, David Valadao, Juan Ciscomani, Rob Bresnahan, Jr., James Moylan, and Kimberlyn King-Hinds sent a joint letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson urging him to reconsider $880 billion in potential cuts to Medicaid due to the impact such cuts would have on rural and Hispanic communities.
✔️ Rep. Rob Bresnahan, Jr. previously said in a statement that he would not vote for any bill that “guts the benefits my neighbors rely on.”
In a February statement to Politico, Rep. Ken Calvert said House Republicans “will not touch Social Security and Medicare benefits” as they are “not interested in cutting the social and health care safety net for children, disabled, and low-income Americans.”
If these members vote for the House budget resolution, their words are as empty as their promises to the people who rely on these programs.
Accountable.US
Accountable.US is a nonpartisan watchdog that exposes corruption in public life and holds government officials and corporate special interests accountable by bringing their influence and misconduct to light. In doing so, we make way for policies that advance the interests of all Americans, not just the rich and powerful.
This article was originally published on Common Dreams and republished here, with permission, under a Creative Commons license. See our third-party content disclaimer.
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