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reconciliation bill
The Billionaire Oligarchs Are Dancing in the Street
The Republicans who passed this bill must pay a political price. It's time to get to work.
Jul 02, 2025
Editor's note: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders released the following after Republicans in the U.S. Senate approved their "big ugly bill" on Tuesday, July 1, 2025.
The reconciliation bill that Republicans passed in the U.S. Senate by one vote on Tuesday will give the top 1% a trillion dollars in tax breaks. At a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, the very rich just got much richer.
Pathetically, these tax breaks for the wealthy are paid for by a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. The result of those cuts will be that over 16 million Americans will lose their health insurance and an estimated 50,000 will die unnecessarily each year. These cuts will also be devastating to rural hospitals, nursing homes and community health centers.
But that’s not all. While the very rich celebrate their good fortune in fancy restaurants, this bill cuts nutrition programs for hungry kids and, because of cuts to education, will make it harder for working class young people to afford college.
And for those of us concerned about climate change, this bill makes a very ominous situation even worse. It delivers massive reductions in funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy while giving even more corporate welfare to the fossil fuel industry.
The Republicans who passed this bill must pay a political price. Starting now, we must work overtime to make certain that these corporate controlled politicians are defeated in 2026.
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'Drag This Process Out': Progressives Push Senate Dems to Obstruct GOP 'Tax Scam' Bill
"That's what this moment demands of them and what we expect," said a progressive group pushing Democrats to slow down Republicans' massive reconciliation bill.
Jun 25, 2025
A progressive group is pressuring Democratic lawmakers to use every tactic available to obstruct passage of the Republican budget reconciliation bill, which contains large tax cuts for the wealthy funded by slashing social safety net programs.
The organization Indivisible put out an urgent call Wednesday, pressing voters to help "disrupt" what it called the "Republican tax scam." The group urged Democrats to call their senators, encouraging them to gum up the works using procedural tactics to stop the bill, which has been described as even more extreme and regressive than the one already passed in the House.
"Your Democratic senators can make voting on this bill slower, more divisive, and more politically damaging than any vote these Republicans have ever taken," an email from the group said. "In fact, that's what this moment demands of them and what we expect."
The Senate's version of the bill introduces new cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that will hit parents, homeless individuals, and veterans even harder than the House version. It also contains new provisions, including one that would eliminate taxes on many firearms and accessories.
Indivisible noted that the "vote-a-rama" process could begin as soon as Thursday. During this arcane stage of budget reconciliation, senators may propose unlimited amendments to a bill, each of which is voted on in succession.
Using the vote-a-rama has become a tried-and-true strategy for minority parties to drag out votes for these omnibus packages, which can pass with just a simple majority and cannot be filibustered. In 2022, Republicans used the tactic to delay voting for 16 hours in hopes of picking off just one Democrat who could tank Biden's climate, energy, and tax package.
With Democrats in the minority, Indivisible hopes they will launch a similar marathon. The group encouraged constituents not only to call their senators, but also to submit their own amendments for senators to introduce.
The organization gave examples of what sorts of things to propose: Amendments "to transfer all the dollars for [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] funding to NPR and PBS," "to tax recipients of luxury jets gifted by foreign governments at 100% of the jet's market value," or "to cut every lawmaker's salary and per diem by the same percentage SNAP gets cut."
"Some of your suggestions may be silly. Some may be poignant. Some will be genuinely good policy. Pretty much all of them will be better than the disaster MAGA Republicans want to force on us," the email said.
By delaying the process long enough, the group hopes to buy time to fracture the Republican coalition, which is already divided over some provisions of the bill.
Several Republican senators—including Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.)—have voiced concerns about how cuts to Medicaid would affect funding for rural hospitals.
With enough time, Indivisible hopes to use this and other issues as a wedge to pick off enough GOP defectors to stop the bill's passage altogether.
"The longer we can drag this process out, the more we can toxify a bill that Republicans are already publicly tearing apart," Indivisible said. "The more we can toxify the bill, the better the chance we can ultimately defeat it."
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GOP Bill Would Strip Healthcare From 19 People for Every Millionaire Getting a Tax Cut: Sanders Report
"The reconciliation bill that Republicans are attempting to ram through the Senate this week would be a death sentence for working-class and low-income Americans," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Jun 25, 2025
The GOP budget legislation currently before the U.S. Senate would strip health coverage from 19 Americans for every millionaire household it gives a tax break, according to a report that Sen. Bernie Sanders released Wednesday as he worked to highlight and build public opposition to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's draconian assault on the nation's social safety net.
The report integrates alarming testimony from healthcare providers who warn that the Republican legislation would have devastating impacts on their patients and the broader U.S. healthcare system—stripping insurance from millions, raising costs, and shuttering rural hospitals.
"If Medicaid is cut, my patients will die," Louisiana-based doctor Helen Pope told Sanders' team. "I realize I am being dramatic. It is a dramatic situation. They are humans who are doing their best. Please don't allow them to suffer more."
Farhan Malik, a pediatric critical care specialist based in Florida, echoed that warning, saying that "children will die as a result of these cuts."
"Hospitals will cut back on ICU doctors, doctors will leave because of salary cuts, critical ancillary services will be reduced, more medical students will avoid going into pediatric residencies," said Malik.
The report comes as Republican lawmakers continue to debate just how far they want to go with their proposed cuts to Medicaid, which—under both the House and Senate versions of their legislation—would be the largest in U.S. history.
Last week, Senate Republicans called for even more aggressive cuts than those approved by the House GOP, which voted in May for a plan that would kick roughly 11 million Americans off their health insurance—or 16 million when accounting for the party's refusal to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, an estimated 800,000 millionaire households would receive a tax cut under the Republican legislation.
"Children will die as a result of these cuts." —Farhan Malik, Florida-based pediatric critical care specialist
Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has focused closely on the legislation's potentially catastrophic healthcare impacts. Earlier this month, a Sanders-commissioned report estimated that around 51,000 additional Americans would die unnecessarily each year if the Republican budget reconciliation bill becomes law.
In a statement on Wednesday, Sanders said his new report "makes it abundantly clear that the reconciliation bill that Republicans are attempting to ram through the Senate this week would be a death sentence for working-class and low-income Americans throughout the country."
"Not only would this disastrous and deeply immoral bill throw 16 million people off of their healthcare and lead to over 50,000 unnecessary deaths every year, it would create a national healthcare emergency in America," said Sanders. "It would devastate rural hospitals, community health centers, and nursing homes throughout our country and cause a massive spike in uninsured rates in red states and blue states alike."
"That's not Bernie Sanders talking," the senator added. "That is precisely what doctors, healthcare providers, and hospitals have told us."
Sanders' new report was accompanied by a breakdown of how much the uninsured rate would rise over the next decade if the House-passed reconciliation bill becomes law. At least 16 states would see their uninsured rates jump by more than 70% under the Republican bill.
"We cannot allow Republicans to take healthcare away from 16 million Americans in order to pay for more tax breaks to billionaires," Sanders said Wednesday. "As the ranking member of the HELP Committee, I will do everything that I can to see that it is defeated. Healthcare must be a human right for all, not a privilege for the wealthy few."
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