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'Showing You Exactly Who They're Working For,' GOP Votes to Gut Medicaid for Tax Cuts
"House Republicans have ignored the demands of their constituents and instead chosen to side with their billionaire donors."
Feb 26, 2025
House Republicans rammed through their budget blueprint late Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump intervened to pressure wavering members to vote for the resolution, which jumpstarts the process of enacting sweeping cuts to Medicaid and other programs to finance trillions of dollars in proposed tax cuts primarily for the rich.
Just one Republican—Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky—joined every House Democrat in voting against the resolution, which sets the stage for $880 billion in Medicaid cuts and $230 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
"Today, Republicans are cheering the passage of their extreme budget resolution that betrays the middle class," Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement following Tuesday's vote. "Their bill will impose pain and suffering on tens of millions of hardworking Americans—cutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, all to fund extravagant giveaways for billionaires like Elon Musk."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) added in a social media post late Tuesday that "99% of House Republicans just voted to gut Medicaid so they can lower taxes for the richest 1%."
"They're showing you exactly who they’re working for," Jayapal wrote.
"House Republicans have ignored the demands of their constituents and instead chosen to side with their billionaire donors and party leadership to advance an extreme budget bill to give trillions in tax benefits to wealthy elites at the expense of workers and families."
In the lead-up to the vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other Republicans attempted to dodge backlash over their push for Medicaid cuts by saying the budget resolution doesn't contain the word Medicaid or explicitly recommend cuts to SNAP.
That is highly misleading. The resolution instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to "submit changes in laws within its jurisdiction to reduce the deficit by not less than" $880 billion over the next decade. That panel has jurisdiction over Medicaid, which Republicans have repeatedly targeted in public and private discussions, with one leaked GOP document floating over $2 trillion in cuts to the program.
Republicans also rejected numerous Democratic amendments that would have prevented Medicaid and SNAP cuts in the upcoming budget reconciliation process as their resolution moved through committees.
"House Republicans have ignored the demands of their constituents and instead chosen to side with their billionaire donors and party leadership to advance an extreme budget bill to give trillions in tax benefits to wealthy elites at the expense of workers and families back home," said David Kass, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness. "Don't buy Republican representatives' spin—this was far from a procedural vote with no consequences. This budget bill will strip healthcare, nutrition services, and education programs from millions of working and middle-class Americans to fund Trump's $5 trillion in tax giveaways to billionaires and big business."
Roll Callnoted that passage of the budget resolution marks just "the first step toward passing the mammoth reconciliation bill that House Republicans are seeking to enact Trump's agenda."
"The plan remains at odds with that of Senate Republicans, who are pursuing their own slimmer budget blueprint focused on border security and defense, while deferring tax legislation until later in the year," the outlet added.
Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said in a statement that "both the House and Senate budgets significantly miss the mark on what should be their basic goals: lowering costs, increasing opportunity, and responsibly addressing our nation's long-term priorities, including reducing future economic risks associated with high deficits."
"But the enormity of program cuts called for by the House budget stands as a singular threat to the well-being of people in every state, city, and rural community, threatening to take away their health coverage, make healthcare more expensive, and make it harder to afford food and college," said Parrott. "The quick math on the House budget shows a stark equation: The cost of extending tax cuts for households with incomes in the top 1%—$1.1 trillion through 2034—equals roughly the same amount as the proposed potential cuts for health coverage under Medicaid and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program."
"The House Republican budget's path of higher costs for families, more people without health coverage, increased poverty and hardship, and higher debt—all in service to tax cuts for the wealthy and profitable business interests—is the wrong direction for our nation," Parrott added. "It is also directly at odds with the recent election in which so many people expressed concern about their ability to afford food, housing, healthcare, and other necessities—and at odds with the promises made to them by President Trump."
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GOP Plows Ahead With Budget That Would Slash Medicaid, Food Benefits for Millions
"In this bill, Republicans are saying the quiet part out loud: Billionaires, big companies, and special interests not only deserve a tax break, but that it should be paid for by everyday Americans."
Feb 25, 2025
Republicans on the House Rules Committee voted late Monday to advance a budget resolution that, if translated into law, would enact painful cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance, potentially stripping critical benefits from tens of millions of low-income Americans to help fund trillions of dollars in tax giveaways that would flow primarily to the rich.
The rules panel voted 9-4 along party lines in favor of the budget blueprint, setting the stage for a House floor debate and vote as soon as Tuesday evening.
While some House Republicans have publicly and privately voiced concerns about the scale of the Medicaid cuts proposed in the budget resolution, GOP members of the rules panel on Monday rejected Democratic amendments aimed at preventing cuts to the healthcare program as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other spending.
"Republicans can't have it both ways—they can't claim to stand up for their constituents on SNAP and Medicaid and then reject amendments that would do just that," said Rep. Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), who sponsored the proposed changes. "My common-sense amendments would have supported these two key programs that feed hungry children and care for sick Americans. Democrats provided Republicans with several chances to stand with the many instead of the rich. They declined multiple times. I'll continue to pull out every stop as I seek to prevent these cuts from becoming reality."
"Put simply: the bill is a betrayal of the promise that every Republican made just months ago to lower costs."
Monday's committee vote came after a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) analysis found that the SNAP cuts proposed by the House GOP resolution "would result in widespread harm," potentially taking benefits from "more than 9 million low-income people in an average month."
"Deep SNAP cuts would worsen food insecurity, hurt local businesses, and weaken SNAP's ability to boost jobs in every state.SNAP is highly effective at reducing food insecurity and poverty, and research links SNAP participation to better health outcomes and lower healthcare costs," CBPP noted. "Regardless of how lawmakers impose $230 billion or more in cuts to SNAP, these cuts would make it harder for low-income families in every state to afford groceries, worsening food insecurity and hardship. Slashing low-income households' grocery budgets would also reduce revenue for thousands of businesses in every state, with ripple effects throughout the food supply chain."
CBPP previously estimated that House Republicans' plans for Medicaid—specifically their push to impose work requirements—could put 36 million Americans at risk of losing health coverage.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) separately found that if the House GOP's proposal for $880 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade becomes reality, it would "reduce incomes for the bottom 40% more than extending the [Trump tax cuts] would boost them—and the lowest-income households would fare the worst."
"Strikingly, this is true even as the full $880 billion in Medicaid cuts would only pay for about 20% of the total cost of the [Tax Cuts and Jobs Act]—other cuts and economic damage falling on non-rich families stemming from tax cuts for the rich would still be forthcoming," EPI's Josh Bivens wrote last week. "Meanwhile, the TCJA boosts the incomes of the top 1% significantly, while these households do not rely in any way on Medicaid."
Democrats are expected to unanimously oppose the House Republican budget resolution, leaving Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) with extremely narrow margins to pass the measure and move ahead with President Donald Trump's legislative agenda. Trump has endorsed the House resolution, despite claiming to oppose cuts to Medicaid.
House Republicans must also reconcile major differences with their Senate colleagues, who want to advance Trump's agenda in separate, smaller bills rather than one sprawling measure.
"The bill House Republicans are bringing forward tomorrow is a gift to Trump's billionaire donors paid for by hard-working Americans who are already feeling the heat from high prices in Donald Trump's America," Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement Monday. "In this bill, Republicans are saying the quiet part out loud: Billionaires, big companies, and special interests not only deserve a tax break, but that it should be paid for by everyday Americans."
"For far too many Americans, this bill will only increase their everyday costs, from their healthcare to their groceries," Carrk added. "Put simply: the bill is a betrayal of the promise that every Republican made just months ago to lower costs."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a senior whip for the House Democratic caucus, wrote in a social media post on Monday that she will not "vote for a budget that gives tax breaks to billionaires and cuts critical programs for working families—including healthcare and education."
"I will be a NO on the Republican budget resolution this week," Jayapal added.
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To Curb Government Waste, Musk Should Start With Pentagon Contractors... Like Himself
The Pentagon’s deep over-reliance on private corporations not only wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, but also feeds conflicts and contributes to weapons proliferation.
Feb 20, 2025
With an annual budget rapidly approaching $1 trillion, the Pentagon already gets more discretionary tax dollars than any other agency.
Now congressional Republicans are proposing to hike that figure by anywhere from $100 billion to $150 billion—while slashing funding for programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and other programs that help keep Americans on their feet.
Lawmakers have it backwards: We need to invest more in those programs and less in the Pentagon, which simply can’t account for how it’s spending our money.
We have to curb our endless spending on the military—and put that money back into our real needs, like creating jobs, educating students, protecting our planet, and much more.
Late last year, the Pentagon failed its mandatory audit—yet again.
This isn’t the first time this has happened, either—in fact, the Pentagon has failed every audit it’s ever undergone. According to the Project on Government Oversight, the Defense Department is the only department to have achieved consistent failure over nearly 35 years of government audits. Quite the achievement.
While the Pentagon may not know where its money goes, we do know that about half of its budget each year goes to private, for-profit military contractors. The Pentagon’s deep over-reliance on these corporations not only wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, but also feeds conflicts and contributes to weapons proliferation. Ultimately, this creates a fundamentally less secure world.
Much of the Pentagon’s operations and personnel have been outsourced to “private military contractors,” or PMCs. The use of PMCs exploded during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars—by 2019, there were 1.5 times as many contractors on the ground in the Middle East as U.S. troops.
These corporations have turned our tax dollars into their private slush fund with rampant waste, fraud, and abuse.
Take for instance the time in 2020 when the Pentagon paid over $52,000 for a trashcan. Or when a Pentagon contractor made a 9,400% profit margin off of a half-inch metal pin. Last year, reports emerged that Pentagon contractor Boeing made almost $1 million in profit just from overcharging for spare parts on C-17 cargo planes, such as soap dispensers.
There are countless examples of Pentagon contractors defrauding American taxpayers like this, and yet we keep writing them bigger and bigger checks. And the wealthier these companies and their executives get, the easier it is for them to throw their weight around in government.
Look at Elon Musk, President Trump’s chief billionaire backer and the one he charged with rooting out “waste” from the government.
Musk, the wealthiest oligarch on the planet, has many glaring conflicts of interest as he meddles in the U.S. government. Not the least of which: He’s a Pentagon contractor CEO himself, through his company SpaceX.
Contractor fraud isn’t going away—in fact, it will only get worse with the most recent Pentagon budget’s loosened restrictions on how these companies can spend taxpayer dollars. Despite this, there is little political will to crack down on the companies that are bleeding taxpayers dry.
Our politicians can’t just allow the Pentagon to fail audit after audit forever. We have to curb our endless spending on the military—and put that money back into our real needs, like creating jobs, educating students, protecting our planet, and much more.
Targeting companies that make billions ripping off taxpayers is a perfect place to start.
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