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'Giving Away the Game,' Top Republican Links Attack on Poor to Tax Cuts for Rich
"This week, President Trump and Republicans in Congress demonstrated that they would happily cut things like Meals on Wheels, housing assistance, and food for mothers and young children in order to deliver for the rich."
Jan 30, 2025
The chairman of the House GOP's policy committee confirmed Wednesday that President Donald Trump's chaotic and destructive effort to slash federal spending—including key anti-poverty programs—is tied to the new administration's attempt to enact another round of tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the rich and large corporations.
"If you're going to cut taxes and send money back home, then you also need to stop the spigot in Washington, D.C.," Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) toldPolitico. "You can't do both."
The comments from Hern, who previously chaired a Republican panel that called for sweeping cuts to Social Security benefits, were seen as further evidence of the end-goal of the Trump administration's aggressive and unlawful attempts to axe funding already approved by Congress.
Kobie Christian, a spokesperson for the advocacy coalition Unrig Our Economy thanked Hern for "giving away the game—that the real reason Republicans seem so adamant about cutting impactful and popular programs that families depend on is to pay for even more massive tax breaks for billionaires and corporations."
"This week," Christian added, "President Trump and Republicans in Congress demonstrated that they would happily cut things like Meals on Wheels, housing assistance, and food for mothers and young children in order to deliver for the rich."
"They are looking to cut programs and cut services so that they can fund the tax breaks for the billionaires."
Since early January, House Republicans have been considering a menu of options that floats over $2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, a program that provides healthcare to tens of millions of low-income Americans—including millions of children.
Meanwhile, as ProPublicanoted Thursday, the document proposes eliminating the federal estate tax for the ultrawealthy "at an estimated cost of $370 billion in revenue for the government over a decade."
"The tax, which charges a percentage of the value of a person's fortune after they die, kicks in only for estates worth more than around $14 million," the outlet noted. "Another proposal aims to slash the top tax rate paid by corporations by almost a third."
After the Trump White House said Wednesday that its far-reaching assault on federal funding would continue even after the withdrawal of an Office of Management and Budget memo that sparked nationwide mayhem, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) warned that "this is the blueprint for the Trump administration and for the Republican majority."
"They are looking to cut programs and cut services so that they can fund the tax breaks for the billionaires," said Escobar. "Even if there was some kind of victory today with the withdrawal of the memo, this battle is ongoing. And their effort to effectively defund the federal government in order to provide those tax cuts is going to be an ongoing fight."
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Little-Noticed Hearing Lays Bare GOP Push for 'Massive New Giveaway to the Ultra-Wealthy'
"American families are set up to lose because President-elect Trump and his congressional allies are eager to raise our costs in order to help their wealthy donor friends."
Jan 15, 2025
Republicans on the House's chief tax-writing committee made clear during a hearing Tuesday that their top priority is making permanent the massive giveaway to the rich that Donald Trump and the GOP pushed through in 2017.
Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said during his opening remarks at Tuesday's hearing that "we must make the Trump tax cuts permanent as soon as possible."
While most of the corporate tax breaks in the 2017 law were made permanent from the start, provisions impacting individuals—including the cut to the top marginal tax rate—are set to expire at the end of this year without congressional action. Trump and Republicans have also called for a further reduction of the statutory corporate tax rate.
"As of today, we have only 142 legislative days before taxes will go up for every single American if Congress fails to act," Smith declared Tuesday.
Smith characterized the 2017 tax cuts as a boon for ordinary Americans, but the law's benefits were heavily skewed to the wealthiest.
The same would be true of an extension of the individual tax cuts, which is expected to be part of a sprawling party-line reconciliation bill. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy noted in a recent analysis that "Trump's plan to make most of the temporary provisions of his 2017 tax law permanent would disproportionately benefit the richest Americans."
"No amount of misinformation can hide the truth: This massive new giveaway to the ultra-wealthy and giant corporations comes at the expense of working and middle-class Americans."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the committee, said at Tuesday's hearing that "when Republicans inevitably tell you that the GOP tax scam gave everyone in America a tax break, remember this one contextualized fact: Extending the law gives people making over $1 million a year a $78,717 average tax cut—288 times higher than the $273 those earning under $50,000 would receive."
"Those millionaires won't feel the effects of cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, or higher premium costs, but America's working families sure will," Neal added, referring to the GOP's plan to slash key aid programs to help offset the enormous cost of extending the 2017 tax breaks.
.@RepRichardNeal is right. Congressional Republicans are standing up for the strongest and wealthiest, all at OUR expense. We need relief from the 2017 Trump tax code, not more of it. pic.twitter.com/8gd6KvfFnb
— Accountable.US (@accountable_us) January 14, 2025
Tuesday's committee hearing was overshadowed by the closely watched Senate questioning of Trump's nominee to lead the Pentagon, but it confirmed that Republicans intend to waste no time delivering another round of tax cuts to rich Americans who saw their wealth explode under the 2017 law.
"Last time Trump and the GOP held a trifecta, they moved fast to create new tax breaks rewarding wealthy corporations for moving jobs overseas and harming hard-working families across the country," David Kass, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness, said in a statement Tuesday. "Now, they're working to pass new tax breaks that will allow these same powerful corporations to evade paying their fair share and eliminate American jobs."
"The disastrous effects of the Trump tax scam are not theoretical—they're reality," Kass added. "It didn't raise wages for everyday people or protect our jobs and it certainly didn't pay for itself. Instead, it doubled billionaire wealth and added over $1.5 trillion to the deficit. No amount of misinformation can hide the truth: This massive new giveaway to the ultra-wealthy and giant corporations comes at the expense of working and middle-class Americans."
Trump and the GOP's aggressive push for a new round of tax cuts received a boost from the deep-pocketed Koch network, which is pumping tens of millions of dollars into a nationwide campaign to build support for a proposal that would predominately reward a small sliver of the U.S. population.
"If asked to choose between healthcare and food for low-income kids or tax cuts for giant corporations, Chairman Jason Smith and the Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee are proving that ten times out of ten, they'll choose the corporate giants," said Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog group Accountable.US. "American families are set up to lose because President-elect Trump and his congressional allies are eager to raise our costs in order to help their wealthy donor friends."
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'Republicans Are Gearing Up for Class War,' Democrat Warns as GOP Pursues Huge Medicaid Cuts
"It won't be any consolation to struggling Americans that their hardship allows some rich buddy of Donald Trump's to buy a bigger yacht," said Sen. Ron Wyden.
Jan 13, 2025
Policy analysts and Democratic lawmakers raised alarm over the weekend at a leaked document indicating that House Republicans intend to pursue massive cuts to Medicaid, a program that provides sometimes lifesaving coverage to roughly 80 million people across the United States.
Near the top of a list of "spending reform options" that House Republicans are considering to help finance additional tax cuts for the rich and large corporations are proposals that would strip Medicaid coverage from millions of Americans, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities.
One of the changes listed in the leaked document, obtained by Politico last week, would convert Medicaid's funding structure to a "per-capita cap," under which the federal government would only provide states with a fixed amount of funding for each beneficiary rather than paying a percentage of states' overall Medicaid costs.
The document, which reportedly comes from the House Budget Committee, suggests the reform would result in up to $918 billion in cuts over a 10-year period.
Edwin Park, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy's Center for Children and Families, noted in a blog post that such a change would "radically restructure Medicaid financing."
"These funding caps are typically designed to fail to keep pace with expected growth in healthcare costs in order to severely cut federal Medicaid spending, with those cuts growing larger and larger over time," Park wrote. "Moreover, the caps would also fail to account for any unexpected cost growth such as from another public health emergency or a new, costly drug therapy, which would make the federal funding cuts even larger than originally anticipated."
"These cuts would only help bankroll Trump's tax cuts for his billionaire friends and corporate interests."
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities warned in an
analysis published last week that cuts to federal funding under a per-capita cap "would impose significant strain on states and put millions of people at risk of losing benefits and coverage."
The document also includes a call to "Equalize Medicaid Payments for Able Bodied Adults"—a proposal seen as an indication that the GOP plans to go after the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion—and confirms that Republicans intend to push for Medicaid work requirements, which have proved disastrous in the states that have tried such mandates.
Park argued that work requirements—and the "onerous red tape" they entail—would amplify the harms of cuts to federal Medicaid funding.
"As a result, these proposals would take away coverage and access from tens of millions of low-income children, families, seniors, people with disabilities, and other adults who rely on Medicaid," Park wrote. "Moreover, because Medicaid is the largest source of federal funding for states—accounting for 56.1% of all federal funding for state budgets in 2024—these large cost-shifts to states would also threaten deep, damaging budget cuts to other state spending including for K-12 education."
Overall, the leaked Republican document proposes up to $5.7 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years—with Medicaid cuts making up $2.3 trillion of that total—as President-elect Donald Trump pushes for a sprawling reconciliation bill that includes another round of tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans.
In addition to Medicaid cuts, the House GOP policy menu calls for slashing Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and federal nutrition assistance, repealing "major Biden health rules," and eliminating renewable energy funding under the Inflation Reduction Act.
"This won't lower costs for Americans," Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) wrote in response to the GOP document. "These cuts would only help bankroll Trump's tax cuts for his billionaire friends and corporate interests."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the leaked policy list shows that "Republicans are gearing up for a class war against everyday families in America."
"This list outlines a plan to increase child hunger, boot tens of millions off their health insurance, and lay off hundreds of thousands of clean energy workers to fund tax handouts for the wealthy," said Wyden. "It won't be any consolation to struggling Americans that their hardship allows some rich buddy of Donald Trump's to buy a bigger yacht."
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