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President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” will also give tax breaks to the wealthiest of Americans; Democrats and some Republicans raise objections
By G. A. McNeeley
June 21, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S. Dakota) faces backlash from Republicans, over the latest version of President Donald Trump’s budget bill, which ignores Republican senators’ concerns about Medicaid cuts, according to The Hill, as well as concerns over cuts to clean energy incentives.
Democrats have been virtually united in opposition to these cuts as well, but with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, Democrats lack power to force changes.
While slashing medical care for the poorest Americans, the House Republicans’ tax cuts for wealthy Americans and corporations would add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) analysis of the bill that Republican lawmakers narrowly approved last month, according to CNN.
Meanwhile, the Senate Republican’s version of the reconciliation bill would give huge tax breaks to wealthy individuals, businesses, and large corporations while leaving behind or raising costs for millions of working families, according to CBPP.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has called President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" the "We're All Going to Die Act," slamming the package over cuts to Medicaid, according to Fox News.
Schumer said Republican senators who support Trump's budget bill are "tenured at best, suicidal at worst," implying a vote for the legislative package will have negative consequences at the ballot box. "For many Americans, health care coverage is the difference between life and death," Schumer said, according to Fox News.
What Is Happening With The House Republican’s Budget Bill?
Some Republicans said they were blindsided by the Senate’s version of the bill, which would cut Medicaid by several hundred billion dollars beyond what the House had proposed. The Senate Finance Committee’s amendments to the reconciliation budget bill would cause dozens of rural hospitals to close, and require lower-income Americans to pay more for medical procedures.
Alan Morgan, CEO of the Rural Health Association, is urging Senators to reject cuts to the Medicaid program and protect rural health care.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) has repeatedly warned about the impact of Medicaid cuts on his constituents and the rural hospitals in his state. “No one was expecting this entirely new framework,” Hawley said, according to The Hill. Hawley and other Republicans have said that the House cuts to Medicaid went too far and called for changes.
Instead, Thune and Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) sided with conservatives like Senators Rick Scott (R-Florida) and Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), who wanted deeper spending cuts than what the House passed.
An important factor to consider is that Thune wants to make several corporate tax cuts from Trump’s first administration permanent in the budget bill. Making those tax cuts permanent requires hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts to offset the cost and comply with the Senate’s Byrd rule, which doesn't allow provisions passed under the special budget reconciliation process to add to the deficit outside the 10-year budget window, according to The Hill.
However, Thune also has to find a way to convince other Republicans to support the bill.
Hawley has also warned that nearly half of Missouri’s rural hospitals would face closure if the Senate bill passes without major changes. “It’s very bad policy, and it hurts poor people,” he said, according to The Hill.
Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters that she has major problems with the language that Crapo used. “I’m still not satisfied with where we are on Medicaid,” she said, calling it a “priority” she wants to address.
Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she wants to see “many changes” made to the bill before it comes to the floor. “This is still a work in progress,” she said, according to The Hill.
The objections from those senators to the bill’s Medicaid provisions poses a challenge to Thune, who already has two objections from Senators Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin). Paul says he won’t vote for the package as long as it raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, and Johnson says the legislation doesn’t do enough to cut the federal deficit.
Thune said he’s willing to work with Hawley, Murkowski, Collins, and the rest of his colleagues who are asking for changes to the Medicaid spending cuts, according to The Hill.
“We continue to hear from our members specifically on components or pieces of the bill that they would like to see modified or changed or have concerns about, and we’re working through that,” Thune told reporters.
If Paul and Johnson vote against the bill, Thune could only afford opposition from one other Republican, and still be able to pass the bill. Thune also faces challenges from other Republicans who aren’t happy about the quick phaseout of clean energy tax breaks, which could threaten tens of billions of dollars in investments in Republican-represented states.
What About The Senate Republican’s Version Of The Bill?
The Senate bill retains most of the House bill’s flawed provisions, including permanently extending the highly skewed 2017 tax cuts. The average family earning less than $50,000 would get under $300 in tax cuts in 2027, while the average tax filer earning $1 million or more a year would receive about $90,000 in tax breaks, according to CBPP.
The 17 million children who currently don’t get the full $2,000 Child Tax Credit because their families’ incomes are too low, will still get nothing from the $200-per-child increase in the Child Tax Credit from the Senate’s proposal, according to CBPP.
A single parent with two children earning $16,000 a year would get no additional credit under the bill. They would end up with a Child Tax Credit less than half the size of higher-income families with two children, who would see their total credit rise to $4,400.
More than 17 million working families with children would have to navigate new hurdles to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). All families with children claiming the EITC would be required to first “pre-certify” their children whom they claim for the credit each year.
About 22 million people, including 4 million small business owners, would either see their health coverage costs skyrocket or lose coverage altogether next year because the bill fails to extend the premium tax credit (PTC) enhancements, which are critical to making health coverage in the Affordable Care Act marketplace more affordable, according to CBPP.
The bill also takes PTCs and Medicare away entirely from many immigrants who live and work in the U.S. lawfully, including those granted refugee or asylum status and certain victims of sex and labor trafficking or domestic violence.
This enormous expense is driving other proposals in the bill to take away health coverage under Medicaid and food assistance under SNAP, in an effort to partially offset the tax cuts’ cost. Many families who rely on Medicaid to see a doctor and on SNAP to buy groceries will lose more to cuts and tariffs than they gain from the tax cuts, according to CBPP.
“This bill is downright ugly — a job killer, a price raiser, a care slasher, and massive pile on to the national debt,” Schumer said in a statement that was sent to the New York Daily News.
Schumer described the bill as a “handout to billionaires,” which he said will lead to as many as 14 million Americans losing Medicaid coverage, as well as hospital closures and underfunded and overwhelmed food pantries and soup kitchens.
“There’s not just a little laundry list of reasons why this bill is so bad — there’s pages and pages of bill text people can read for themselves that so clearly hurt everyday Americans, disproportionally boost billionaires who don’t need help, and pile onto the national debt at a time when the president is already choking the nation’s economy,” Schumer concluded.
The tax provisions would cost around $4 trillion, but the cost would grow if Republicans who are demanding an even larger tax cut for many high-income families are successful.
What Does The Congressional Budget Office Have To Say?
The CBO says that nearly 11 million more people would be uninsured in 2034, due to the bill’s historic cuts to Medicaid, according to CNN.
The CBO’s score could complicate Thune’s task of crafting a version of the legislation that his divided conference would approve. Several Republican senators have expressed concern about the bill’s potential impact on the deficit, and some want deeper spending cuts, while others are worried about the major reductions to the nation’s safety net in the House bill.
The CBO’s analysis also says that the package would worsen the nation’s fiscal outlook, while providing big tax cuts for the wealthy. The CBO also told Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) in a letter, that the House Republican’s bill would add $3 trillion to the nation’s debt over the next decade.
“Republicans can’t ignore the trillions of dollars this bill adds to the deficit, and they can’t ignore the interest that comes along with the massive debt they are creating,” Merkley said in a statement. “It is fiscally irresponsible.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) said that the CBO is ignoring the business boom and revenue growth that the package will spur, according to CNN.
“Anybody who repeats CBO’s analysis is also making those same mistakes,” Scalise said during a House Republican press conference, adding that when the bill becomes law “you’re going to see economic growth in this country like we haven’t seen in generations.”
The House bill would enact historic cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, two of the nation’s key safety net programs. The package would institute work requirements in Medicaid, and would expand the work mandate in the food stamp program. These provisions would result in millions of people losing access to health coverage and nutrition assistance, according to the CBO.
The House bill would cut close to $1.3 trillion in spending over a decade, according to the CBO, but the legislation would lower revenue by nearly $3.7 trillion. “We’re left with the bill that, despite all these tough choices, still is adding dramatically to the debt,” Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said, according to CNN.
The tax relief in the bill would disproportionately benefit higher-income households, with the impact being more pronounced if the spending cuts are considered. Those in the lowest income groups would see their incomes fall, while the highest earners would receive an income boost, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s estimate of the House’s bill.
Nearly 10.9 million more people would be uninsured in 2034, according to the CBO. That includes nearly 7.8 million Americans who would lose health insurance, and roughly 1.4 million people without verified citizenship or satisfactory immigration status who wouldn't be covered by health programs in 2034, according to CNN.
The House bill would not extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium subsidies. The subsidies are set to lapse at the end of the year. Allowing the enhancement to expire would increase the number of uninsured Americans by another 5.1 million in 2034, according to a separate CBO analysis.
Where do local legislators stand and what are the local impacts?
More than 200,000 Medicaid recipients live in Representative Darrell Issa’s (R-California) District which includes most of East County. Many of them would likely lose coverage under the bill that was pushed by Trump and approved by House Republicans, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The exact impact on health care for low-income people remains unclear because the “savings” would come through complex changes adding work requirements and eligibility checks, making it harder for people to obtain or keep coverage. The bill would essentially deny Medicaid to people by burying them in paperwork, and it would do away with tax credits that help people afford health care coverage.
Issa didn’t answer questions that The San Diego Union-Tribune emailed to his staff about the Medicaid provisions, but in the past he suggested that he was on board with the Medicaid cuts.
“The wrongful inclusion of significant numbers of people, including undocumented people, including people who are not entitled and including able-bodied men who aren’t looking for jobs — those are not cuts to Medicaid, those are a return to the sanity of Bill Clinton,” Issa said, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Undocumented immigrants aren’t even allowed to enroll in Medicaid, and there aren’t reliable estimates of fraud in the program, according to The Washington Post. However, the bill also makes deep cuts to states that provide health care to undocumented immigrants, even if they use their own money in a separate program.
Issa was also silent on another key point of dispute in the bill — whether or not to increase the amount of state and local taxes people can write off on their federal returns.
The four Democratic members of the San Diego County congressional delegation (Sara Jacobs, Mike Levin, Scott Peters and Juan Vargas) have voted against the bill, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Jacobs has suggested that Senate Republicans “drop the huge tax cuts for billionaires and corporations and let people keep their health care AND clean energy tax credits,” on X. “The American people don't deserve to pay the price so the ultra wealthy can get richer,” she added.
What About Medicaid Could Change if the Bill Passes?
The CBO estimates that 10.3 million fewer people would be enrolled in Medicaid in 2034, including 1.3 million people with Medicare, otherwise known as “dual-eligible individuals,” according to KFF.
Dual-eligible individuals would be disproportionately impacted by these provisions, comprising nearly 60% of the 2.3 million Medicaid enrollees who are estimated to lose coverage as a result of delaying these rules under the House reconciliation bill.
Dual-eligible individuals have low incomes and modest savings. The 1.3 million people that would no longer have Medicaid if the eligibility and enrollment rules were not implemented would retain their primary health insurance coverage under Medicare, but lose Medicaid coverage of Medicare premiums and most likely lose cost sharing. Many would also lose coverage of Medicaid benefits that supplement their Medicare coverage, such as long-term care, dental services, and non-emergency medical transportation, according to KFF.
Losing Medicaid coverage would substantially increase out-of-pocket costs for low-income Medicare beneficiaries. Because Medicare beneficiaries who qualify for Medicaid typically have very low incomes and little to no savings, the loss of Medicaid payment for the costs of Medicare’s premiums and cost sharing could make their Medicare coverage unaffordable.
Additionally, some of the 1.3 million Medicare beneficiaries expected to lose Medicaid under the House reconciliation bill may also lose subsidies that help pay for prescription drug premiums and cost sharing, according to KFF.
How Will Education Be Affected By All Of This?
Congress ultimately decides how federal government dollars are spent, but the Trump Administration's proposal for the fiscal year 2025/2026 is a clear signal that the White House wants a massive 23 percent cut to U.S. domestic spending that will continue to hollow out the nation’s public education system, according to NEA.
Following a series of executive orders, the Trump Administration gutted education funding, and diverted taxpayer dollars to private schools. Their budget proposal would slice $12 billion from the Department of Education, and eliminate many K-12 and higher education programs.
Incapacitating the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has been a top priority for the administration. That office recently lost more than 40 percent of their staff, after the White House downsized the department, according to NEA.
In its budget proposal, funding for OCR is cut by $49 million, which is 35 percent of its entire budget. The administration justifies the reduction by smearing the OCR’s mission as one that “pushes DE programs and radical transgender ideology.”
However, The OCR protects students in schools against discrimination based on race, gender, and disability, and the absence of strong federal oversight would leave millions of students vulnerable to discrimination, leading to lower levels of motivation and academic achievement and a higher risk of dropping out.
The administration’s budget proposal states it will preserve funding for two extremely popular and highly effective programs: Title I, which provides funding to support students in low-income communities, and the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which ensures the right to education services for students with disabilities, according to NEA.
However, the administration is also calling for 18 unnamed federal K-12 programs to be “streamlined” into a new “K-12 Simplified Funding Program.” This consolidating funding program would incur a $4.5 billion cut under the administration’s proposal. Similarly, seven IDEA programs would be consolidated into a single special education funding program.
By grouping separate programs, the administration could be laying the groundwork to turn these critical programs into block grants. Many lawmakers, including Republicans, are opposed to this idea because they know that block grants usually lead to less funding and less accountability.
Sources:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5355927-thune-senate-medita-cuts/
https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/05/26/schumer-democrat-senate-budget-big-beautiful-bill/
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/04/politics/house-gop-big-beautiful-bill-increase-deficit
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Enrich the wealthy and those in power