budget bill

TRUMP’S BUDGET BILL WILL NEGATIVELY AFFECT MEDICAID USERS

 

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. 


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CONGRESS AVERTS GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, BUT ACTION CAUSES DIVISION WITHIN POLITICAL PARTIES

 

Stopgap funding measure signed by President Trump; California’s Senators voted no

By G. A. McNeeley 

March 18 2025 (Washington D.C.) — Congress avoided a government shutdown on March 14, just a few hours before the funding deadline. The stopgap measure to fund the government until September 30 was signed by President Donald Trump on Saturday.

The stopgap would fund government operations through the remainder of this fiscal year, but it would also slash non-defense funding by roughly $13 billion and increase defense spending by about $6 billion over current budgets (including billions for deportations, veterans’ health care and the military). 

Many Democrats, including California’s Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, opposed the measure due to the non-defense cuts and because Republicans refused to include language in the bill putting guardrails on Trump and Elon Musk’s ability to continue dismantling the federal bureaucracy unchecked. The  Democrats also advocated for a shorter, four-week stopgap to keep the government running on current funding levels in an effort to buy more time for appropriators to strike a deal on a bipartisan funding package.  Republican leadership interest in those negotiations diminished weeks ago. 


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GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN AVERTED; PRESIDENT SIGNS CONTROVERSIAL BUDGET BILL

 

Update:  The Senate passed the spending bill tonight.  California Senator Barbara Boxer voted no; Senator Dianne Feinstein did not vote. President Barack Obama later signed the measure.

By Miriam Raftery

December 13, 2014 (Washington D.C.) –A spending bill with more pages than the epic novel War and Peace passed the House Thursday night.  If not approved by midnight tonight by the Senate, when government funding runs out, the government is set to shut down. 

But controversial provisions slipped in by House Republicans have outraged consumer advocates and many Democrats.These include provisions that would allow big banks to “gamble with taxpayer money,” by repealing key provisions of the Dodd Frank Act separating money in traditional FDIC insured bank accounts from trades, warns Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts).  Other controversial items would increase campaign donations to political parties by wealthy donors ten-fold, block money for implementing Medicare and Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act,  slash spending for education reforms and the Environmental Protection Agency, among other things.


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