Where We Stand: The Big Betrayal

President Donald Trump said he wanted Republicans in Congress to load his legislative agenda into “one big, beautiful bill.” The US House of Representatives heeded his call—and the result is truly ugly. Rather than address the needs of workers, families, and our communities, this bill prioritizes tax cuts for the wealthy, adding trillions of dollars to the national debt and dampening long-run economic growth. It slashes funds for meeting the basic needs of children, seniors, veterans, and low- and moderate-income Americans while converting education funds into a piggy bank that serves as a tax shelter for the well-off. 

Trump says he wants to protect and preserve Medicaid and Medicare, but this bill does exactly the opposite. Close to 14 million Americans will lose healthcare coverage because of cuts to Medicaid, the failure to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, and other changes to the Affordable Care Act.

Medicaid provides access to healthcare for people with disabilities, retirees, 40 percent of new babies, nearly 1.6 million veterans, more than 2 million military-attached children, low-wage workers, and millions of people on Medicare who get supplemental Medicaid. Medicaid is essential to paying for long-term care for many older Americans, including in nursing homes. Cuts to Medicaid will likely force many hospitals to close or reduce services. Reporting requirements will lead to more people who are eligible for Medicaid getting kicked off their healthcare—causing 15,400 avoidable deaths each year according to the Center for American Progress. And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that this bill will trigger more than $500 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare—representing one of the largest cuts ever to Medicare.

So rather than protect Medicaid and Medicare, this bill cuts them.

Then there are the largest cuts ever to critical food assistance. The Republican bill cuts nearly $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), our nation’s most effective tool to combat hunger, leaving nearly 11 million people—including 4 million kids—at risk. With high grocery prices and the Trump administration’s $1 billion in cuts in aid to anti-hunger groups, cuts to SNAP benefits will cause even more children, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities in every community to go hungry.

The bill also would slash $330 billion for college affordability. It would increase costs for students and their families and, by design, leave 5 million students without enough financial aid to afford college. Proposed changes to Pell Grants—the cornerstone of need-based federal student aid—mean 4.4 million students, nearly 2 out of 3 recipients, could lose some or all of their federal grant aid, forcing them to assume an additional $7,400 for a bachelor’s degree and $3,700 for an associate’s degree. And the bill could take away the most affordable options for income-driven repayment plans that 12.5 million borrowers currently use, tripling monthly payments for most of these borrowers. The bill could end relief for 1.7 million students defrauded by colleges and force more than 425,000 students into risky private loans.

Taking aim at the very idea of public education, the bill includes $20 billion for a new school voucher program that diverts crucial funds away from students in public schools to pay for private school tuition, home-schooling materials, and for-profit virtual learning. As Josh Cowen demonstrates (see here), vouchers have caused some of the largest achievement drops ever recorded, and most vouchers go to families whose children already attend private schools. Federal education funding is supposed to be an opportunity agent for our children. It should not be used as a piggy bank for the rich that further fragments and defunds our already underfunded public schools. (For a deeper dive into why Republicans are attacking public schools and colleges, see the article by Neil Kraus here.)

Let’s be clear: the “big, beautiful bill” would make millions of Americans—especially our children—sicker and poorer, while making the wealthiest even richer. Delivering 70 percent of tax benefits to the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans at the expense of the bottom 40 percent, cutting essential services, and adding to the national debt is not what America’s working families want or deserve.

A better name for this bill is the big betrayal.

With American families stressed and facing so much economic uncertainty, lawmakers should be shoring up the safety net and expanding opportunity. Now it is up to the Republican majority in the US Senate to decide if they will follow the House, a decision that will determine whether hospitals will be forced to close, whether our parents and grandparents will lose funding for lifesaving care, and whether students in public schools will lose the resources and services they need. That’s not what Americans want. And that’s why we are fighting it with everything we have as the bill makes its way through Congress. 

[Photo: AFT]