When President Donald Trump visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning, May 20, he insisted that Republicans are “tremendously unified” in support of a “big, beautiful bill” that will combine his legislative priorities.
But GOP lawmakers have major disagreements over the specifics, with some House Republicans calling for deep cuts to Medicaid while others are saying that such cuts are a dealbreaker for them. And in the U.S. Senate, some Republicans, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), believe that getting a sweeping megabill passed is unrealistic — and that their party would serve Trump better by passing a series of smaller bills.
Budget hawks in the House Freedom Caucus claim that deep Medicaid cuts are necessary to reduce the United States’ federal deficit. But The New Republic’s Timothy Noah, in an article published on May 20, argues that “budget hawks” are the ones who will bankrupt the U.S. if they get their way.
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“The House budget bill, comically titled ‘The One, Big, Beautiful Bill’…. is a piece of legislation no honest fiscal conservative can support,” Noah warns. “Its tax provisions would, over 10 years, cost $4.6 trillion, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model. The bill’s offsetting spending cuts — mostly decimating Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides health care to lower-income people — would save $1.3 trillion. The net effect would more than double the current budget deficit, $1.9 trillion, to $5.1 trillion.”
Noah continues, “Let us note, class, that the cost of the tax cut is more than three times the savings from spending cuts. As a matter of simple arithmetic, a fiscal conservative should be more interested in the $4.6 trillion figure than in the $1.3 trillion figure.”
According to Noah, “Freedom Caucus rebels” aren’t worried that “their party wants to p— away $4.6 trillion in tax cuts” but rather, “object” because “their party wants to cut Medicaid spending only by about 10 percent.”
“The House bill will still double the budget deficit,” Noah warns. “Where do Freedom Caucus members get off calling themselves fiscal conservatives? Moody’s doesn’t buy it. On Friday, it downgraded United States Treasuries, and on Monday, the bond market freaked out.”
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Read Timothy Noah’s full article for The New Republic at this link.
