Dems see Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ as a ‘big, beautiful political gift’

WASHINGTON With a snap of the gavel President Donald Trump s big beautiful bill passed the U S House after an all-nighter needed to secure votes and the war for control of the chamber ramped up into high gear Democrats who voted unanimously against the bill plan to make Thursday s vote a key part of their strategy to take back the House in next year s midterm elections The party will make sure the bill s cuts to Medicaid food stamps and other social programs are the subject of countless campaign ads House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sketched out the attacks his party will launch during a lengthy speech on the House floor minutes after the rule was approved Children will get hurt Women will get hurt Older Americans who rely on Medicaid for nursing home care and for home care will get hurt Jeffries revealed People with disabilities who rely on Medicaid to survive will get hurt Hospitals in your districts will close Nursing homes will shut down And people will die he explained That s not hype That s not hyperbole That s not a hypothetical He also announced if your representatives won t fight for you we will So Democrats are considering the big beautiful bill a big beautiful political gift That s why plenty of GOP lawmakers were nervous about the bill and lots of arm twisting was needed Minnesota s Republican House members who represent solidly red districts did not have to worry much and enthusiastically broadcast their patronage for the bill Rep Tom Emmer R- th District was among the GOP members who called the act historic Not only does our One Big Beautiful Bill include the largest reduction in mandatory spending in history and bring out-of-control administration programs to account it also allows President Trump to continue his essential edge assurance and deportation operations and creates a pro-growth tax code that prioritizes the working class Emmer commented in a comment The office of Rep Michelle Fischbach R- th District stated the lawmaker as a member of the tax-writing Methods and Means Committee played a pivotal role in the crafting of the mega-bill The Approaches Means Committee traveled the country to hear from constituents and we were reported in no uncertain terms that we needed to make the tax cuts permanent Fischbach reported in a comment Anyone who voted against this bill is not listening to what the American people are telling Congress they need The bill extends and adds to the tax cuts Trump implemented in his first term which were set to expire this year They lower the rates for the majority American taxpayers but favor the wealthier filers And the Congressional Budget Office has determined the provisions in the entire bill will impact in a reduction in income for the nation s poorest residents Polling consistently reveals strong voter opposition to the regulation s Medicaid cuts even among Republicans and unaffiliated voters A contemporary poll of every congressional district revealed that fewer than of voters in all districts supported cuts to Medicaid In Emmer s district that figure was Former Vice President Kamala Harris was quick to send out a fundraising appeal Thursday that called the early morning - vote for the bill in the narrowly divided House shameful She explained donations to the Democratic National Committee could help flip several of the seats held by House Republicans who supported the bill To win sponsorship from specific of the largest part vulnerable Republicans representing swing districts House Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to raise the cap on state and local tax deductions from to for filers who description or less in household income That should help particular Minnesotans who pay high property and state income taxes but was aimed at helping swing district Republicans in New York New Jersey and California To help pay for the loss of tax revenues clean electricity resources and production tax credits will be ended in instead of gradually being phased out Another last-minute change in the bill The new MAGA savings accounts that would be established for babies born over the next four years were renamed Trump accounts The ugly truth of Donald Trump s Big Beautiful Bill is that it strips away healthcare from Minnesotans with disabilities seniors children and working parents in Minnesota s th Congressional District that s the equivalent of every resident of Stillwater losing their healthcare overnight stated Democratic Rep Betty McCollum in a comment The ugly truth is that Minnesotans will go hungry without the SNAP food assistance they rely on the equivalent of every resident of Maplewood going to bed hungry and waking up hungry Like bulk Democrats McCollum called the tax breaks in the bill a transfer of wealth from the nation s poor to the rich Even with billion cut from Medicaid and billion from food stamps tax cuts and billions of dollars in new funding for military and limit safeguard the budget bill would boost the federal budget deficit by trillion over the next decade To pay for it the measure would raise the national debt ceiling by trillion By the way Trump has renamed the budget bill the One Big Beautiful Act even though it has not passed the Senate or become law Meanwhile the Senate rarely passes House bill without changes and in specific cases an entire overhaul The budget bill is being considered under a process known as reconciliation which prevents Democrats from filibustering it But under reconciliation the Senate parliamentarian will scrutinize the statute for any provisions that aren t budget related but would only change protocol So chosen measures in the bill may have to be deleted But the majority importantly the Senate is using a different baseline than the House which gives the chamber more wiggle-room to scale back certain of the bill s cuts to social programs That might come with a cost though If the Senate changes the bill it would come back to the House for final approval which could be tricky because members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus would object to the higher price tag on the Senate bill More about Medicaid The big beautiful bill would impose work requirements on multiple who are covered by Medicaid the joint federal-state activity for low-income Americans known as Physiological Assistance in Minnesota The greater part Medicaid recipients already work but the new paperwork requirements are expected to product in millions of beneficiaries being cut from the rolls And there are other changes that impact low-income Minnesotans Higher income Medicaid recipients would face steeper out-of-pocket costs The budget approved at dawn on Thursday by the House would also cut the share the federal governing body gives Minnesota and other states including California Illinois and New York who have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act from to Why Because these states offer healthcare care coverage to undocumented immigrants It does not matter if this coverage is paid for exclusively by state dollars The Minnesota Legislature is debating whether to end the state s lately begun coverage of undocumented adults but seems committed to continue to provide care for undocumented children The coverage of those children however is enough to trigger Medicaid cuts under the U S budget bill This cut in federal money and other new restrictions proposed by the panel as part of a mega-budget bill will likely force states like Minnesota to revamp how they fund the joint federal-state Medicaid effort or cut benefits A J Grant moved to Minneapolis from South Carolina where she had attended the University of South Carolina six months ago She works at Pet Smart and moonlights as a babysitter Until she moved to Minnesota she did not have strength insurance other than the limited health services provided by the university That s because South Carolina unlike Minnesota did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act That left Grant with a couple of thousand dollars in medicinal debt after a visit to a hospital urgency room And in South Carolina Grant could never afford to visit a dentist But when she gained coverage under Therapeutic Assistance Grant was absolutely able to have several painful wisdom teeth pulled And Grant also suffers from several emotional disorders that she couldn t afford to get care for Without Medicaid I would be able to get mental strength and psychiatric remedy she noted She explained her healing is really fundamental to me it really is and is anxious that changes in the Medicaid operation in Minnesota will leave her out in the cold It s not yet clear how Minnesota will handle the cuts to Medicaid and perhaps premature for the state to consider any action until the U S Senate has acted But Gov Tim Walz has warned that the state cannot make up for all of the federal money it will lose under the bill Republicans in Congress are taking away Americans ability to go to the physician and put food on the table in order to give tax cuts to billionaires the governor reported in a report Make no mistake The state will not be able to compensate for the hundreds of millions in federal funding we are going to lose if these cuts are enacted The casualties of this regulation will be families children veterans rural Americans and pregnant moms In matter you missed it -We looked at the tax cut winners and losers in Minnesota in President Trump s proposed big beautiful bill before it passed the U S House early Thursday Deanna Pistono informed on Minnesota organizations that are stepping up efforts to help transgender youth in the wake of the federal executive s cuts to a suicide hotline and its criticism of gender-affirming care Brian Arola wrote about the increasing use of police body cameras in Greater Minnesota cities five years after George Floyd s death during an encounter with Minneapolis police We also shared an AP piece by Claudia Lauer about the use of consent decrees in police adjustment across the country And from the Minnesota Capitol Matthew Blake described how lawmakers are working behind the scenes in anticipation of a special session that will likely be needed to pass a budget Your questions and comments A reader wrote about proposed Medicaid work requirements and the House GOP s budget provision that would punish states that provide biological care to undocumented residents Republicans claim to hate regulation but seem to be redesigning the application process to be more hard to discourage people from getting coverage the reader wrote It seems the only reason it is being done is to punish poor people by new cost sharing to reduce access to services and put the poor deeper in debt to deny care or drive them to payday loan companies the legal equivalent of loan sharks Second regarding immigrants perhaps employers who use them illegally should be liable for their therapeutic debts rather than benefitting by payroll theft paying sub minimum wages and not paying payroll taxes the reader continued Taxpayers should not be subsidizing employers who gain by not using American workers or foreign workers with legal status Please keep your comments and any questions coming I ll try my best to respond Please contact me at aradelat minnpost com The post Dems see Trump s big beautiful bill as a big beautiful political gift appeared first on MinnPost