One Big Back Breaker: Trump law to COST millions their healthcare and add $3T in debt while rich see tax CUTS
The Congressional Budget Office released its official analysis this week, which showed that between 2025 and 2034, spending would be reduced by $1.1 trillion and cause the deficit to blow up by $3.4 trillion.
The legislation would cause 10 million people to lose their health insurance, though the review of Trump's 'One Big Beautiful' law did not differentiate between how many people would lose coverage because of cuts to Medicaid versus changes to the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obama Care, the health care coverage-for-all law signed by President Barack Obama in 2010.
'It simultaneously hurts the poorest Americans while nonetheless increasing the deficit,' Bobby Kogan, the senior director for federal budget policy at the liberal Center for America Progress, told The Independent.
'It's actually almost unheard of to see something that cuts spending while doing tax cuts at the same time, right? Because you didn't have that juxtaposition of taking from the poor while giving to the rich.'
That number is slightly lower than the almost 11 million people who would have lost health insurance under the version the House of Representatives passed in May.
Senate Republicans ultimately needed to change parts of the legislation to comply with the rules of budget reconciliation, which allowed them to pass the bill with a simple majority as long as it related to federal spending.
Kogan, who previously worked in the Biden administration and for the Senate Budget Committee, said that the legislation has not only the biggest cuts to Medicaid in history, but also the biggest cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, in history.
At the same time, it also reduces federal revenue by $1.1 trillion by virtue of not only extending the 2017 tax cuts that Trump signed during his first term in the White House, but also includes additional tax breaks, including a temporary break for tips and overtime pay, as well as an additional $6,000 deduction for low-income seniors.
And that's by design. In the earlier iterations of the House of Representatives's budget resolution, Republicans needed to find steep spending cuts in order to extend the tax cuts.
The Senate passed the legislation with all but three Republican senators supporting it, but because of the strict rules of budget reconciliation, Republicans could not touch Social Security, and Trump had pledged not to touch Medicare, leaving Medicaid and SNAP as the biggest pots of money from which to slash.
The legislation mostly enacts health care changes through Medicaid, namely through requiring able-bodied adults without dependent children to work and by capping the level at which states tax health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes.
But the bill also makes slight changes to the Affordable Care Act. Specifically, Emma Wager, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, said that people with income below a certain level could previously enroll in the ACA's insurance marketplace in a special enrollment period.
'You now cannot receive any premium subsidies if you enroll during a special enrollment period that's income-based,' she told The Independent.
'Which, if you have a low enough income to enroll in that income based special enrollment period, you absolutely will need subsidies to help you pay for Your coverage. So that is a virtual ending of the income based special enrollment periods.'
But the legislation also makes additional changes to SNAP. Specifically, it says that parents of dependent children have to work and lowers the age of dependent children from 18 to 14. In addition, it would require that states shoulder a larger share of the cost depending on the error rate for payments.
Altogether, the CBO found that in the course of the next decade, SNAP would see a $187 billion cut.
And there are signs that Americans are dissatisfied with the results of the legislation. A CBS News poll showed that 47 percent of those polled believe that the bill will hurt them or their family while 28 percent say it will have no effect. Only 25 percent of adults believe that it will benefit them.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
22 minutes ago
- The Independent
Tulsi Gabbard becomes ‘weapon of mass distraction' as Trump White House grapples with Epstein fallout
Critics have accused Tulsi Gabbard of trying to shield Donald Trump's administration from scrutiny through her recent claims that top Obama administration officials should be prosecuted for leading a 'coup' against the president in 2016 by investigating Russian efforts to help his campaign. The allegations and conspiracy theories 'would be sad if they weren't so dangerous,' Democratic Rep. Jason Crow told Fox News on Sunday. 'She has turned herself into a weapon of mass distraction, is what I've been calling it." Crow accused Trump's national intelligence director of 'trying to curry and get back into favor with Donald Trump and has concocted these theories to do so,' an apparent reference to Gabbard and Trump's public disagreement over the state of Iran's nuclear program. This month, Gabbard spearheaded the release of materials regarding the then-outgoing Obama administration's attempts to probe Russian influence operations during the 2016 election. Critics saw the release as an attempt to distract from continued criticism of the Trump administration for its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and the president's ties to the late financier, who died in prison while awaiting a federal sex trafficking trial. 'Nothing in this partisan, previously scuttled document changes that,' Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The Hill after the disclosures. 'Releasing this so-called report is just another reckless act by a Director of National Intelligence so desperate to please Donald Trump that she is willing to risk classified sources, betray our allies, and politicize the very intelligence she has been entrusted to protect,' he said. Gabbard claims the Obama materials, including a declassified 2020 Republican report from the House intelligence committee, reveal his 'years long coup' against Trump. She claims that top Obama officials pushed to override past intelligence findings to allege that Russians specifically wanted to boost the Trump campaign, rather than undermine faith in the U.S. election system more generally, and has called for Obama and others to face criminal charges. Trump has echoed such claims, sharing a fake, AI- generated video of Obama being arrested and thrown in jail on his Truth Social account. As evidence of the alleged coup, Gabbard honed in on past conclusions that Russian actors did not successfully hack digital voting infrastructure or change vote counts, suggesting these findings clashed with intelligence officials' later assessments that Russia sought to help Trump. Susan Miller, a former CIA officer who helped oversee the 2017 intelligence assessment, said Gabbard was 'lying.' 'We definitely had the intel to show with high probability that the specific goal of the Russians was to get Trump elected,' Miller told NBC News, adding that intelligence officials had briefed Trump on their findings and he had thanked them. 'At the same time, we found no two-way collusion between Trump or his team with the Russians at that time,' she said. Obama's office issued a rare public statement denouncing Gabbard's allegations. 'These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,' a spokesperson said. The White House has pushed back against the argument that Gabbard's investigation is a partisan play. 'The only people who are suggesting that the director of national intelligence would release evidence to try to boost her standing with the president are the people in this room who constantly try to sow distrust and chaos among the president's Cabinet,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Wednesday briefing. 'And it's not working,' she said. Multiple assessments have backed up the intelligence community's original findings of a general, one-way Russian influence operation that sought to boost Trump through tactics like hacking Democratic party materials and spreading disinformation online, even though the Trump campaign itself wasn't shown to have collaborated on the effort. Special counsels have investigated both the underlying 'Russiagate' claims and the origins of the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign without uncovering any intentional 'coup' by the Obama administration. A bipartisan 2020 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee — which Marco Rubio was leading at the time — concluded intelligence officials put together a 'coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.' During the 2024 election, Trump and his allies campaigned on a promise to rid the federal government, and in particular U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies, of politicization, arguing he had been a victim of partisan backlash — with two impeachments, two federal indictments and several criminal and civil cases, including a felony conviction on 34 counts. Since taking office, however, Trump has faced criticism that he is in fact driving politicization of those same entities, through actions like sanctioning law firms that worked with political opponents and calling for the prosecution of his various real and perceived critics. Over the weekend, the president ranted on social media and threatened to prosecute Kamala Harris, Oprah Winfrey and Beyonce while lashing out at news networks whose 'licenses could, and should, be revoked,' claiming without evidence that Democrats spent millions 'probably illegally' seeking high-profile celebrity endorsements during the 2024 campaign.
Daily Mail
22 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Former MSNBC anchor makes startling admission about Trump despite recent polling
Ex-MSNBC star Chris Matthews believes 'the country is moving toward' Donald Trump as he suffers some negative polling. The former Hardball host had toed the liberal line as recently as April, when he drew a mocking tweet from a White House spokesperson for criticizing Trump's tariff plans. However, in a weekend interview with disgraced former PBS anchor Charlie Rose, Matthews believes the American people are more aligned with the president than ever. 'To be honest with you, the country is moving towards Trump,' he said, dismissing polls showing he's losing popularity. 'These polls, they come out and show him not doing well — I don't buy that. His strength is still greater than the Democratic strength. He is a stronger public figure than the Democratic people,' Matthews added. Matthews showed what he meant by having to go all the way back to former President Barack Obama to name a Democrat as popular as Trump is. 'Obama still has tremendous charisma — but Trump has strength. And I think that's what all voters look for,' he said. 'They want a president who is a strong figure. And he's got it. It's just there. And half the country buys it.' He also praised what Trump has done on immigration, as well as his foreign policy with regard to the drone strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. Matthews did dampen ideas of Trump running for a third term but noted that the president was easily more popular and influential than Elon Musk, dismissing any idea of Musk's America Party succeeding. '[Musk] plays the same role as Ross Perot,' he said, referencing the infamous third party candidate who hurt Republicans in the 1992 and 1996 elections and consider those who vote for his party unserious. While some polls have shown Trump on a downward slope, the president improved a hair with voters according to a new exclusive Daily Mail/J.L. Partners poll, even as they give him failing grades for his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Forty-nine percent of voters now approve of Trump's job performance as president, up one point from the tracking survey conducted earlier in July. But he remains underwater as 51 percent disapprove of Trump's job performance, down one point from earlier in the month. The margin of error in the survey of 1,007 registered voters is 3.1 percent. The poll numbers suggest Trump is surviving politically during a punishing news cycle consumed by the Epstein files and his administration's failure to disclose them as he promised during his presidential campaign. The president's job approval is up one percentage point from June and remains his highest rating since May. 'The news saga might have seemed terrible for Trump in the last few days, but it isn't having an impact on his approval rating,' James Johnson, JL Partners co-founder told the Daily Mail. 'In fact, we think it's going up, from 48 percent to 49 percent, making this his best approval rating since May. His ratings with the base is holding up too, unchanged on 91 percent with Republicans,' Johnson continued. But Trump's strong job approval ratings does not carry over to his handling of the Epstein files. Forty-two percent of voters disapprove of his handling of the issue while just 27 percent approve. A significant number of voters, 20 percent, did not appear to care about the case as they neither approved nor disapproved Trump's handling of the issue. In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump referred to the ongoing saga as a 'witch hunt' indicating he was tired of answering questions from the media about it. Despite the president's best efforts to put the issue behind him, few voters believe in the administration's assessment of the case. Only fifteen percent in the poll said they believed the Justice Department's memo released by Attorney General Pam Bondi concluding that Epstein committed suicide in prison and that the infamous pedofile did not have a 'client list' they could release. Forty-seven percent said they did not believe the administration's account of the Epstein case, and that they believed there was more secrets to uncover. Twenty-three percent said they believed the Trump administration memo, but that there was more to uncover in the case. 'This is despite voters disapproving of his handling of the Epstein scandal. What explains the difference? Voters simply do not rate it highly on their list of priorities,' Johnson said. Ninety percent of the Republican voter base continue to grant the president solid approval ratings, despite their misgivings about the Epstein files. The poll was conducted as Trump furiously contested a Wall Street Journal report that he had signed a letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday which concluded: 'Happy Birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret,' and featured a hand-drawn image of a naked woman as well as his signature. Trump decried the news article as 'fake' and filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the company. 'They are judging Trump on other issues - such as the economy, the southern border, and how he is actually running the country. Their grumbles on the Epstein handling are not enough for them to turn on their man,' Johnson said. While the majority of Republicans, 52 percent, give Trump a passing grade on his handling of the Epstein files, just 13 percent of Independent voters feel the same way. Fifty percent of independent voters in the survey said they disapproved of the way the Trump administration has handled the Epstein files case.
Reuters
22 minutes ago
- Reuters
Euro rises after US, EU agree to tariff deal
TOKYO, July 28 (Reuters) - The euro gained on Monday following the announcement of a framework trade agreement between the United States and the European Union, the latest in a flurry of deals to avert a global trade war. Meeting in Scotland on Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the deal, which will result in a 15% tariff on EU goods, half what Trump had threatened to impose from August 1. Senior U.S. and Chinese negotiators are due to meet in Stockholm on Monday with an aim to extend a trade truce and prevent steep tariff hikes. Meanwhile, investor attention is shifting towards corporate earnings and central bank meetings in the U.S. and Japan. "It could be a positive week, just purely from the fact that now we know the rules of the game, if you like," said Rodrigo Catril, senior currency strategist at National Australia Bank. "Now that there is more clarity, you would think that not only in the U.S., but around the globe, there will be a little bit more willingness to look at investment, to look at expansions, and to look at where the opportunities are," he said on a NAB podcast. The euro stood at $1.1763 , up 0.2% so far in Asia. The common currency rose 0.2% to 173.78 yen . Trump said the EU plans to invest some $600 billion in the U.S. and dramatically increase its purchases of American energy and military equipment. The pact is similar to one forged with Tokyo negotiators last week that will see Japan investing some $550 billion in the U.S. and a 15% tariff imposed on its cars and other imports. The baseline 15% tariff will still be seen by many in Europe as too high, compared with Europe's initial hopes to secure a zero-for-zero tariff deal. China is facing an August 12 deadline to reach a durable trade pact with the U.S. No breakthrough is expected in the U.S. and China talks in Stockholm, but analysts said another 90-day extension of a trade truce struck in mid-May was likely. The U.S. dollar advanced on Friday, bolstered by solid economic data that suggested the Federal Reserve could take its time in resuming interest rate cuts. Both the Fed and the Bank of Japan are expected to hold rates steady at this week's policy meetings, but traders are focusing on the subsequent comments to gauge the timing of the next moves. The dollar was little changed at 147.68 yen . The dollar index , which tracks the greenback against major peers, fell 0.1% to 97.534. Sterling traded at $1.34385 , down almost 0.1%. The Australian dollar fetched $0.6576 , up 0.2%, while New Zealand's kiwi dollar was flat at $0.6019 .
