What Trump's tax bill does with Medicaid, SNAP, tax breaks

USA Today

23-05-2025

What Trump's tax bill does with Medicaid, SNAP, tax breaks | The Excerpt
On Friday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY Senior Congress Reporter Riley Beggin takes a closer look at President Donald Trump's House-approved tax bill. The Trump administration says Harvard can no longer enroll international students. Oklahoma will require schools to teach President Trump's 2020 election conspiracy theories. USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe breaks down a divided court decision to block the creation of the nation's first religious charter school. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blames ultra-processed foods, environmental chemicals, 'overmedicalization' and more for driving chronic diseases in U.S. children, according to a commission report. NOAA predicts a 60% chance of an above average hurricane season. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to [e-mail].
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson. And today is Friday, May 23rd, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, taking a closer look at the House-approved Trump tax bill. Plus the Trump Administration has revoked Harvard's ability to enroll international students. And the Supreme Court has blocked the creation of the nation's first religious charter school.
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The House this week passed President Donald Trump's tax bill for a closer look at what it might mean for Americans, my colleague Dana Taylor, spoke with USA TODAY, Senior Congress Reporter, Riley Beggin.
Dana Taylor:
Riley, I know you haven't had a lot of sleep lately covering the House wrangling over the spending bill into the wee hours. Thanks for coming on the show.
Riley Beggin:
Yeah, of course.
Dana Taylor:
There's been a lot of heated negotiations regarding cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, the Food Stamp Program. Give me the broad strokes please of what's in this bill on this front?
Riley Beggin:
Yeah. There are a lot of changes on those two fronts. Medicaid that is really the biggest cost saving, which also translates to the biggest cuts that we see in this legislation. The earliest estimates show $625 billion being cut from Medicaid, an estimated 7.6 million Americans could lose their health insurance with these changes. Medicaid covers 71 million low income Americans. So there's a lot of provisions of that. One of the marquee things is some additional work requirements for people who are on Medicaid expansion, that's primarily adults. There would be an increase in the frequency of eligibility checks to make sure that people are not enrolled in multiple states or are validly enrolled. So those are some of the changes you could see on Medicaid.
When it comes to food assistance, we're talking about SNAP or Food Stamps, which provides food assistance to around 42 million Americans. This is another big chunk, $300 billion will be cut from this over the next 10 years. One of the biggest things is it would shift more of the cost of the program to states, which could have repercussions as states try and figure out how they're going to spend their money. There could be additional cuts there, and it would require new work requirements for people ages 55 to 64 who receive SNAP. Those are just a few of the changes in that broad umbrella.
Dana Taylor:
Border security is another sizable part of this bill. What slice of the American taxpayer pie did they get?
Riley Beggin:
So in the House version of the bill, there's more than $140 billion that would go to support the Trump Administration's plan to crack down on illegal immigration. Another thing I'll mention here is that the bill includes around $150 billion for defense spending, which really could increase as it goes through the Senate. Within that defense spending, there's $20 billion that would go towards creating the Golden Dome Defense System that Trump has talked about on the campaign trail and so far in office this year.
Dana Taylor:
Taxes are another big part of the spending bill. What did House Republicans agree to on this front?
Riley Beggin:
This is really the big priority for Republicans. In addition to all of these other things, making the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent is front and center for House Republicans and will be for Senate Republicans as well. These lowered income taxes for all income tax brackets has disproportionate benefit to the highest earners. This bill would make those permanent at a pretty high cost. We're talking well over $3 trillion. If this bill doesn't pass, those tax cuts would expire at the end of the year, which is something conservatives are definitely concerned about. Another thing I'll mention is these Trump campaign trail promises, no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime wages are included in this bill. They are temporary as tax deductions, they would go through 2028.
Dana Taylor:
Riley, this bill is going to have a huge effect on the U.S. deficit, which has all kinds of downstream impacts. What can you tell us here?
Riley Beggin:
This bill would add an estimated $3.8 trillion to the U.S. deficit over the next 10 years. That's something that has been a major sticking point for Republicans in these negotiations, and I would expect is going to be even more of a conversation in the Senate. We saw bond markets start to shutter a little bit at the increase in the debt in the possibility that it would impact Treasury bonds. So that does have big downstream consequences. I will also mention we are set to default on our debt in August would hit the debt ceiling, the Treasury secretary has said. That would also have huge, huge catastrophic consequences for the U.S. economy and for the global economy in a lot of ways. This bill would raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion to avoid that consequence, but it does set a timeline.
Dana Taylor:
Finally, the bill has one more big hurdle to overcome coming up and that's the Senate. How might Republicans in that chamber potentially change the bill?
Riley Beggin:
In a lot of ways. I'm actually in the Senate this morning talking to senators about what they would like to see changed here. And even really conservative senators like Ted Cruz are saying, "There's going to be major changes here." I mentioned the deficit adding here, there are senators who are really concerned about that and want to enact additional cuts. There are senators who are worried about the Medicaid changes that are happening. There are senators who are worried about the rollback of green energy tax credits that might impact their states. And we're just in the first few hours of this legislation sort of being in their hands. So I think it is not going to be smooth sailing.
Dana Taylor:
Riley Beggin covers Congress and Campaigns for USA TODAY. Riley, thanks for coming on the show.
Riley Beggin:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
The Trump Administration has revoked Harvard University's ability to enroll international students. The move jeopardizes the legal status of more than a quarter of the Ivy League school student population. That's a major escalation in the White House's battle, to pressure the university to fold to demands, to overhaul its admissions, hiring and teaching practices. The decision will almost certainly prompt a legal challenge from the school, which is already an active litigation against the Federal Government for freezing billions of dollars in research funding.
In a statement, Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security Secretary, said that current international students at Harvard must transfer to other universities or risk losing their legal status. Harvard said the move by the Trump Administration was illegal. At President Donald Trump's direction, Federal agencies have targeted dozens of universities across the country in recent months that officials have accused of not doing enough to protect Jewish students. The government has canceled billions of dollars in research grants and contracts forcing significant layoffs and budget cuts at many institutions.
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Meanwhile in other Trump-related education news, in Oklahoma public school history teachers will soon be required to teach the disproved conspiracy theory that the Democratic Party stole the 2020 Presidential Election from President Trump. The Republican-led state's new high school history curriculum says students must learn how to dissect the results of the 2020 Election, including learning about alleged mail-in voter fraud and unforeseen record number of voters and security risks of mail-in balloting. You can read more about that with a link in today's show notes.
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A divided Supreme Court yesterday blocked the creation of the nation's first religious charter school. I spoke with USA TODAY's Supreme Court Correspondent, Maureen Groppe to learn more. Hello, Maureen.
Maureen Groppe:
Hello.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Maureen, you and I have talked about this case here previously. What did the Supreme Court block?
Maureen Groppe:
Well, they blocked the creation of the nation's first religious charter school, the Catholic Church in Oklahoma wanted to create a virtual charter school, which included religious instruction. The Oklahoma Supreme Court said that that would be a violation of the Constitution's prohibition against government's endorsing their religion because the Supreme Court didn't have enough votes to either overturn that decision or back that decision, it remains in place. That means the charter school can't move forward. But the issue could come back to the Supreme Court in another case because a tie decision here doesn't establish any kind of precedent.
Taylor Wilson:
And Maureen, this was a completely divided court. How did the justices align themselves?
Maureen Groppe:
Well, we don't know because the court didn't tell us. All we know for sure is that Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case that left eight justices to decide it. And during the oral arguments, the court's three liberal justices seems clearly on the side of not allowing religious charter schools, while most of the five conservative justices seem to feel just as strongly that they should be allowed. The Chief Justice John Roberts was harder to read. At one point he did express a view that charter schools may be different from the other situations in which the court in recent years had said it's okay for taxpayer dollars to go to religious schools. But because the court didn't tell us how he or any other justice voted, we're just speculating on who was on which side.
Taylor Wilson:
Refresh us, Maureen, what led up to this point?
Maureen Groppe:
The two Catholic Dioceses in Oklahoma, they put together a proposal for a virtual charter school. That plan was approved by the State Board that oversees charter schools. But then the Oklahoma Attorney General, who is a Republican, said that religious charter schools are illegal under State Law. The Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed with him in a six-two decision last year. They said that religious charter schools would violate State and Federal Laws including the Constitution.
Taylor Wilson:
And how did advocates or lawyers on really both sides of this debate respond after this move from the high court?
Maureen Groppe:
The Catholic Church said it's disappointed in the decision, but they said they're going to explore other options for offering a virtual Catholic education throughout the State. Lawyers for the Oklahoma School Board, which had approved the charter school, they noted the issue isn't dead since the court deadlocked. So as I said, no precedent was set so this could come back in another way. Advocacy groups on the other side, they were relieved. They said that if the court had allowed religious charter schools that would have obliterated the wall of separation between church and State.
Taylor Wilson:
This case really puts the First Amendment's religious clauses intention as you write, Maureen. Talk through that a bit for us, if you would. How so?
Maureen Groppe:
So one clause in the First Amendment says the government can't establish a religion, and another clause says people have the right to exercise their religion. In this case, the Catholic Church said it's discrimination against religion to allow other private entities to run charter schools, but not the Catholic Church. The Oklahoma Attorney General was focusing on the clause that says the government can't establish a religion, and he said religious charter schools would violate the separation of church and State, that's required by the First Amendment.
Taylor Wilson:
And Maureen more religion clause decisions are coming down the pike. What's next in the crosshairs?
Maureen Groppe:
One decision still to come is whether the charitable arm of the Catholic Church in Wisconsin should have to pay into the State's Employment Tax Fund. And the other case is about storybooks with LGBTQ characters that are being used in Maryland. And in fact, in one of the nation's largest and most religiously diverse school districts. Parents with religious objections to the books said they should be able to have their elementary school children excused from class when those books are being read. And so that's the other decision that we are waiting for.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Maureen Groppe covers the Supreme Court for USA TODAY. Thanks as always, Maureen.
Maureen Groppe:
Thanks for having me.
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Taylor Wilson:
Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blames ultra-processed foods, environmental chemicals, lack of physical activity, chronic stress, and over-medicalization for driving chronic diseases in U.S. children according to a commission report published yesterday. The report comes after President Trump signed an executive order to establish a commission to make America healthy again during Kennedy's swearing-in ceremony in February and tasked it with investigating chronic illness and delivering an action plan to fight childhood diseases. Starting with this report, which was due within a hundred days of Trump's time in office. Authors say ultra-processed foods or UPFs replace healthier foods and encourage people to eat more. UPFs include foods like chips and candy. In the report, authors also argue that American children are on too much medicine and criticize the childhood immunization schedule for encompassing more vaccines than Europe. You can take a closer look at the report's findings with a link in today's show notes.
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The Atlantic Hurricane season begins next week in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting a 60% chance of an above-average season. Specifically NOAA is forecasting a range of 13 to 19 total name storms. Of those six to 10 are forecast to become hurricanes, including three to five major hurricanes, meaning a category three or higher.
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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan, and our Executive Producer is Laura Beatty. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. You can always email us as well at podcasts at usatoday.com. I'm Taylor Wilson. I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.