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Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
House Republicans face down Dem attacks, protests to pull all-nighter on Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'
Three key committees in the process of putting together President Donald Trump's "one big, beautiful bill" are expected to work through the night to advance their respective portions of the Republican agenda. The House Agriculture Committee, the Energy & Commerce Committee and the Ways & Means Committee are all holding meetings aimed at advancing key parts of Trump's bill. Sources told Fox News Digital they expected the Energy & Commerce and Ways & Means meetings, which began on Tuesday afternoon, to last upwards of 20 hours each. The Agriculture panel's markup is also expected to last into Wednesday. Democrats on each committee, meanwhile, have prepared a barrage of attacks and accusations against GOP lawmakers looking to gut critical welfare programs. Anti-abortion Provider Measure In Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' Could Spark House Gop Rebellion Sparks flew early at the Energy & Commerce Committee meeting with protesters both inside and outside the room repeatedly attempting to disrupt proceedings – with 26 people arrested by Capitol Police. Read On The Fox News App Protesters against Medicaid cuts, predominately in wheelchairs, remained outside the budget markup for several hours as representatives inside debated that and other critical facets under the committee's broad jurisdiction. Inside the budget markup, Democrats and Republicans sparred along party lines over Medicaid cuts. Democrats repeatedly claimed the Republican budget proposal will cut vital Medicaid services. Many Democrats shared how Medicaid services have saved their constituents' lives and argued that millions of Americans could lose coverage under the current proposal. Meanwhile, Republicans accused Democrats of lying to the American people about Medicaid cuts – a word Kentucky Republican Rep. Brett Guthrie, Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, deterred his colleagues from using. Tensions arose when the word was repeated as Democrats called it a mischaracterization of their testimonies. Republicans have contended that their bill only seeks to cut waste, fraud, and abuse of the Medicaid system, leaving more of its resources for vulnerable populations that truly need it. That committee was tasked with finding $880 billion in spending cuts to offset Trump's other funding priorities. Guthrie told House Republicans on a call Sunday night that they'd found upwards of $900 billion in cuts. Democrats have seized on Republican reforms to Medicaid, including heightened work requirements and shifting more costs to certain states, as a political cudgel. At one point late in the evening, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., made an appearance at the Energy & Commerce panel's meeting. "I just want to mention our Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is here because of his concern about Medicaid. Thank you," the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said. But tensions remain between moderate Republicans and conservatives about the level of cuts the committee is seeking to the former Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act green energy tax subsidies. The meeting at the Ways & Means Committee, the House's tax-writing panel, had relatively little fanfare but was equally contentious as Democrats attempted to offer amendments to preserve Affordable Care Act tax credits and changes to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap. At one point, Reps. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, and Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., got into a heated exchange over SALT, with Suozzi pushing Van Duyne on whether she'd ever been to New York. Van Duyne earlier called Texas a "donor state" in terms of taxes, arguing, "We should not have to pay to make up for the rich folks in New York who are getting raped by their local and state governments." Suozzi later pointed out Van Duyne was born and went to college in upstate New York – leading to audible gasps in the room. Van Duyne said there was "a reason" she left. Brown University In Gop Crosshairs After Student's Doge-like Email Kicks Off Frenzy "We're sorry you left New York, but in some ways it may have worked out better for all of us," Suozzi said. The SALT deduction cap, however, is still a politically tricky issue even as House lawmakers debate what Republicans hoped would be the final bill. The legislation would raise the $10,000 SALT deduction cap to $30,000 for most single and married tax filers – a figure that Republicans in higher cost-of-living areas said was not enough. Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., threatened to vote against the final bill if the new cap remains. As the committee's marathon meeting continued, a group of blue state Republicans are huddling with House GOP leaders to find a compromise on a way forward. Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., hinted at tensions in the meeting when he posted on X that Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., a member of the SALT Caucus and Ways & Means Committee, "wasn't involved in today's meeting" because her district required "something different than mine and the other most SALTY five." Malliotakis had told Fox News Digital she was supportive of the $30,000 cap. She's also the only member of the SALT Caucus on the critical tax-writing panel. The Agriculture Committee, which began its meeting on Tuesday evening, saw Democrats waste no time in accusing Republicans of trying to gut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), colloquially known as food stamps. Rep. Adam Gray, D-Calif., accused Republicans of worrying that "somebody is getting a meal they didn't deserve or kids are getting too fat" instead of more critical issues. Republicans, like Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, touted the bill's inclusion of crop insurance for young farmers, increasing opportunity for export markets, and helping invest in national animal disaster centers aimed at preventing and mitigating livestock illness. He also said Republicans were working to "secure" SNAP from waste and abuse. House and Senate Republicans are working on Trump's agenda via the budget reconciliation process, which allows the party in power to sideline the minority by lowering the Senate's threshold for passage to a simple majority, provided the legislation at hand deals with spending, taxes or the national debt. Trump wants Republicans to use the maneuver for a sweeping bill on his tax, border, immigration, energy and defense priorities. Two sources familiar with the plan said the House Budget Committee intends to advance the full bill, the first step to getting the legislation to a House-wide vote, on article source: House Republicans face down Dem attacks, protests to pull all-nighter on Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Medicaid Isn't the Only Popular, Life-Saving Program the GOP Will Cut
The budget blueprint that Congressional Republicans passed this week outlines a massive wealth transfer to the rich—at the expense of everyone else. While millionaires and billionaires will get $4.5 million worth of tax cuts, the Energy & Commerce committee, for instance—which oversees Medicaid—is supposed to find $880 billion to cut from government spending. As the GOP details precisely what they intend to cut over the coming weeks, it's likely those proposals will put life-saving healthcare for 79 million Americans at risk. Trump didn't run on a broad-based austerity agenda to dismantle essential government services, put hundreds of thousands of people out of work, endanger millions of lives and illegally seize power for himself so as to enrich the wealthy. But that's the agenda his administration seems hell-bent on delivering. Perhaps it seemed like a given that the GOP would make gutting climate funding and regulations on polluters a central part of this crusade. Or perhaps, compared to the devastating cuts to landmark social programs that seem all but certain given the size of the topline budget being proposed, getting rid of subsidies for electric vehicles and solar panels might seem like window dressing. Democratic opposition to GOP budget plans have understandably emphasized defending landmark social programs instead of smaller environmental and green energy initiatives: During a press conference Thursday morning, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stood next to a sign saying 'Save Medicaid,' and reiterated his party's stance in budget negotiations: 'Hands off Social Security. Hands of Medicaid. Hands off Medicare.' What about everything else, though? It makes sense, of course, for Democrats to focus their messaging around programs that impact the lives of millions of people every single day. But climate and environmental programs also affect millions of people every day. The reason people seem to have forgotten that is that, over the last four years, Democrats leaned into talking about climate change and green energy primarily as a business and/or geopolitical opportunity. Subsidies for clean energy products and manufacturing would revitalize the American middle class and allow the United States to outcompete China in key twenty-first century growth industries like EVs, top Biden aides insisted. With a little coaxing, the private sector would lead the way: roughly two-thirds of the Inflation Reduction Act's climate and clean energy-related funding accrued to corporations. The pitfalls of this shortsighted messaging were already apparent when Democrats struggled to campaign on it in the last election. They're being highlighted again now as IRA funds are targeted for elimination: Thanks in part to the IRA's top-down approach, most Americans still haven't heard much about it; forty percent of registered voters don't even know it exists. Although the vast majority of private investment spurred on by the IRA flowed to Congressional districts controlled by Republicans, outside of a few small pockets of discontent this hasn't stopped the party from trying to claw back those same funds. (Why would it? Cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare will hurt plenty of Republicans; they're in the GOP's crosshairs all the same.) Republicans now seem poised to frame their gargantuan Energy & Commerce cuts as an attack on supposedly wasteful climate spending that much of the country didn't realize was happening, re-directing attention away from wildly unpopular cuts to Medicaid. The point here isn't to cry over the milk spilled by Bidenomics' strategic failures. But Democrats and climate advocates should avoid repeating the same mistakes. Climate and environmental programs aren't luxury add-ons to embrace when times are good. Instead, they're essential tenets of a modern state that help prevent death and immiseration—and they help make people's lives better and cheaper in the meantime. Helping U.S. companies compete in green export markets is all well and good, but it's not the main reason to support climate policy. Preventing death is. The power plant pollution regulations the Trump administration wants to eliminate were expected to prevent up to 1,200 premature deaths a year from respiratory disease, heart disease, and more by 2035. Trump is also going after California's clean car rules, projected to prevent 1,000 premature deaths by 2040. In the U.S. overall, 350,000 premature deaths per year are attributable to fossil fuel pollution. Republican policies to expand fossil fuel production and tear up regulations—including a plan to slash the Environmental Protection Agency's budget by 65 percent—would mean that even more people die. Dismantling Biden-era regulations on lead and PFAS will leave millions with toxic drinking water, contaminated with substances that contribute to cognitive impairment, asthma, and premature deaths from heart disease and cancer. Gutting the already understaffed, overworked U.S. Forest Service will starve efforts to reduce wildfire risk and leave fewer staff on hand to respond to flames fanned by rising temperatures, deepening a home insurance crisis which is already making home ownership and rent unaffordable in Florida, California, and several other states. The list goes on. Important as it is to protect Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, the fact that Democrats' most popular, defensible programs are at least 60 years old doesn't inspire confidence in their ability to govern the future. Since 2016 the party's main case for itself has been that it could prevent another Trump administration, restore norms, and return the country to a slightly greener version of a happier, quieter past. That failed, and Democratic leadership is once again relegated to defending programs enacted by their more ambitious and imaginative predecessors. The right has always been better at fighting for the past, though. The essentially conservative position that Democrats and progressives alike have adopted over the last several decades—to defend and expand on the gains of the New Deal and Great Society—is a bad fit both to build a governing majority, and for an era where the climate crisis is changing the country in permanent, unpredictable ways. Fights over federal spending are showcasing a Republican Party that's more revolutionary than conservative, trampling over Constitutional checks and balances in order to concentrate ever-more wealth and power in the hands of a tiny minority. Trump was elected on the promise of change, but the administration mostly articulates its vision of a MAGA-fied future in the sorts of vague, braindead language that crypto scammers use to sucker people into buying shitcoins. Democrats should take this opportunity to spell out what that future would actually mean: millions of people dying of preventable illnesses because they don't have health insurance; family homes burned to the ground and replaced by luxury developments that foreign investors buy up to avoid paying taxes; parents kicked off Social Security and out of their homes, forced to move in with their children who are working two or three jobs just to afford their insurance premiums; kids who grow up with rare and debilitating diseases—if they don't die of measles first—thanks to the toxins in their water, whose schools can't support them because the richest man in the world ransacked the Department of Education. The world Trump and Musk want is hellish. But in order to persuade voters of that, and persuade them to kick this pair out of power, Democrats need to be able to promise a better one—not just more of the same.
