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becca balint
'Embarrassing': GOP Fails to Pass Their Own 'Cruel' Budget Plan Out of Committee
"It is the biggest tax cuts for billionaires in American history paid for by throwing 13.7 million Americans off their healthcare coverage," said the panel's top Democrat, Rep. Brendan Boyle.
May 16, 2025
Multiple Republican "fiscal hawks" on Friday voted with Democrats on the U.S. House Budget Committee to block the GOP's budget reconciliation package—and while high-level negotiations are expected to continue, members were reportedly told they could go home.
"They couldn't agree on how many people to take healthcare away from in order to give billionaires a tax cut," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a panel member, after the vote. "Embarrassing. We'll keep fighting to protect Medicaid and the American people."
The five Republicans who voted no were Reps. Josh Brecheen (Okla.), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Chip Roy (Texas), and Lloyd Smucker (Pa.)—though, unlike the others, Smucker changed his vote from yes to no for a procedural reason.
"To be clear—I fully support the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). My vote today in the Budget Committee is a procedural requirement to preserve the committee's opportunity to reconsider the motion to advance OBBB," he explained on social media.
According toThe Hill, Smucker also said that "we're working through some remaining issues here, there are just a few outstanding issues I think everyone will get to yes, and we're going to... resolve this as quick as we can and hopefully have a vote, ideally on Monday, and we can advance this bill."
The House Freedom Caucus said on social media Friday that "Reps. Roy, Norman, Brecheen, Clyde, and others continue to work in good faith to enact the president's 'Big Beautiful Bill'—we were making progress before the vote in the Budget Committee and will continue negotiations to further improve the reconciliation package. We are not going anywhere, and we will continue to work through the weekend."
Friday's failed vote comes after various GOP-controlled panels advanced parts of the package this week, in the face of protests from Democratic lawmakers and constituents outraged that Republicans are trying to pass massive tax giveaways for wealthy individuals and corporations while adding $3.8 trillion to the national debt they claim to worry about and gutting programs like Medicaid that serve the working class.
"The House Budget Committee's vote is a necessary—but largely performative—step that bundles the 11 different bills Republicans have approved over the last few weeks through their policy committees, including the piece the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee advanced this week and the measure the Energy and Commerce Committee approved after an all-night markup of Medicaid policies forecast to strip healthcare coverage from more than 10 million people," Politicoreported.
As the Budget Committee's markup began on Friday, Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) charged that "this is a big bill for billionaires."
Boyle continued:
Now, we will hear over the course of this hearing a vigorous debate, and frankly, there is a strong divide between Republicans and some other Republicans. There is also a divide between both sets of Republicans and this side of the dais, I can speak at least as to why it is every Democratic member will be voting no on the bill for billionaires.
Simply put, besides all of the other important issues involved in this bill, this is the overarching truth. It is the biggest tax cuts for billionaires in American history paid for by throwing 13.7 million Americans off their healthcare coverage.
Now, those aren't my claims, that is not subjective. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office just this week confirmed that at least 13,700,000 Americans will lose their healthcare if the GOP bill for billionaires becomes law. That is bad economics. It is unconscionable.
Several other Democrats have spotlighted the GOP's attempt to strip healthcare from millions of Americans in their critical comments about the megabill, which is backed by Republican President Donald Trump.
"This budget is disastrous and cruel, and we stopped it from moving forward," declared Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), a committee member, on Friday. "Republicans have no mandate to rip away health care and food assistance from families."
Another panel member, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), said after the vote that "even some GOP recognized that this is an ugly lie atop a mountain of lies and dangerous trillions of additional national debt."
"They'll be back with another scheme next week, and we'll be ready to fight," he added. "Limiting this bill's benefits to 98% of Americans and denying them to Elon Musk and the 2% richest would cut this bill's cost in half and protect the healthcare of millions, which the GOP would otherwise deny."
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After Reporting and Backlash, Republicans Drop Sneaky Effort to Gut FTC—For Now
"We applaud Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee that stood up against his harmful proposal to ensure this amendment landed where it belongs—on the cutting room floor," said one antitrust advocate.
May 01, 2025
House Republicans on Wednesday dropped an effort to hamstring the Federal Trade Commission's ability to fight corporate consolidation after antitrust advocates, Democratic lawmakers, and news outlets—including Common Dreams—highlighted and sounded the alarm over the proposal.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, agreed during a markup hearing Wednesday to remove the proposal from the panel's section of the GOP's sprawling reconciliation package—though he indicated he would try to revive the proposal as a standalone bill at a later date.
The reversal came after Democrats on the panel, including Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Becca Balint (D-Vt.), ripped the proposal as a disaster for small businesses and consumers.
"Why would you go after the FTC and make it harder for small businesses to survive in this landscape?" Balint asked in fiery remarks at Wednesday's hearing. "You all talk about competition... and then you go after the FTC. It doesn't make any sense, and it doesn't pass the straight-face test."
"Why would you go after the FTC and make it harder for small businesses to survive in this landscape? You all talk about competition... and then you go after the FTC. It doesn't make any sense." pic.twitter.com/8EF8AOmW8m
— American Economic Liberties Project (@econliberties) April 30, 2025
Jordan ultimately relented and the House Judiciary Committee voted to remove the section in question, which would have transferred the FTC's antitrust staff and funding to the Justice Department—which doesn't have the same statutory authority to protect the American public from "unfair methods of competition."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement that Jordan and other Republicans on the judiciary panel "did the right thing scrapping a proposal that would have kneecapped antitrust enforcement against our economy’s most harmful monopolies."
"We applaud Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee that stood up against his harmful proposal to ensure this amendment landed where it belongs—on the cutting room floor," said Harper.
But Jordan made clear following Wednesday's hearing that he did not agree to remove the FTC proposal from the reconciliation package out of genuine concern about its implications for the future of antitrust enforcement.
Rather, he accepted Republican senators' warnings that the proposal wouldn't comply with the rules of the budget reconciliation process.
"We'll just do it in a standalone bill," Jordan toldPunchbowl.
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'I Am Not Afraid of You,' Freed Mohsen Mahdawi Tells Donald Trump
The court's order for the release of the detained student protest leader, said one lawyer, "is a victory for all people in this country invested in their ability to dissent and speak and protest."
Apr 30, 2025
This is a breaking story… Please check back for possible updates...
Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student targeted for deportation by the Trump administration because he participated in anti-genocide protests at Columbia University, was released on bail Wednesday following an order from Vermont-based U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford.
Politicoreported that upon his release, Mahdawi shared a message for President Donald Trump outside the courthouse.
"I am saying it clear and loud," Mahdawi declared. "To President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you."
When Mahdawi, a green-card holder, arrived at a Colchester, Vermont immigration office to complete the process of becoming a U.S. citizen earlier this month, he was arrested by masked, hooded federal agents and put in an unmarked vehicle.
Mahdawi has been held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans since U.S. District Judge William Sessions III blocked the Trump administration's attempt to send him to a detention facility in Louisiana, like other student organizers.
His legal team—including attorneys with the ACLU and Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR)—is arguing in court that Mahdawi's detention violates his constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.
"Nobody should fear detention for exercising their rights under the First Amendment. We are delighted that the court recognized that Mohsen is not a flight risk and that he should be released while his case proceeds," said Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, in a Wednesday statement.
CLEAR staff attorney Shezza Abboushi Dallal also welcomed the development: "The court's order to free Mohsen today is a victory for Mohsen, in his just pursuit of continued advocacy for Palestinian lives, and it is a victory for all people in this country invested in their ability to dissent and speak and protest for causes they are morally drawn to. We will continue our legal battle for Mohsen until his constitutional rights are fully vindicated."
Vermont's congressional delegation—Rep. Becca Balint (D) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I) and Peter Welch (D.)—said in a joint statement Wednesday that "we are relieved that Mohsen Mahdawi was released on bail... and that the constitutional right to due process has prevailed."
"Mohsen Mahdawi is here in the United States legally and acted legally. He should never have experienced this grave injustice," they added. "The Trump Administration's actions in this case—and in so many other cases of wrongfully detained, deported, and disappeared people—are shameful and immoral. This is an important first step. We will continue the fight against President Trump's assault on the rule of law.”
The trio has been advocating for Mahdawi since his arrest. Welch visited him in detention last week and Sanders was among several lawmakers who spoke at a Tuesday rally organized by Balint outside the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C.
"Mohsen Mahdawi is a cherished member of our community in Vermont, and I want to do everything that I can to elevate his story, because it is an indication of just how far from our values we have strayed," Balint said.
"This administration needs to know that we are watching very carefully what they are doing, that we care about our rights," she stressed, addressing the importance of taking to the streets to protest Trump's actions. "It is about standing up for all of our rights, but it's also about giving Mohsen Mahdawi and other people like him the understanding that we are standing with him."
Highlighting some other cases that have made headlines during Trump's first 100 days, Balint said that "people right now, in our country, are being disappeared by this administration. Children with cancer are being shipped off illegally—babies. Students are being harassed, and detained, and intimidated, and threatened. Why? Because they exercised free speech rights and the right to assemble. These are the rights that are basic to who we are—or who we say we are—as Americans."
Mahdawi grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, which remains illegally occupied by Israel. Sanders noted Tuesday that "he has used his voice to advocate for peace, justice, and dignity for Palestinians and Israelis."
Speaking out against Mahdawi's arrest, the senator said that "not only was this action cruel and inhumane, most importantly, it was illegal, it was unconstitutional."
"This is not just about Mohsen Mahdawi. It is about you and you and you," he continued, pointing to members of the crowd. "If you can pick up a legal resident off the streets, throw them into a car, and put them in jail without any due process, that could happen to you."
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)—who recently traveled to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia—and Reps. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) also delivered remarks on Tuesday, as did leaders from Demand Progress and Indivisible.
Many of them pointed to others swept up in the Trump administration's effort to crush critics and carry out mass deportations, including Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to a megaprison in his native El Salvador alongside hundreds of Venezuelan migrants; former Columbia organizer Mahmoud Khalil; Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University; and Tufts University Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk.
A federal district court judge had ordered the Trump administration to transfer Öztürk, a Turkish national, from Louisiana to Vermont by Thursday for a hearing on her petition challenging her detention. However, the government appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on Tuesday halted the directive. Arguments for the appeal are now scheduled for next week.
Öztürk's legal team, which also includes the ACLU and CLEAR, said in response to Tuesday's decision that "Rümeysa Öztürk never should have been arrested and detained, period. We are ready to argue her case before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, and we won't stop fighting until she is free."
Also on Tuesday, a U.S. district judge in New Jersey rejected the Trump administration's attempt to shut down Khalil's lawsuit arguing that the government is unlawfully detaining him for his political views. Like Öztürk and Mahdawi, his legal team includes the ACLU and CLEAR.
"The court has affirmed that the federal government does not have the unreviewable authority to trample on our fundamental freedoms," Noor Zafar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said Tuesday. "This is a huge step forward for Mahmoud and for the other students and scholars that the Trump administration has unlawfully detained in retaliation for their political speech, and a rebuke of attempts by the executive to use immigration laws to weaken First Amendment protections for political gain."
Khalil recently missed the birth of his child, due to his detention. His wife, Noor Abdalla, said Tuesday that "as I am now caring for our barely week-old son, it is even more urgent that we continue to speak out for Mahmoud's freedom, and for the freedom of all people being unjustly targeted for advocating against Israel's genocide in Gaza."
"I am relieved at the court's finding that my husband can move forward with his case in federal court," added Abdalla, a U.S. citizen. "This is an important step towards securing Mahmoud's freedom. But there is still more work to be done. I will continue to strongly advocate for my husband, so he can come home to our family, and feel the pure joy all parents know of holding your first-born child in your arms."
All of these cases are expected to continue to move through the federal judicial system. One case—Abrego Garcia's—has already reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite the high court's right-wing supermajority, which includes three Trump appointees, the justices earlier this month unanimously ordered Trump to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to the United States.
During a Tuesday interview, ABC News anchor Terry Moran suggested that Trump could bring Abrego Garcia home to his family in Maryland with one phone call, saying: "You could get him back. There's a phone on this desk."
Trump responded: "I could... And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that." The president then accused him of being a member of the gang MS-13, which Abrego Garcia has denied.
On Wednesday, Trump's homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, toldCBS News that Abrego Garcia "is not under our control. He is an El Salvador citizen. He is home there in his country. If he were to be brought back to the United States of America, we would immediately deport him again."
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