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House Republicans Pitch a Plan to Cut Social Security to Billionaire Donor Harlan Crow
If Republicans want to cut our earned benefits, the American people deserve for them to tell us that to our faces, rather than weaseling around the job they were elected to do, and for which they earn a handsome salary.
Sep 23, 2026
This Monday, House Republicans held a hearing focused on creating a closed-door commission to cut Social Security and Medicare. The hearing was for an audience of one: billionaire donor Harlan Crow.
That’s the same Harlan Crow who infamously treated Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to lavish vacations, along with donating millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes.
Republicans wanted to keep the hearing quiet, so they held it far from Washington DC. This was a “field hearing,” held all the way in Dallas, Texas. Specifically, it was held at Old Parkland, a “business campus” owned by none other than Harlan Crow.
Crow and his friends will do anything to cut our hard-earned Social Security benefits so that they never have to pay their fair share into the system.
Normally, when Congress holds a field hearing, they are seeking testimony from members of the general public. But when I showed up with Texas seniors and people with disabilities, they refused to let us in. Medically vulnerable people were forced to wait outside in 100°F heat.
Republicans claimed that there were only three chairs available for members of the public. That was a lie. When I finally made it into the room, there was plenty of space. And while there were “no seats available” for seniors and people with disabilities, guess who got one? Harlan Crow.
I called out the hearing for what it was: a farce designed to cut Social Security, even though Social Security doesn’t add a single penny to the debt. I reminded Republicans that the real driver of the debt is tax breaks for billionaires like Harlan Crow. I was promptly escorted out by police
Michelle H. Davis, author of the Substack Lone Star Left, was denied a seat. So she went home and watched the entire three-hour hearing. Davis writes that Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) ended the hearing by personally thanking Harlan Crow:
Arrington turned, and addressed Harlan by first name, called him "friend" and "great patriot," thanked "his family," and joked about moving every future Budget Committee hearing to Old Parkland permanently.
Davis also found that several members of the House Budget Committee, including Arrington, have received substantial donations from Crow.
As witnesses, the Republicans brought in retired Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who were pushing an infamous fast-track bill to avoid political accountability for cutting our earned benefits. Both this hearing and the commission itself are mechanisms to manufacture a consensus that does not exist in the American people. That’s why they try so hard to silence the voices of real Americans.
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made the argument for a commission in terms that explicitly laid out the cowardice of our political class:
I think there would be nothing better than if a group of elected members on the budget committee were willing to sit down and develop a comprehensive approach to deficit reduction. That would be great. But I also understand the politics of the time... the politics of both sides would basically stab you in the back. I mean that's a reality. But that doesn't mean that you walk away from the problem.
But Panetta misstates what the two sides are. Voters for both parties will revolt at any attempt to cut Social Security, while the Wall Street and Big Tech megadonors who fund Republicans are the ones who repeatedly insist that it must be done.
The truth is, nobody wants to cut Social Security benefits except for a handful of Republicans and the billionaires on Wall Street who tell them what to do. That’s why it’s no surprise that this farce of a hearing was all for the benefit of billionaire donor Harlan Crow.
If Republicans want to cut our earned benefits, the American people deserve for them to tell us that to our faces, rather than weaseling around the job they were elected to do, and for which they earn a handsome salary. These politicians are afraid to do that because Americans are so overwhelmingly opposed to Social Security cuts.
Billionaires like Harlan Crow want Social Security cuts by any means necessary because once benefits are cut, they can stop worrying that we will finally make them pay their fair share.
We’ve been fighting commissions for a long time. I got started with Social Security Works live streaming the closed door behind which the 2010 Bowles-Simpson commission discussed its proposals to cut Social Security. Eventually, commission co-chair Alan Simpson stepped out from behind his closed door and gave an impromptu interview in which he called Social Security beneficiaries “the lesser people.”
Sixteen years later, that’s still how Republicans and their billionaire donors view seniors and people with disabilities. Crow and his friends will do anything to cut our hard-earned Social Security benefits so that they never have to pay their fair share into the system. But this week, we crashed Crow’s private hearing and reminded the billionaires that we’re never going to let that happen.
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‘No More Hiding’: House Dems Vow to Hammer GOP With More Votes on Destructive Trump Tariffs
"We will keep holding Republicans accountable for raising prices on families and fighting to end Trump’s senseless trade war," said Rep. Suzan DelBene.
Feb 12, 2026
The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a resolution to overturn President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada, and Democratic lawmakers are vowing to keep the pressure on their Republican counterparts.
The House voted to roll back Trump's Canada tariffs by a margin of 219 in favor to 211 against, with six House Republicans crossing the aisle to back the measure. Among Democrats, only Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) voted in favor of keeping the tariffs in place.
According to Politico, the vote on ending Canadian tariffs was just the start of a number of votes House Democrats have planned aimed at rolling back the president's taxes on imported goods.
"Senior House Democrats plan to call up at least three more resolutions that will force many Republicans to choose between protecting their tariff-hit districts and pleasing their MAGA voter bases," Politico wrote, "not to mention their loyalties to a president who has, up until this week, not tolerated any House GOP dissent on the matter."
In an interview with Axios, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) said that he planned to push a resolution overturning Trump's tariffs on Mexican goods next.
Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) released a statement celebrating the vote to repeal the Trump tariffs, while warning her Republican colleagues that there will be "no more hiding" on the issue.
"This is the first vote to restore congressional authority and repeal Trump’s tariffs," she said. "We will keep holding Republicans accountable for raising prices on families and fighting to end Trump’s senseless trade war. The Senate must now take up this measure."
In a video posted on social media, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) outlined the damage that Trump's tariffs have caused both to US consumers and international relations with longtime allies.
"Canada has been our close friend and ally for more than 200 years," Beyer explained. "Donald Trump promised to lower the cost of living, but his tariff regime is doing the exact opposite. These tariffs have done nothing but hurt the American people."
Trump's tariffs crushed our economy, raised prices, and alienated our allies.
Republicans passed rules preventing the House from voting to stop him.
We defeated that 'gag rule' last night, and now we're voting on ending Trump's tariffs on Canada.
Here's why I'm voting YES: pic.twitter.com/cwbOT2apKQ
— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) February 11, 2026
Ontario Premiere Doug Ford hailed the vote to end the tariffs and expressed hope that it was the start of better relations between the US and Canada.
"Thank you to every member from both parties who stood up in support of free trade and economic growth between our two great countries," he wrote. "Let’s end the tariffs and together build a more prosperous and secure future."
Trump, however, has shown no signs of backing down and vowed to support primary challengers against any Republicans who joined with Democrats to roll back his tariffs.
"Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!" Trump wrote in a Wednesday Truth Social post.
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New Year's Eve Dump: House Releases Video and Transcript of Jack Smith Deposition
"There is no historical analog for what President Trump did in this case," Smith told members of the House Judiciary Committee.
Dec 31, 2025
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released both the transcript and video of former special counsel Jack Smith's December 17 testimony about his criminal cases against President Donald Trump that were shut down last year after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
The release, which occurred as millions of Americans were preparing to celebrate New Year's Eve, revealed fresh insights into Smith's investigation and prosecution of the president, who had been indicted on charges related to the unlawful retention of top-secret government documents and his bid to illegally remain in power after losing the 2020 presidential election.
Among other things, Smith testified that he believed that Trump's false claims about fraud in the 2020 election were not protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution because they were aimed at disrupting the certification of the election results on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters violently stormed the US Capitol building and send lawmakers fleeing for their lives.
"There is no historical analog for what President Trump did in this case," Smith emphasized. "As we said in the indictment, he was free to say that he thought he won the election. He was even free to say falsely that he won the election. But what he was not free to do was violate federal law and use... knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function."
Smith also testified that he and his team sought gag orders against Trump because the then-former president "was making statements that were endangering witnesses, intimidating witnesses, endangering members of my staff, endangering court staff."
Smith also said that he would "make no apologies" for requesting a gag order against Trump.
When asked about his decision to subpoena phone records of US senators during his investigation, Smith laid out why Trump had left him with no other option.
"I think who should be accountable for this is Donald Trump," he said. "These records are people, in the case of the senators, Donald Trump directed his co-conspirators to call these people to further delay the proceedings. He chose to do that. If Donald Trump had chosen to call a number of Democratic senators, we would have gotten toll records for Democratic senators. So responsibility for why these records, why we collected them... that lies with Donald Trump."
Commenting on the timing of the release, New York University law professor Ryan Goodman called it "an obvious attempt" by House Republicans to "bury" the information that Smith delivered during his testimony.
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Big Tech’s Most Effective Lobbyist, Jim Jordan, Is Temporarily Constrained
The House Judiciary Committee under Jordan has not merely diverged from bipartisan concerns over corporate power, it has helped neutralize any meaningful legislative solutions by redefining the very nature of the threat.
Oct 12, 2025
A silver lining of the current government shutdown is that Rep. Jim Jordan can no longer use his position as chair of the House Judiciary Committee to waste taxpayer dollars lobbying for the most powerful technology corporations.
The most recent example of this waste was a nearly five-hour hearing in which Rep. Jordan (R-Ohio) gave the United Kingdom’s Nigel Farage a platform on Capitol Hill to attack Britain’s efforts to protect children online and the European Union's efforts to address the dominance of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Booking, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft in European digital markets. Also discussed were European efforts to set ground rules for digital information ecosystems. The hearing produced fireworks and sound bites about “authoritarian” speech policing. It was a performative act dressed up as oversight.
Are these laws perfect? No. Do they apply in the United States? No. Should we be spending taxpayer dollars to lobby for trillion-dollar companies abroad? No. Yet, Jim Jordan has been traveling the world on our dime to lobby for Big Tech in the name of protecting “free speech.”
This shift from antitrust to anti-woke is a gift to Big Tech.
House Republicans keep promising a crusade against Big Tech’s power. If they were serious, they would likely find support from their Democratic colleagues.
The industry's greatest vulnerability lies in the economic arguments against the harms of market concentration—arguments supported by a growing body of evidence and bipartisan concern. The industry’s greatest strength, however, lies in its ability to reframe any regulatory effort as a politically charged battle over the First Amendment.
The House Judiciary Committee under Jim Jordan has not merely diverged from bipartisan concerns over corporate power and its harms to children. It has become the perfect rhetorical counteroffensive by helping neutralize any meaningful legislative solutions by redefining the very nature of the threat. Where most see a market failure requiring economic intervention, the House Judiciary Committee under Chairman Jim Jordan alleges political persecution requiring investigations into government "weaponization." This redefinition is the single most valuable outcome a regulated industry could hope for from its oversight body, transforming a legislative threat into a political shield.
Where is the House Judiciary Committee that conducted a landmark 16-month investigation into the market power of Apple, Amazon, Facebook (now Meta), and Google?
That bipartisan investigation—spanning seven hearings and nearly a million documents—produced broad consensus on the problems affecting these markets, and the need for more resources for antitrust enforcement.
That is the hard work of governing. What Jim Jordan has delivered instead is theater.
The result is that the real work of promoting open markets where everyone has a fair shot remains unfinished. Congress could pass legislation to address the monopoly power that allows Apple and Google to control our smartphones, Amazon to exploit small businesses and consumers, and Meta to operate with little regard for the welfare of our children.
None of this requires viral hearings. House Republicans keep promising a crusade against Big Tech’s power. If they were serious, they would likely find support from their Democratic colleagues. Few issues have managed to forge the kind of bipartisan consensus seen in the effort to rein in the monopolistic power of the largest corporations.
Unfortunately, that seems unlikely under the leadership of Jim Jordan.
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Speaker Johnson Calls Illegally Occupied West Bank 'Integral Part' of Israel
"International law is completely unambiguous on this question," said one critic. "What settlers call 'Judea and Samaria' is the legal property of the Palestinians—Israel has zero legal claim to the land."
Aug 04, 2025
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday led a high-level Republican delegation on a visit to the occupied West Bank, where the second-in-line to the U.S. presidency told a rapt audience in an illegal Jewish settler colony that they are the rightful owners of the Palestinian territory.
"The mountains of Judea and Samaria are the rightful property of the Jewish people," Johnson (R-La.) said in Ariel, using the biblical name for the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem. Ariel was built on land stolen from the Palestinian towns of Salfit, Marda, and Iskaka after Israeli forces conquered the West Bank in a 1967 war waged on false pretense of an imminent threat of Egyptian and Syrian attack.
"Judea and Samaria are the front line of the state of Israel and must remain an integral part of it," Johnson added.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned Johnson's visit, calling his endorsement of Israeli annexation a "blatant violation of international law."
"All settlement activity is illegal and void," the ministry stressed, adding that Johnson's stance "undermines Arab and American efforts to stop the war and cycle of violence, while flagrantly contradicting the declared U.S. position on settlements and settler violence."
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 1,013 Palestinians, including 214 children, have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 2023. Settlers, often protected and sometimes joined by Israeli troops, have launched numerous deadly pogroms and other attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank in what critics say is a bid to finish what Israel started in 1948—the total conquest of Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of its Arab population, and Israeli annexation.
Johnson, who is reportedly the highest-ranking American official to visit an Israeli settlement, was accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee—who while running for president in 2008 denied the very existence of the Palestinian people—as well as Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas), Michael Cloud (R-Texas), and Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.).
Tenney leads the congressional Friends of Judea and Samaria Caucus, which supports Israeli annexation of what it calls the "biblical heartland of Israel."
Last month, all 15 Israeli government ministers from Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party urged the prime minister to annex the West Bank. On July 23, members of the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, voted 71-13 in favor of a symbolic measure declaring "Judea and Samaria" to be "an inseparable part of the Land of Israel, the historical, cultural, and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people" and asserting that "Israel has the natural, historical, and legal right to all of the territories of the Land of Israel."
Netanyahu has repeatedly displayed maps showing the Middle East without Palestine, all of whose territory is shown as part of Israel. Following U.S President Donald Trump's reelection last November, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the far-right Religious Zionist party, said that "the year 2025 will be, with God's help, the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria."
The Israeli government has repeatedly approved construction and expansion of settlements in a bid to establish irreversible "facts on the ground" that will survive developments in international law and moves by an increasing number of nations to formally recognize Palestinian statehood.
Around 150 U.N. member states currently recognize or plan to recognize Palestine. Recently, France became the first Group of Seven member to announce it will officially recognize Palestine. Last week, Canada said it would also do so, with conditions attached, and the United Kingdom threatened recognition of Palestine if Israel does not take "substantive steps" to end its annihilation of Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 200,000 people since October 2023.
Last year, the International Court of Justice—which is also weighing a Gaza genocide case against Israel—found that the occupation is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible. Both Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 8(2) the International Criminal Court Rome Statute prohibit settlement activity.
Construction of Ariel began in 1978, the same year the U.S. State Department first adopted the official position that Israeli settlements are "inconsistent with international law." That position stood until then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reversed it during the first Trump administration. Biden-era Secretary of State Antony Blinken restored the long-standing State Department position in 2024.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has signaled support for reverting to the first Trump administration's position, and the State Department has lifted sanctions imposed on some extremist settlers during the Biden administration. Last week, one of those settlers, Yinon Levy, allegedly murdered Palestinian peace activist Awda Hathaleen in Umm al-Kheir after the latter was denied entry into the United States to take part in an interfaith speaking tour.
Approximately 750,000 Israelis currently reside in more than 250 illegal settler colonies in the West Bank. While Israel grants every Jew in the world the right to settle in Israel, it has refused to allow the approximately five million Palestinian refugees—people ethnically cleansed from Palestine during the foundation of Israel in 1948 and their descendants—to exercise their legal right of return to their homeland.
The Republicans' visit to the West Bank followed last week's tour by Huckabee and Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff of a Gaza aid distribution center run by a U.S.-backed group condemned for its role in Israeli forces' massacres of desperate people seeking food and other lifesaving aid—a visit denounced by one critic as a "blatant theatrical display."
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'Performative Bullsh*t': 16 House Republicans Get Cold Feet Over Medicaid Cuts
However, one critic noted that the lawmakers "already voted for the largest cut to Medicaid in American history—and when the time comes, they'll cave... once again to give their billionaire donors a massive tax break."
Jun 24, 2025
Under pressure from millions of constituents who would be stripped of healthcare coverage under the GOP's slash-and-burn reconciliation package, more than a dozen House Republicans claimed Tuesday that they would not back the Senate's version of the legislation if it contains proposed cuts to the Medicaid provider tax.
"Protecting Medicaid is essential for the vulnerable constituents we were elected to represent. Therefore, we cannot support a final bill that threatens access to coverage or jeopardizes the stability of our hospitals and providers," wrote 16 House Republicans led by Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.)—whose largely rural Central Valley district has one of the highest concentration of Medicaid recipients in the nation—in a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
"Throughout the budget process, we have consistently affirmed our commitment to ensuring that reductions in federal spending do not come at the expense of our most vulnerable constituents," the lawmakers' letter continues. "We write to reiterate that commitment to those we represent here in Washington."
"We support the Medicaid reforms in H.R. 1, which strengthen the program's ability to serve children, pregnant women, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities," the letter states, referring to provisions in the House version of the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that would still slash federal Medicaid spending by billions of dollars, introduce work requirements for recipients, and impose other conditions that critics say would result in millions of vulnerable people losing their coverage in order to pay for a massive tax cut that would disproportionately benefit the wealthy and corporations.
The letter continues:
The Senate proposal also undermines the balanced approach taken to craft the Medicaid provisions in H.R. 1—particularly regarding provider taxes and state directed payments. The Senate version treats expansion and nonexpansion states unfairly, fails to preserve existing state programs, and imposes stricter limits that do not give hospitals sufficient time to adjust to new budgetary constraints or to identify alternative funding sources.
We are also concerned about rushed implementation timelines, penalties for expansion states, changes to the community engagement requirements for adults with dependents, and cuts to emergency Medicaid funding. These changes would place additional burdens on hospitals already stretched thin by legal and moral obligations to provide care.
"Protecting Medicaid is essential for the vulnerable constituents we were elected to represent," the lawmakers concluded. "Therefore, we cannot support a final bill that threatens access to coverage or jeopardizes the stability of our hospitals and providers."
Both chambers of Congress are scheduled to be on recess next week for the Independence Day holiday. Senators still have not voted on the package—and both chambers must pass identical versions of the megabill before it will reach President Donald Trump's desk.
Trump impatiently said on his Truth Social network Tuesday: "To my friends in the Senate, lock yourself in a room if you must, don't go home, and GET THE DEAL DONE THIS WEEK. Work with the House so they can pick it up, and pass it, IMMEDIATELY. NO ONE GOES ON VACATION UNTIL IT'S DONE."
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Justin Chermol dismissed the 16 GOP lawmakers' letter as "performative bullshit."
"These so-called moderates already voted for the largest cut to Medicaid in American history—and when the time comes, they'll cave to their D.C. party bosses once again to give their billionaire donors a massive tax break," Chermol added.Keep ReadingShow Less
'He Chose Billionaires': New Ad Targets Vulnerable Republican Over Vote to Gut Medicaid
Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, alongside his GOP colleagues in Congress, is accused of "cutting Medicaid so he can give tax breaks to big corporations and billionaires."
Jun 03, 2025
Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the House lawmakers most vulnerable to losing their seats in the 2026 midterms, was the target of a new ad that aired Tuesday as part of a nationwide campaign to draw public attention and outrage to the GOP plan to kick millions off Medicaid.
The ad—set to run on television, digital platforms, and streaming services in Nebraska—features a woman named Audrey, who says her step-daughter and three grandchildren are among the tens of millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid for health coverage.
"It's important that we continue to have Medicaid—it's lifesaving," Audrey says in the 30-second spot. "But Congressman Don Bacon doesn't act like it. He's actually cutting Medicaid so he can give tax breaks to big corporations and billionaires."
"Our grandkids rely on Medicaid," she continues. "It's important that they have that. Otherwise, they would not have access to healthcare, immunizations, and everything else. It's very important to us. It's not something you should take away to fund tax breaks for billionaires."
Watch:
Late last month, Bacon joined most of the House Republican caucus in voting to pass a 1,100-page budget reconciliation package that includes more than $700 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade and work reporting requirements that analysts say would strip insurance from as many as 14 million people in communities nationwide.
Weeks before casting his vote in favor of the legislation, Bacon said he wouldn't accept more than $500 billion in Medicaid cuts.
Kobie Christian of the Unrig Our Economy coalition, which is behind the nationwide ad campaign, said Tuesday that "Nebraska families like Audrey's have been struggling to afford healthcare for years, and Congressman Bacon decided it was a good idea to vote for the largest cut to Medicaid in American history that will leave millions without the healthcare they need."
"Congressman Bacon didn't just vote to rip away healthcare from children and families," Christian added. "He voted to hand that money to millionaires and billionaires. Congressman Bacon had a choice—and he chose billionaires over working families like Audrey's."
"It's that simple: If they are a 'no' on Medicaid cuts, then they can't support any version of the current reconciliation bill that slashes healthcare for millions of Americans."
The Republican budget bill is currently before the GOP-controlled Senate, which is expected to make significant changes before sending the legislation back to the House for final passage.
But it's far from clear that Republican senators will weaken the measure's deeply unpopular assault on Medicaid.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has voiced concerns about his colleagues' push for aggressive cuts to the program, wrote in a social media post on Monday that he had a "great talk" with President Donald Trump about the issue."
"He said again, NO MEDICAID BENEFIT CUTS," Hawley wrote.
But the Missouri senator has expressed support for Medicaid work requirements, which experts say are cruel and ineffective at achieving the GOP's stated goal of boosting employment among beneficiaries. Most Medicaid recipients already work, and the frequent reporting requirements included in the Republican legislation would, according to analysts, compromise health coverage for millions of people who are eligible for benefits.
"Let's see if Senator Hawley, President Trump, and the other Republican senators who've shunned Medicaid cuts practice what they preach," Tony Carrk, executive director of the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement Tuesday. "It's that simple: If they are a 'no' on Medicaid cuts, then they can't support any version of the current reconciliation bill that slashes healthcare for millions of Americans."
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'Start Over From Scratch': Nobel Laureate Economists Denounce GOP Budget Bill
"The House bill addresses none of the nation's key economic challenges usefully and exacerbates many of them."
Jun 02, 2025
Half a dozen Nobel Prize-winning economists on Monday expressed their "grave concerns" about the sprawling budget reconciliation package passed last month by the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, warning that slashing an already frayed social safety net and exploding the record deficit in service of massive tax cuts for the wealthiest households will worsen the nation's economic woes.
"The most acute and immediate damage stemming from this bill would be felt by the millions of American families losing key safety net protections like Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits," Daron Acemoglu, Peter Diamond, Oliver Hart, Simon Johnson, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz wrote in an open letter published by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a progressive think tank in Washington, D.C.
"The Medicaid cuts constitute a sad step backward in the nation's commitment to providing access to healthcare for all," the economists continued. "Proponents of the House bill often claim that these Medicaid cuts can be achieved simply by imposing work reporting requirements on healthy, working-age adults. But healthy, working-age adults are by definition not heavy consumers of health spending, so achieving the budgeted Medicaid cuts will obviously harm others as well."
🚨NEW: 6 Nobel laureate economists signed an open letter opposing the House budget bill 🚨 The bill adds significantly to the national debt while reducing incomes for the bottom 40%, they say. The most acute & immediate damage? Millions losing Medicaid & SNAP benefits: www.epi.org/publication/...
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— Economic Policy Institute (@epi.org) June 2, 2025 at 10:16 AM
Addressing the bill's staggering impact on public debt, the letter asserts that "U.S. structural deficits are already too high, with real debt service payments approaching their historic highs in the past year."
"The House bill layers $3.8 trillion in additional tax cuts ($5.3 trillion if all provisions are made permanent) on top of these existing fiscal gaps—and these tax cuts are overwhelmingly tilted toward the highest-income households," the Nobel laureates noted. "Even with the safety net cuts, the House bill leads to public debt rising by over $3 trillion in coming years (and over $5 trillion over the next decade if provisions are made permanent rather than phasing out). The higher debt and deficits will put noticeable upward pressure on both inflation and interest rates in coming years."
"The combination of cuts to key safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP and tax cuts disproportionately benefiting higher-income households means that the House budget constitutes an extremely large upward redistribution of income," the economists warned. "Given how much this bill adds to the U.S. debt, it is shocking that it still imposes absolute losses on the bottom 40% of U.S households."
"The United States has a number of pressing economic challenges to address, many of which require a greater level of state capacity to navigate—capacity that will be eroded by large tax cuts," the letter concludes. "The House bill addresses none of the nation's key economic challenges usefully and exacerbates many of them. The Senate should refuse to pass this bill and start over from scratch on the budget."
The so-called Big Beautiful Bill is now in the Senate, where Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has vowed on behalf of Democrats to "fight it with everything we've got."
"The Republican plan is simple: Sell out working and middle-class families to pay off the rich and well-connected," Schumer said in a "dear colleague" letter on Sunday. "The bill would raise costs and taxes by an average of more than $800 for 40% of American families. Twenty million Americans would see their healthcare costs skyrocket, while almost 14 million would lose their health insurance all together, including millions of children and seniors."
Furthermore, Schumer noted that "11 million people, including 4 million children, could lose access to safe and affordable food, while every one of the 40 million Americans receiving federal food assistance would get less support every month. All the while, their radical plan would see double-digit energy cost increases for American households and businesses, and threaten close to 800,000 good-paying jobs in the clean-energy economy."
"Their entire agenda," Schumer said of Republicans, "can be boiled down to this: Billionaires win and families lose."
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6 Truths About Medicaid Work Requirements the GOP Doesn’t Want You to Share
Republicans are spouting lies about a work requirement for Medicaid because they’re really trying to push eligible people off it—to help finance their big tax cut mainly for the rich.
May 29, 2025
One of my purposes in sending you this daily letter is to give you the truth about an important issue that U.S. President Donald Trump and his lapdogs in Congress are demagoguing—so you can spread the truth.
Right now, the Senate is taking up Trump’s “Big Beautiful budget bill” (really a Big Bad Ugly Bill) that just emerged from the House.
If enacted, it would be the largest redistribution of income in the nation’s history—from the poor and working class to the rich and super-rich.
The entire work requirement would affect 7% at most. In reality, a work requirement would cause many more who are eligible to lose their Medicaid coverage. The current estimate is at least 8.6 million people.
How? The tax cut mainly benefits the wealthy. A major source of funding is at least $715 billion of cuts in healthcare spending, mostly from Medicaid.
It also contains a poison pill that would remove the power of federal courts to hold officials in contempt of court—fining or imprisoning them if they fail to follow court orders. As the courts push back against Trump, this is a critical power.
The bill cuts Medicaid spending by requiring Medicaid recipients to work.
Republicans are spreading lies about this work requirement.
Here are the facts you need to know—and share:
1. 64% of adult Medicaid recipients already work.
Many recipients work in jobs that don’t typically offer health insurance and pay little—which makes Medicaid vital. These people aren’t freeloaders mooching off the system, as Republicans claim. They’re barely scraping by.
2. Adults on Medicaid who aren’t working have good reasons not to.
- 12% are primary caregivers.
- 10% have an illness or disability.
- 7 % are attending school.
3. So, 93% of all Medicaid recipients either already working or having good reason not to.
The entire work requirement would affect 7% at most. In reality, a work requirement would cause many more who are eligible to lose their Medicaid coverage. The current estimate is at least 8.6 million people.
4. The work requirement kicks eligible people Medicaid because of its burdensome and confusing reporting requirements.
It’s not really meant to put people to work. It’s a shady way of kicking people off Medicaid to fund tax cuts mainly for the wealthy.
In Arkansas, which tried a work requirement for Medicaid, more than 18,000 people who were eligible lost coverage mainly because of the paperwork reporting hoops they had to jump through.
5. When Arkansas enacted work requirements, there was no significant change in employment rates.
Because, again, Medicaid recipients already have high rates of employment to begin with.
6. If Republicans really want to put people to work, they’d make it easier to get Medicaid—not harder.
After Ohio expanded Medicaid, enrollees had an easier time finding and holding down a job.
Access to healthcare means people can manage chronic conditions, afford medication, or receive mental health treatment—all of which helps people keep their jobs.
Republicans are spouting lies about a work requirement for Medicaid because they’re really trying to push eligible people off it—to help finance their big tax cut mainly for the rich.
Senate Republicans can afford to lose only three Republican votes. Otherwise, the Big Bad Ugly Bill is dead. Please share these facts.
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Let the 2017 Tax Cuts Expire
It is high time for elected leaders to admit publicly that tax increases can sometimes be necessary to allow the government to continue or even expand vital programs.
May 27, 2025
The tax cuts enacted during the first Trump administration were scheduled to sunset at the end of 2025, returning us to the higher pre-2017 tax levels.
President Donald Trump now wants Congress to renew these tax cuts. But despite deep proposed reductions in many vital programs, extending the 2017 tax rates would guarantee a huge 10-year increase in the national debt.
With only a one vote majority, House Republicans have passed a bill doing exactly this. One must hope that the Senate will not go along with this irresponsible bill.
Which would Americans prefer? To pay somewhat higher taxes but live in a thriving economy, or pay lower taxes but live in a depressed economy?
In today's circumstances, letting the reduced taxes die a natural death would be the best possible action. Although pre-2017 tax levels were far from perfect, restoring them would substantially reduce annual deficits.
This wouldn't require Congress to do anything, which is what Congress does best.
In 2017 we were told that the tax cuts would stimulate so much additional economic activity that the reduced tax rates applied to the stronger economy would "pay" for the cuts. Instead, they drove up the national debt.
The draconian program cuts that are supposed to help pay for extending the 2017 tax rates will injure many people who voted for the new administration.
What are Republican legislators more interested in: reducing budget shortfalls, or reducing the taxes of their wealthy campaign donors?
If balancing the budget were their priority, they would be willing to consider tax increases in order to avoid slashing services for America's less fortunate people—Medicaid, food stamps, housing support, taking care of veterans. And they certainly wouldn't reduce the Internal Revenue Service enforcement budget, which brings in several tax dollars for each dollar spent.
Many Republicans have taken the "Norquist Pledge" never to vote for tax increases, a pledge which is so unwise that it amounts to political malpractice. There can be situations where reducing taxes is desirable, but no responsible leader who has taken Norquist's pledge could ever vote to reduce taxes.
Voting to reduce taxes would require them to make two false assumptions. First, that they can identify exactly how much the reductions should be. And second, that new circumstances will never arise where the reductions need to be reversed.
Letting the 2017 tax reductions expire will be the only way that Republican politicians who have unwisely taken the "pledge" can act responsibly without violating the pledge, since they would not need to vote for the increased taxes that the expiration of the reductions would automatically produce.
It is high time for elected leaders to admit publicly that tax increases can sometimes be necessary to allow the government to continue or even expand vital programs.
Whacking programs like Medicaid is an especially bad idea at a time when displacement of workers by artificial intelligence (AI) means that fewer and fewer jobs will be secure. These former workers will lose their job-related medical insurance, putting their health and that of their families in jeopardy. Many ill people will die prematurely, if they haven't starved first thanks to fewer food stamps.
Everybody else would also be damaged if, as is likely, this results in a major recession.
Medical care is now about one sixth of our economy. Doctors and hospitals employ large numbers of people and are now substantial parts of many local economies. The closure of hospitals caused by reductions in Medicaid will gravely harm these localities. Abruptly injuring one sixth of our economy is not going to be a great idea!
Which would Americans prefer? To pay somewhat higher taxes but live in a thriving economy, or pay lower taxes but live in a depressed economy?
People understandably don't like taxes. Equally understandably, politicians like to tell voters what they want to hear. But they also have a duty to tell the public the truth and to educate voters about where their bread is truly buttered.
One way or another, we all need to be reminded of the old but true saying: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. TANSTAAFL!
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