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tax cuts
CBO Report Confirms 'Republicans Are Lying' About Medicaid Cuts
"Their plan would force the largest Medicaid cuts in American history—all to pay for more tax giveaways to billionaires," said Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle.
Mar 06, 2025
At a press conference last week, U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise claimed Democrats are lying when they warn that Medicaid is in the Republican Party's crosshairs.
"The word Medicaid is not even in this bill," Scalise (R-La.) declared, waving the text of a budget resolution that House Republicans went on to pass over unified Democratic opposition.
But an analysis released late Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) makes clear that deep cuts to Medicaid would be required under the House GOP resolution, which President Donald Trump has endorsed.
The analysis, produced at the request of leading House Democrats, shows that Medicaid accounts for 93% of projected mandatory spending under the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce Committee over the next decade, not including Medicare.
That means Republicans would have to cut Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), or Medicare to achieve the $880 billion in spending reductions that the House budget resolution instructs the energy and commerce panel to impose between fiscal years 2025 and 2034.
"This analysis from the nonpartisan CBO confirms what we've been saying all along: Republicans are lying about their budget," said Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. "Their plan would force the largest Medicaid cuts in American history—all to pay for more tax giveaways to billionaires."
I keep hearing Republicans claim their budget doesn't cut Medicaid. We all know that's a lie — so I asked the nonpartisan CBO to look into it. Their analysis confirms it: the Republican budget delivers the largest Medicaid cuts in history to pay for giveaways to billionaires.
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— Rep. Brendan Boyle (@congressmanboyle.bsky.social) March 5, 2025 at 5:45 PM
According to the CBO, just $135 billion in spending under the House Energy and Commerce Committee's jurisdiction over the next decade would be available for cuts when excluding Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, and programs that are "budget-neutral with revenues offsetting spending."
That would leave the GOP far short of the $880 billion in energy and commerce spending reductions proposed in the House budget resolution, which still must make its way through the Republican-controlled Senate before the GOP can move ahead with Trump's legislative agenda.
The CBO's analysis comes a day after Trump neglected to mention Medicaid during his first address to Congress of his second term, a decision that one advocate said confirms the president "knows his plan to cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid is so deeply unpopular that he would rather sweep it under the rug."
Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Wednesday that the CBO analysis "confirms what we've been saying all along: The math doesn't work without devastating Medicaid cuts."
"The reality is the only way Republicans can cut at least $880 billion within the Energy and Commerce Committee's jurisdiction is by making deep, harmful cuts to Americans' healthcare," said Pallone. "Republicans know their spin is a lie, and the truth is they have no problem taking healthcare away from millions of Americans so that the rich can get richer and pay less in taxes than they already do."
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Working-Class Unity Key to Defeating Oligarchy, Says Sanders in Response to Trump SOTU
"We can win. We will win," said the senator. "Let's go forward together."
Mar 05, 2025
If working-class people in the United States were wondering why President Donald Trump had "very little to say about the REAL crises facing the working class of this country" in his State of the Union address, said U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders Tuesday night, they need look no further than the people Trump surrounded himself with at his inauguration in January.
"Standing right behind him were the three wealthiest men in the country," said the Vermont Independent senator, naming billionaire mogul and "special government employee" Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "And standing behind THEM were 13 other billionaires who Trump had nominated to head major government agencies. Many of these same billionaires—including Musk—were there tonight."
Despite Trump's repeated campaign promises to address the rising cost of living for working people, said Sanders, the State of the Union address offered the latest proof that "the Trump administration IS a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class."
Watch Sanders' address in full:
LIVE: President Trump’s Congressional Address needs a response. Here’s mine. https://t.co/O9yN04isIw
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 5, 2025
Sanders amplified the message he has sent on his National Tour to Fight Oligarchy—which he is scheduled to continue this week with stops in Warren, Michigan on Saturday and Kenosha, Wisconsin on Friday.
The senator called on working people of all racial identities, religions, and sexual orientations to join together to fight Trump's agenda and the billionaires who would benefit from his tax cuts, slashes to essential public services like Medicaid and food assistance, and efforts to divide people by demonizing immigrants, transgender people, and people of color.
"Yes, the oligarchs ARE enormously powerful. They have endless amounts of money. They control our economy. They own much of the media. They have enormous influence over our political system," said Sanders. "But, from the bottom of my heart, I am convinced that they can be beaten."
"If we stand together and not let them divide us up by the color of our skin or where we were born or our religion or sexual orientation; if we bring our people together around an agenda that works for the many and not the few—there is nothing in the world that can stop us," he said.
In his address, Sanders remained laser-focused on issues that impact working people—raising the federal minimum wage of just $7.25 per hour to a living wage of $17 per hour, repealing the Citizens UnitedSupreme Court ruling to end corporate influence over elections, and Trump's desire to pass a "big, beautiful" budget that would cut Medicaid by $880 billion, leaving up to 36 million Americans, including millions of children, without health insurance.
His response to the State of the Union address contrasted sharply with parts of the Democratic Party's official response given by Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who spoke out against the "unprecedented giveaway" Trump wants to give "to his billionaire friends" but also signaled the party leadership's disinterest in focusing primarily on issues that impact working people when she spoke positively about former Republican President Ronald Reagan.
"After the spectacle that just took place in the Oval Office last week, Reagan must be rolling over in his grave," Slotkin said, referring to Trump and Vice President JD Vance's attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "As a Cold War kid, I'm thankful it was Reagan and not Trump in office in the 1980s."
Historian Moshik Temkin wondered why the Democratic Party chose to hold up Reagan as a positive example of a president—considering his deregulatory, anti-taxation policies and promotion of so-called "trickle-down economics" that helped pave the way for rising economic inequality and the decimation of the middle class—instead of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who introduced Social Security, reformed the financial system, and provided relief to people who were suffering due to the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression.
"Who was this for?" asked historian Michael Brenes of Slotkin's address. "You don't rebuild the New Deal coalition with Cold War nostalgia and deference to Ronald Reagan. A better message: national security begins with economic security."
In contrast, Sanders' response, said former journalist and author Paul Handley, "is how you respond to Trump and define him for the American people."
Sanders ended his address by acknowledging the challenge of fighting against a political system increasingly controlled by billionaires, but warned, "despair is not an option."
"Giving up is not acceptable," said Sanders. "And none of us have the privilege of hiding under the covers. The stakes are just too high. Let us never forget. Real change only occurs when ordinary people stand up against oppression and injustice—and fight back."
"We can win. We will win," he concluded. "Let's go forward together."
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Analysis Finds Trump Tariffs Will Cost Average US Family $1,600 or More Per Year
"The trade war Trump is igniting will weaken our economy and cause chaos in our marketplace as Americans pay the cost in the form of higher prices on everyday items," said Rep. Don Beyer.
Mar 04, 2025
As U.S. President Donald Trump's new tariffs took effect on Tuesday, Congressman Don Beyer released a Joint Economic Committee report showing that the policies could cost the average working-class family in the United States at least $1,600 annually.
"The tariffs Trump just imposed on Canada, Mexico, and China will raise costs by up to $2,000 per year for an average American family," Beyer (D-Va.) said in a statement. "The trade war Trump is igniting will weaken our economy and cause chaos in our marketplace as Americans pay the cost in the form of higher prices on everyday items."
Dean Baker, co-founder and senior economist of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, warns that Trump's tariffs could cost families even more than the estimates from Beyer's report, which cites figures from the Budget Lab at Yale University.
"While our report does not touch on this, these tariffs will also lead to retaliation that badly harms American producers," Beyer said. "And they will fail to achieve any of the pretextual objectives Trump has stated for imposing them. Less than two months into his term, Trump is running the economy into the ground and raising a real and growing risk of a recession."
Ignoring experts' warnings about impacts on consumers and the economy, Trump on Tuesday doubled his previous tariff for Chinese imports to 20% and—after a monthlong delay—hit Canadian and Mexican imports with 25% tariffs. As The Associated Pressreported, the moves sparked "swift retaliation" from "America's three biggest trading partners."
Leaders from those countries had warned of their responses if Trump followed through on his threats. There was also evidence of what would happen from the tariffs that the president imposed on China during his first term. At the time, Beyer's report notes, "U.S. importers and consumers paid almost entirely for Trump's tariffs through higher prices."
Trump has recently claimed that his plan will force production in the United States, but the report points out that the new "tariffs also impact the price of domestically produced goods by causing U.S. producers to raise prices if their supply chain relies on imported raw materials subject to the tariffs."
Using figures released Monday by the Budget Lab, Beyer's report warns that this time:
- Electronics, like computers, phones, and televisions, will see overall prices rise by nearly 11%;
- Clothing prices are expected to also rise by 7.5%;
- The price of cars, car parts, and other motor vehicles are expected to increase by over 6%;
- Oil will also rise by 1.7% and petroleum and coal products will rise by 1.6%, making it more expensive for families to fill up their gas tanks and heat their homes;
- And at a time when a trip to the grocery store is already squeezing household budgets, grocery prices will jump under these tariffs, with fresh produce prices rising by nearly 3%, rice prices increasing by 4.4%, and food prices overall rising by nearly 2%.
"In addition to harming the national economy, Trump's tariff policies will significantly impact state and local economies," the report says. "In fact, small counties in the South and Midwest tend to have economies that are most reliant on international trade. Those states that are heavily dependent on trade for statewide business may also be particularly impacted."
Despite the anticipated impacts of the tariffs that Trump has already imposed, he is expected to go even further, targeting the European Union and beyond. The Tax Policy Center warned in October that "a 20% worldwide tariff and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods, one of many import tax ideas floated by... Trump, would increase household taxes by an average of nearly $3,000 in 2025."
Beyer—who serves on the panel behind the report and the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade—noted Tuesday that "Republicans in Congress could stop this at any time by passing legislation I and others have offered to rein in Trump's abuses of tariff authorities, but they appear content to help Trump raise prices and risk economic disaster."
Separately, Beyer and every other Democrat on the subcommittee released a joint statement stressing that "Americans simply cannot afford to be caught in endless trade wars" and that they "are united in rejecting these irresponsible tariffs designed to increase revenue for more tax cuts for the ultrawealthy."
Republicans control not only the White House but also both chambers of Congress, and GOP House members last month advanced a budget resolution that would fund an extension of Trump's 2017 tax cuts for the rich by slashing health and food assistance programs that help millions of working-class Americans.
Beyer and his subcommittee colleagues called on House Republicans "to work with us to reassert Congress' role in setting strategic, stable trade policies and to invest in the American economy, instead of abdicating their responsibilities to President Trump and Elon Musk," the billionaire leading the administration's effort to gut the federal government.
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