President Donald Trumps’ Big Beautiful Bill that scraped through Congress with 215 to 214 votes affects the biggest Medicaid cut in US history affecting tens of thousands of middle-class Americans depending on Medicare for their treatment. It denies treatment to over eight million Americans.
Trump’s sweeping budget legislation has been described as the biggest Medicaid cut in U.S. history. House Republicans passed the bill early Thursday morning in a 215-214 vote. The legislation would trigger massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid over the next 10 years, denying coverage to an estimated 7.6 million Americans, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Food assistance under the federal SNAP program would also see $300 billion in cuts, while adding billions in funding for Trump’s mass deportation agenda and giving the wealthiest Americans a tax break. The wealthiest Americans constitute just two to three percent of the population and the rest 97 to 98% comprises the middle class, mainly urban middle class that lives in cities and towns.
“The legislation is basically a mugging conducted by the 1% against the rest of us. It represents the single largest upward redistribution of wealth effectuated by any piece of legislation in our history,” says Chris Lehmann, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation.
Senate Republicans, who have voiced some concerns over the bill, will now have to pass their own version of the budget. With all Democratic senators opposed to the package, Republicans are working to use the reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster.
A filibuster is a legislative measure where if the senate commands a 60% majority it can eve block legislation from being introduced in the house. The GOP senators induced by President Trump have been making efforts to do away with this legislation.
Heather Cox Richardson, in her newsletter, points out that we’re talking about “the single biggest increase in funding to — “immigration enforcement in the history of the United States,” increasing ICE’s detention budget from $3.4 billion a year to $45 billion through September 2029, a staggering 365% increase on an annual basis that would permit ICE to detain at least 100,000 people at a time.
Here is a look at what the Trumps Big Beautiful Budget that gives major concessions to the one percent of the wealthiest of the wealthy people in American while throwing out nearly 8 million average middle class house holders out of the health care net.
Trump’s sweeping budget bill includes what’s been described as the biggest Medicaid cuts in U.S. history. On early Thursday morning, House Republicans passed the bill, giving massive tax breaks to the rich while slashing spending for Medicaid, Medicare, food assistance and subsidies for clean energy.
The measure just eked through with a 215-to-214 vote that came after an all-night session and days of negotiations.
Food assistance under the federal SNAP program would also see $300 billion in cuts, while adding billions in funding for Trump’s border enforcement and mass deportation agenda.
House Speaker Mike Johnson praised the budget package, speaking after the vote.
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: We look forward to the Senate’s timely consideration of this once-in-a-generation legislation. We stand ready to continue our work together to deliver on the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, as President Trump named it himself.
Ahead of the House vote, Democratic Congress member Greg Casar of Texas confronted Republicans on the House Budget Committee on rising healthcare premiums for their constituents while giving billionaires more tax breaks.
“THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL” has PASSED the House of Representatives! This is arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country! The Bill includes MASSIVE Tax CUTS, No Tax on Tips, No Tax on Overtime, Tax Deductions when…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 22, 2025
REP. GREG CASAR: In this bill, they’re going to jack up the premiums on healthcare for the people that rely on the marketplace for their healthcare. Many of my Republican colleagues want to address the amount of money that their tax-paying citizens are going to have to pay in increased premiums for their healthcare. … And what bothers me the most is that we want to hide it.
Nobody wants here to talk about the fact that they are jacking up insurance costs on their own constituents while giving a billionaire a tax break. Nobody on the Republican side pushing this bill wants to have an in-person town hall and look their constituents in the eye and explain to them why they want to hand Elon Musk another $25 billion contract while jacking up your health insurance costs, not just by hundreds, but by thousands of dollars.
They’re the largest Medicaid cuts in U.S. history. The legislation would trigger $625 billion in Medicare cuts over the next 10 years.
Some Senate Republicans have voiced some concerns over the measure and will now have to pass their own version of the budget. With all Democratic senators opposed to the package, Republicans could resort to using the reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster.
Chris Lehmann, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation. In his latest piece headlined “Trump and Johnson’s Big Ugly Lie. “Says the legislation is basically a mugging conducted by the 1% against the rest of us.
It represents the single largest upward redistribution of wealth effectuated by any piece of legislation in our history. The tax cuts work out to about $4 trillion, and the chief beneficiaries are at the upper end of the income spectrum. People earning $4 million or more, the 0.1%, will realize $389,000 gains in their after-tax income, whereas the lowest Quin·tile of earners, who make $17,000 or less, will be on the hook for $1,000 and some change in their after-tax income, and that number will rise over the 10-year course of this package.
It represents the single largest upward redistribution of wealth effectuated by any piece of legislation in our history. The tax cuts work out to about $4 trillion, and the chief beneficiaries are at the upper end of the income spectrum. People earning $4 million or more, the 0.1%, will realize $389,000 gains in their after-tax income, whereas the lowest Quin·tile of earners, who make $17,000 or less, will be on the hook for $1,000 and some change in their after-tax income, and that number will rise over the 10-year course of this package.
And the GOP has dishonestly peddled it as a, you know, necessary — the cuts in the legislation as necessary fiscal discipline. In point of fact, this package will increase the federal deficit by $3 trillion. The bond markets swooned on the news that this legislation has passed. The futures markets today are sort of in freefall.
So, it is just an outlandish piece of legislation, you know, based on basic economic principles, and it is a massive giveaway to the wealthy, Lehmann said adding, there is historic cuts to Medicaid, to SNAP, to food assistance. There’s also just, you know, crass and corrupt lobbying giveaways. There’s a provision in it that prohibits all states from regulating artificial intelligence. It’s a staggering work of theft from on high.
What does Lehmann mean by saying “on high?” What do the billionaires get in exchange for cutting Medicaid, triggering Medicare cuts, cutting clean energy, cutting food assistance. And that’s no complicated arithmetic. They get $2.5 trillion in tax cuts. And that is — that’s been the social contract, you know, behind the MAGA takeover of the GOP all this time.
The billionaires are more than happy to have Trump foment racial hatreds, you know, panic about the border, about DEI, what have you, go after universities, as we’re now seeing, all in exchange for this, for yet more obscene wealth, Lehman said. As is crafted in this bill, it’s directly taking critically needed support and assistance from the middle class and the working class.
What does the Democratic Party that vote’s enblock 214 have to say about the bill? The party has faced widespread criticism, accused of failing to properly challenge Trump’s agenda. That’s the new narrative. The New — in The New Republic that says, quote, “House Republicans managed to pass their draconian budget bill, which promises to make massive cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and food assistance, early Thursday morning by a narrow one-vote margin that was only possible due the deaths of three Democrats in this current Congress.”
It goes on to talk about, on Wednesday, Representative Gerry Connolly of [Virginia] passed away after battling esophageal cancer. He’s the third Democrat to die in office this year and the sixth in just over a year. In March, longtime Arizona Congress-member Raúl Grijalva passed away also after battling cancer, and Congress member Sylvester Turner of Houston, Texas, died six days earlier.
Can you imagine this? How the democrats lost out.
This is an ongoing problem in the house. All this is all in the shadow of new revelations about how the Biden White House basically concealed the actual cognitive decline of the president. There is a huge gerontocracy problem in the Democratic Party. It is not an exaggeration, if we did not lose these three House members, this disastrous bill might have been stopped.
And it’s also — you know, beyond the demographics, there is also just a basic failure of standing up for principle.
There was an earlier budget showdown that could have produced a government shutdown, and Democrats had leverage at that point to get concessions from Republicans in exchange for letting the budget go forward, and Chuck Schumer just folded like a cheap suit in the Senate and gave the Republicans everything they demanded.
That’s the sort of longer-term background to this disastrous bill that passed yesterday. The Republicans know they can count on Democrats either to put things bluntly, to die or to fold. This is a real problem, points out Lehmann.
Heather Cox Richardson, in her newsletter, points out that we’re talking about “the single biggest increase in funding to — “immigration enforcement in the history of the United States,” increasing ICE’s detention budget from $3.4 billion a year to $45 billion through September 2029, a staggering 365% increase on an annual basis that would permit ICE to detain at least 100,000 people at a time.
Heather Cox Richardson writes, “It increases ICE’s budget for transportation and removal operations by 500%, from the current $721 million to $14.4 billion. It also calls for [$46.5 billion] for construction of barriers at the border, including completing 701 miles of wall, 900 miles of river barriers, and 629 miles of secondary barriers, and replacement of 141 miles of vehicle and pedestrian barriers.”
It calls for $45 billion for adult and family detention, enough to detain at least 100,000 people at a time.
Source: Democracy Now.
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