House Republicans are celebrating the major victory they delivered early Thursday morning for President Donald Trump.
Minutes after the GOP majority in the House of Representatives stood nearly entirely united to pass Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts package by a razor-thin 215-214, Speaker Mike Johnson touted that “the House has passed generational, truly nation-shaping legislation.”
Johnson predicted the measure would, among other things, “reduce spending and permanently lower taxes for families and job creators … and make government work more efficiently and effectively for all Americans.”
And Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota said that House Republicans have “shown time and time again that we deliver for the American people, especially when it matters most.”
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But with Republicans clinging to a fragile House majority, Democrats view the House passage of what’s called Trump’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act” as political ammunition as they aim to win back control of the chamber in next year’s midterm elections.
Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin, in deriding the legislation, pledged that “Democrats will do everything we can to kick those who are responsible for this bill out of office. We have Americans at our side. This vote will cost many, many Republicans their seats in the midterms.”
And Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington State said in a Fox News Digital interview ahead of the final House vote that “we’re going to hold Republicans accountable, and there will be a price to pay.”
But the rival National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) disagrees.
“House Democrats just signed their own political death warrant. Voters won’t forget how they betrayed working families. And Republicans won’t let them,” NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella argued in a statement.
The GOP-crafted measure is stuffed full of Trump’s campaign trail promises and second-term priorities on tax cuts, immigration, defense, energy and the debt limit. It includes extending his signature 2017 tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay, providing billions for border security and codifying his controversial immigration crackdown.
Passage of the bill in the House comes as the national debt currently sits at $36,214,475,432,210.84, according to Fox Business’ National Debt Tracker.
The massive package now heads to the Senate, where Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Democrat in the chamber, said that “this is not one big, beautiful bill. It’s ugly.”
As Democrats attack the measure, they’re highlighting the GOP’s proposed restructuring of Medicaid—the nearly 60-year-old federal program that provides health coverage to roughly 71 million low-income Americans.
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The changes to Medicaid, as well as cuts to food stamps, another one of the nation’s major safety net programs, were drafted in part as an offset to pay for extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire later this year. The measure includes a slew of new rules and regulatory requirements for those seeking Medicaid coverage. Among them are a new set of work requirements for many of those seeking coverage.
“Let’s be clear, all Republicans are talking about right now is how many people and how fast they’re going to take away healthcare. They have these huge cuts to Medicaid, 14 million people lose healthcare across the country, and they’re talking about how fast they can do that,” said DelBene.
Schumer argued that “there’s nothing beautiful about stripping away people’s healthcare, forcing kids to go hungry, denying communities the resources they need, and increasing poverty.”
And Martin claimed that “the GOP budget will decimate local communities, blow an economic hole in rural America, and make us into a nation governed by and for a handful of elites.”
House Republicans push back against the Democrats’ attacks and say what they are doing is putting an end to waste, fraud and abuse currently in the Medicaid system, so the program can work for the public in the way that it was intended.
They call any talk that they are cutting aid to mothers, children, people with disabilities and the elderly a “flat out lie.”
And NRCC chair Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina told Fox News Digital in a statement ahead of the vote that “Republicans are ending waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid so the most vulnerable get the care they need.”
“Democrats are lying to protect a broken status quo that lets illegal immigrants siphon off billions meant for American families. We’re strengthening Medicaid for future generations by protecting taxpayers and restoring integrity,” Hudson added.
Dating back to last year’s presidential campaign, Trump has vowed not to touch Medicaid. On Tuesday, as he made a rare stop on Capitol Hill to meet behind closed doors with House Republicans in order to shore up support for the bill, Trump’s message to fiscally conservative lawmakers looking to make further cuts to Medicaid was “Don’t f— around with Medicaid.”
While there are divisions between Republicans over Medicaid, and a chasm between the two major parties over the longstanding entitlement program, there is one point of agreement: This issue will continue to simmer on the campaign trail in one form or another long after the legislative battles on Capitol Hill are over.
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