Democratic Governors: What's the GOP Budget Bill? A Big Betrayal of the Middle Class

Newsweek

21 hours ago

The GOP is calling it a big, beautiful bill. We're calling it what it really is—a big betrayal.
That's why we don't like what we're seeing coming out of Washington, D.C., right now. When President Donald Trump said this bill would be "big," he was right in one sense: this bill will be a big problem for Americans across the country. The whole point of the legislation is to give massive tax handouts to the very wealthy. To do this, the GOP is willing to cut necessities like Medicaid and food assistance that their own constituents rely on. And because those handouts to billionaires are so big, this bill will also explode the national deficit.
People in every corner of America will feel the effects of Trump and congressional Republicans' disastrous budget now that it is law. You deserve to know exactly what's in it.
President Donald Trump talks to members of the media outside the court room at the New York State Supreme Court on the first day of his civil fraud trial, in New York City, on October...
President Donald Trump talks to members of the media outside the court room at the New York State Supreme Court on the first day of his civil fraud trial, in New York City, on October 2, 2023. More
KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images
Let's start with health care. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, this bill would hurt working families most. It will terminate health care coverage for an estimated 16 million Americans, including 8 million children on Medicaid. This will be a disaster for our most vulnerable citizens: those fighting cancer and other life-threatening conditions, along with seniors, pregnant women, and people with disabilities. It will jack up health care premiums and out-of-pocket costs for everybody else. Americans already pay more for health care than they should. Why make working families pay more just so billionaires can get a massive tax break?
The Republican budget bill also jeopardizes food assistance for millions of Americans and will make it harder for working moms and dads to feed themselves and their kids. No one should be forced to go to bed hungry—42 million people in our country rely on SNAP assistance to get by. It's an essential program that saves people money so they can pay their rent and keep the lights on.
This bill will force families to choose between feeding their children, making sure they have reliable child care to go to work, and paying their other bills. That's a choice no American should have to make.
Not only does this bill greenlight massive health care and food assistance cuts, but it will pose massive threats to rural communities. Rural hospitals in red and blue states, already struggling to keep their doors open and provide care, will be at a greater risk of shutting down. Farmers who provide the food that SNAP helps people buy will have fewer buyers for their products.
The GOP is claiming states will be able to backfill the huge funding gaps we've just listed out. As governors who have to balance budgets every single year, we'll give it to you straight: that's ridiculous. There's just no way state budgets can make up the difference.
Each of us goes to bed each night and wakes up each morning thinking about how to best serve the people of our states—fixing the roads, bringing in more good-paying jobs to make life more affordable, and funding our public schools.
In other words, we put the people we serve first. If politicians in D.C. did the same, they wouldn't have let this big betrayal of American families become law.
Gretchen Whitmer is the governor of Michigan.
Laura Kelly is the governor of Kansas.
Michelle Lujan Grisham is the governor of New Mexico.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.