North Coast Congressmember Jared Huffman issued a blistering statement calling the budget bill narrowly passed by Senate Republicans shortly before the Journal went to press July 1 a “betrayal,” warning it will have devastating economic, environmental and health impacts.
“The Senate just jammed through a scorched-earth reconciliation bill so toxic that it is worse than the House version, if you can believe it,” Huffman said in a statement issued shortly after Vice President J.D. Vance voted to break a 50-50 tie to send the revised domestic policy bill back to the House for consideration. “It takes away healthcare from millions of Americans, rips food assistance from kids and seniors, and guts the very safeguards that protect our clean air and water — all to reward the same fossil fuel CEOs Trump asked for a billion-dollar campaign check. It props up the dirt energy of the past, suffocates clean energy and sticks American families with higher costs, dirtier air and water, and growing floods, fires and climate disasters.”
The bill seeks to make permanent tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration in 2017 that experts say disproportionately benefit the wealthy and large corporations. Budget analysts project the bill would add $3.3 trillion to the federal budget deficit over the next decade — the equivalent of what it would cost to gift every U.S. household $25,000 — with provisions eliminating inheritance taxes on estates valued up to $15 million per person and maintaining a 2.6 percent tax break for the nation’s highest earners, individuals making at least $639,000 annually. (The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, meanwhile, estimates the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans now control 60 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the poorest 50 percent of the country combines to control just 6 percent.)
To mitigate the fiscal impact of the tax cuts, the bill has provisions that would change Medicaid requirements, making them more onerous, which nonpartisan analysts project would lead to nearly 12 million Americans losing health insurance over the next decade. Additionally, the bill would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food stamps to low-income Americans, by 20 percent, and roll back tax credits for solar and wind energy project and impose new taxes on them. The bill also includes increased appropriations to fund Trump’s mass deportation efforts and increased military spending, while creating tax advantaged savings accounts for newborns with an $1,000 government contribution.
The bill now heads back to the House for consideration and possible passage.
While Journal efforts to reach a host of local officials following the Senate’s July 1 vote were unsuccessful, they have previously expressed grave concerns about the proposed Medicaid cuts. Nearly 25 percent of Humboldt County residents are covered by Medicaid, according to a Georgetown University report, and officials have warned that significant cuts would have dramatic impacts on healthcare delivery on the North Coast. Open Door Community Health Centers CEO Tory Starr warned the proposed cuts would result in thousands of people in Humboldt and Del Norte counties losing coverage, while a spokesperson for Providence Health said the cuts included in the bill would have “devastating impacts on healthcare” on the North Coast. The Area 1 Agency on Aging warned that the proposed 30-percent cut in nutrition assistance funding would hurt seniors and children.
The revised bill now heads back to the House, which narrowly passed a previous version along mostly partisan lines in May, as polls show roughly 60 percent of the nation disapproves of it.
“Republicans better be ready to explain why they’re ripping up healthcare and food assistance, selling out public lands, gutting clean air and water safeguards, and driving up energy bills, all so big billionaires and big oil CEOs can get richer,” Huffman said.
This article appears in A Place to Stop and Rest.
