Washington D.C — Nearly one year after congressional Republicans passed their sweeping tax law, working families across the country are paying the price. According to analysis from NBC News, Republicans extended roughly $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and large corporations while cutting approximately $1.1 trillion from Medicaid and SNAP, programs tens of millions of Americans rely on.
The consequences are already being felt across the country. More than 4 million people have already lost SNAP benefits, hospitals are reducing services and laying off workers thanks to the Medicaid cuts, and an estimated 10 million more Americans could lose health insurance in the years to come.
For roughly every $1 congressional Republicans cut from programs working families rely on, the wealthiest 1% receive about $1 in tax breaks. Those consequences reflect the choice congressional Republicans made: More money for the wealthy, more costs for families.
“One year later, it’s clear exactly who congressional Republicans wrote this law for. They are taking resources away from people who need help the most and handing the ultra-wealthy another round of tax breaks,” said Unrig Our Economy Campaign Director Leor Tal. “Americans deserve a fair economy that benefits working families, not one rigged to enrich the wealthy at everyone else’s expense. Congressional Republicans must stop these harmful cuts and invest in the working families who keep our economy running.”
Read the NBC story here.
Key Points:
- Extending roughly $4.5 trillion in tax cuts disproportionately benefiting corporations and the wealthy over 10 years while cutting about $1.1 trillion from healthcare and food assistance programs serving poor and working-class people. It ultimately adds a projected $4.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
- “It deliberately targets some of the most vulnerable members of society,” said Chris Howard, a professor of public policy at the College of William & Mary and an expert on America’s safety net programs, “while providing huge windfalls to the richest individuals and to big business.”
- Once all of the law’s major provisions are fully phased in, Congressional Budget Office estimates show, the poorest households will end up with roughly $1,200 less each year on average, while the wealthiest Americans will gain about $13,600.
- Since the creation in 1965 of Medicare, which insures older Americans, and Medicaid, which covers low-income Americans and those with disabilities, the broad arc of federal health policy has been toward expanding access to care. The “big, beautiful bill” bends sharply in the opposite direction — representing the biggest cut to the healthcare safety net the country has ever seen.
- Over the next several years, states will face new restrictions on how they fund their share of Medicaid, which experts say will force cash-strapped legislatures to make difficult budget choices.
- Among the most at risk: medicaid-funded home-care programs that help older adults and people with disabilities stay out of nursing homes. Because those services are optional under federal law, experts say, they’re often the first to go when budgets tighten.
- The law is also hitting kitchen tables. States are rolling out $187 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — the steepest in the food stamp program’s more than 60-year history.
- No state has seen a more dramatic drop than Arizona, where more than 450,000 people had lost their food benefits as of May, according to state data. Advocates say many of them are eligible but struggling to comply with documentation requirements the state added to avoid hefty federal penalties for errors.
To learn more about the campaign, visit UnrigOurEconomy.com or contact press@unrigoureconomy.com
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About Unrig Our Economy
Unrig Our Economy is a national campaign to fix the rules of our economy to make it work for working people. We know that when the middle class does well, all of us do well — which is why we’re fighting on behalf of working Americans and holding corporations, their wealthy executives, and the politicians who enable them accountable.