It’s poetic that the so-called Big Beautiful Bill is making its way through Congress this week. A better name for the bill is the Republicans’ Greed New Deal. This bill will be the most dramatic shift in domestic policy since the original New Deal.
The bill will make the 2017 tax cuts permanent. Those tax cuts have already increased our national debt by trillions of dollars. The reality is that the biggest beneficiaries of those tax cuts are the wealthiest in America. The last time the Republicans tried to trick you into thinking that these tax cuts would decrease the debt, not increase it. This time, they are not even bothering with that ruse. They have included a $5 trillion credit line increase to pay for it. Yes, our Idaho delegation, who constantly shriek about deficit spending, who have a running total of our national debt on their website, were all too happy to sign their name to a $5 trillion loan agreement as long as it only benefited the wealthy.
I guess that deficit spending is only a problem if it benefits regular people and not billionaires. We know that the tax cuts cost $10 trillion last time, and they are only borrowing $5 trillion. So where is the rest of the money coming from? The deciding factor seems to be based on the size of your bank account. If you are already rich, you are off the hook. Everyone else? The young? The old? The sick? The poor? The hungry? Those people are the targets of this reverse Robin Hood scheme.
The Greed New Deal makes the largest cut to Medicaid in history. As many as 72,815 Idahoans would lose medical coverage with no way to replace it. The cuts will affect the elderly; more than half of those on long-term care could not afford it without Medicaid in addition to Medicare. The cuts will also almost certainly reduce healthcare access in rural areas for all patients, even those with private insurance, as hospitals close. It shouldn’t be lost on us that two-thirds of those on Medicaid already have jobs, and most of the rest are caregivers or have a disability. Most fraud is perpetrated by insurance companies and providers, not the people themselves.
The bill impacts the children who receive food as well. In Idaho, 67% of SNAP recipients are families with children. A large number of those on SNAP in Idaho are also working.
Republicans talk a lot about who “deserves” to eat and receive healthcare. But even hard workers can’t afford to live in the world Republicans are creating.
The Greed New Deal sells out future generations by making life harder for hard-working Idahoans while at the same time exploding the national debt.
After the Greed New Deal our country will never be the same. So it begs the question. Today, are we watching a parade or a funeral procession?
David Roth is a local educational consultant. He is Idaho’s national committeeman serving on the Democratic National Committee.