Tell Senator Johnson he needs to show leadership by rejecting the House’s reckless budget from being adopted by the Senate. People will suffer needlessly. People will die. Democracy in the U.S. may die. It is already suffering on life support from people to conscience who are resisting this madness.

Worst provisions in the House budget passed last week are the following:

• Cuts Medicare by an estimated $500 billion.

• Cuts Medicaid and at least 8.6 million Americans will lose coverage.

• Cuts SNAP impacting millions of kids and families to have enough to eat.

• Overwhelmingly the tax cuts benefit the rich and penalize the working poor.  Congressional Budget Office reports, the bottom 10% will lose 2% of their income while the top 10% gain 4%.

• Billions more in funding to further terrorize our immigrants and continue the Trump Administration's cruel mass deportation agenda.

• The bill will add $3.8 trillion to the US debt over 10 years.  Interest paid by taxpayers goes primarily to wealthy lenders.

• Lastly, a buried provision in this bill would prevent courts from holding Trump officials in "contempt of court", which would have a profound impact on the authority of the courts during the current Trump Administration's hostility towards judges.

Next National Day of Action, June 14, 2025

Detail on our Good Trouble page.

Tax Breaks for Billionaires
Cutting Medicaid & Snap, and
Even a Surprise or Two

Early Thursday morning (May 22) the GOP-controlled House passed the budget bill, that is, their “Big Billionaires Bill”. We saw it coming and we knew it was likely to pass because the hold-outs last week were staunch conservatives who were asking for deeper cuts and more help for the wealthiest people in the land.

We need to put as much pressure as possible on Senator Johnson.  Write, call or visit his local offices.  Use 5 Calls (https://5calls.org/) or you can look up the contact info for Ron Johnson at our website (https://www.walworthdems.org/elections).  Don’t forget to show Senator Tammy Baldwin your support for standing up against these provisions. 

MEDICAID: The changes to Medicaid will kill people (causing over 34,000 premature deaths according to one reputable estimate—detailed below).

TAXES: The tax code changes are heavily biased in favor of the richest people in this country and will balloon the deficit even while making deep cuts affecting the most vulnerable citizens. 

DEFUNDING ENFORCEMENT OF CONTEMPT OF COURT: The Judiciary Committee inserted a provision in the final bill that will shift the  financial burden of enforcing court orders on the plaintiffs. 

You can get more details here. 

On Medicaid: Reducing federal contributions to Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will result in premature deaths, up to 34,000 annually according to an estimate by the Center for American Progress if reduced support for Medicaid expansion results in states withdrawing from that program. (https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5261905-medicaid-cuts-house-republican-budget-plan/). The Medicaid work requirements will be implemented by the states where research shows that these rules are confusing with a high paperwork burden for enrollees and causes people who need health care to be dropped from the Medicaid program and won’t save money even as it costs more lives (https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/explainer/2025/jan/work-requirements-for-medicaid-enrollees).

On taxes: The Congressional Budget Office “estimates that in general, resources [cash and in-kind services like health care] would decrease for households in the lowest decile (tenth) of the income distribution, whereas resources would increase for households in the highest decile.” The losses to the lowest income people will come primarily from cuts to Medicaid and SNAP [food subsidies for needy families] and those cuts overwhelm the tax relief to lower income people.  “The bill includes a temporary boost in the standard deduction — a $1,000 increase for individuals, bringing it to $16,000 for individual filers, and a $2,000 boost for joint filers, bringing it to $32,000. The deduction reduces the amount of income that is actually subject to income tax.  There is also a temporary $500 increase in the child tax credit, bringing it to $2,500 for 2025 through 2028. It then returns to $2,000 and will increase to account for inflation.”  But it extends the budget busting tax giveaway from Trump’s 2017 tax changes.

On contempt enforcement: Specifically, “The House proposal would defund the enforcement of contempt orders if the judge had previously not ordered the plaintiffs in the case to put up a security bond with a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order granted in their favor – essentially making it more expensive to challenge administrative policies.” And this is made retroactive (https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/01/politics/judges-contempt-undermined-house-republican).

A summary of the most important provisions are in an AP article (https://apnews.com/article/big-beautiful-bill-trump-tax-cuts-medicaid-00ce1ff8a7b7fea7a894d38398748c6b)