Budget Committee Republicans Are Moving to Take Away Food and Health Care From Americans

Earlier today, both the House and Senate budget committees took their first step toward passing a partisan reconciliation bill. The Senate Budget Committee marked up Chairman Lindsay Graham’s (R-SC) budget resolution, and the House Budget Committee Republicans released the text of their budget resolution, which is scheduled to be marked up tomorrow. Over the last few months, Republican leaders have publicly indicated their intent to use budget reconciliation to cut health care via the Medicaid program and reduce access to food assistance via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The budget resolution that passed out of the Senate Budget Committee today, and the budget resolution introduced by House Republicans today, began that process by instructing relevant committees—the Senate Finance Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as both the House and Senate agriculture committees—to reduce the deficit. In other words, they were told to cut programs in their jurisdiction.*

Unlike most legislation, budget reconciliation bills are not subject to a Senate filibuster and can be passed in the Senate with a simple majority. Budget reconciliation rules therefore allow the current Republican majority to enact legislation despite having fewer than 60 votes in the Senate, posing a serious threat to these programs. The tables below show the reconciliation directives.

In a press statement accompanying the release of the budget resolution, Sen. Graham said the reconciliation bill would create $342 billion in new spending, offset by cutting $342 billion in existing spending. The reconciled committees show that Budget Committee Republicans intend to take away health care and nutrition assistance from American families by cutting Medicaid and SNAP. Corroborating this, in today’s budget resolution markup, Senate Finance Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) confirmed that the Senate would target Medicaid, and House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX) put out a white paper last month calling for Medicaid and SNAP cuts in reconciliation.

Reconciliation instructions have a one-sided requirement: Instructions to reduce the deficit must do so by at least the instructed amount but may always achieve more savings; instructions to increase the deficit may do so by no more than the instructed amount but may always do less. This year, the Senate majority crafted the instructions to allow itself large flexibility during the reconciliation process. By instructing many of the committees to cut at least $1 billion each, the Senate’s reconciliation instructions allow those committees to continue tweaking policies throughout the negotiations to achieve a total of $342 billion in spending cuts.**

For instance, imagine that Senate Budget Committee Republicans initially plan $50 billion in SNAP cuts; $200 billion in Medicaid cuts; $90 billion in cuts to student loan programs (the budget resolution also reconciles the Senate Health, Labor, Education, and Pensions Committee as well as the House Education and Workforce Committee); and $2 billion from elsewhere. There is a possibility that the majority’s plans could unravel. Then, if the committee instructions had mandated at least that amount in savings from certain committees rather than the $1 billion minimum requirement—and if their plan fell apart—Senate Republicans would be hamstrung because the instructions mandated where the savings would come from. However, by writing the instructions to require only at least $1 billion in deficit reduction from each of the specified committees instructed to find savings, if that plan fell apart, the reconciliation instructions allow Senate Republicans to rework the plan to have larger cuts from some programs and smaller cuts from others.

In contrast, House Republicans have locked themselves into large Medicaid and SNAP cuts while proposing to extend the Trump tax cuts. By instructing the House Energy and Commerce Committee to achieve at least $880 billion in deficit reduction and the House Agriculture Committee to achieve at least $230 billion in deficit reduction, they have proposed deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP that would take food and health care away from millions of Americans while partially financing tax cuts for the richest Americans.

Reconciliation instructions are a specific dollar target for committees but cannot indicate which policies or programs will be altered to achieve the reconciliation directive. Americans will, therefore, not know the full details of the reconciliation bill until the reconciled authorizing committees begin to produce legislation pursuant to the reconciliation directives.

What Americans can be sure of, however, is that budget committee Republicans have shown their hands by instructing the health care and nutrition committees to cut programs people rely on after publicly calling to cut health care and nutrition for months. Congress should reject any legislation that jeopardizes American families’ health and food security.

The authors would like to thank Emily Gee, Lily Roberts, Colin Seeberger, Madeline Shepherd, Shannon Baker-Branstetter, Andrea Ducas, Natasha Murphy, Kyle Ross, Sara Partridge, Debu Gandhi, Brendan Duke, and Jessica Vela for their thoughtful comments

* Authors’ note: The Senate budget resolution did not reconcile the House Ways and Means Committee. Therefore, the Senate Finance Committee must achieve its savings through program cuts rather than having the option to increase taxes. The House budget resolution did not reconcile any Senate committees, but those will be added later.

** Authors’ note: The reconciliation directives also call for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee to each increase the deficit by up to $175 billion. Senate Budget Chairman Graham has indicated that he is looking to spend $175 billion on the border and immigration enforcement in total between the two committees.