Senate Republicans are still finalizing their version of the budget reconciliation bill this week, but the broad strokes are already clear. While GOP senators and their House counterparts have taken slightly different approaches, both versions of the bill would kick millions of people off health insurance via the largest Medicaid cuts in history. Both would rip nutrition assistance away from millions of households, including households with children, via the largest SNAP cuts in history. And both call for trillions of dollars’ worth of tax cuts aimed disproportionately at the richest Americans — cuts so large that the nation’s deficit would increase by trillions over the next decade.
That last point has really struck a nerve with many Republicans, as it undercuts years of pretending to care about the national debt. In response, the bill’s proponents make one of two claims: either that the tax cuts that are extended from the 2017 Trump tax law ought to be considered free, or that both the extended and the new tax cuts generate so much growth that they pay for themselves. Both arguments are nonsense.
The above excerpt was originally published in MSNBC.
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