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‘No mistake about who they serve’: Republicans eye Medicaid, SNAP cuts to pay for Trump tax plan
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‘No mistake about who they serve’: Republicans eye Medicaid, SNAP cuts to pay for Trump tax plan

President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers are pursuing major cuts to federal safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps to balance the cost of their massive fiscal agenda, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Upon taking office in January, Trump plans to extend a 2017 tax law he signed during his first term that is set to expire at the end of next year. The bill’s extension would add an estimated $4 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years, the Congressional Budget Office estimate. Current debt now stands at $36 trillion.

GOP lawmakers are considering capping spending on the programs by adding stricter work requirements to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), sources told The Post.

Expanding work requirements does little to improve long-term employment options and makes basic needs more difficult for low-income people, research performances.

The GOP’s proposed cuts to federal programs that serve more than 70 million Americans are causing concern among both Democrats and Republicans, but for different reasons. It comes as Elon Musk, via his quasi-government Department for Government Efficiencypromises massive cuts in federal spending that would necessarily be at the expense of those who rely on social programs.

“To pay for tax cuts for their billionaire donors, the GOP wants to make food and health care unaffordable and unaffordable for the most vulnerable people in our country,” Rep. Summer Lee, D-Penn., he wrote on X. “Make no mistake about whom I serve.”

However, Republicans are more concerned about the political implications of eliminating federal safety net programs.

“I don’t think passing just an extension of tax cuts that shows on paper an increase in the deficit (will) be a challenge. But the other side of the coin is you start adding things to reduce the deficit, and that becomes more difficult politically,” a GOP tax adviser told The Post.

While Republicans have denied that the cuts represent a reduction in benefits for low-income Americans and are instead a mechanism to reduce unnecessary federal spending, a analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Trump’s proposal would be reduce taxes for the richest 5% and raise it for everyone else.

“This is the most comprehensive analysis anyone has done, and the conclusions are very clear,” Amy Hanauer, executive director of ITEP, said in a statement. “Trump’s tax proposals would substantially raise taxes on ordinary Americans while giving more tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy.”

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