Overnight Thursday, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky delivered an impassioned speech to his fellow Republicans: Don’t pass President Donald Trump’s “bill, beautiful bill” that would slash taxes for the rich, cut Medicaid, and — most urgently for Massie — increase the national debt by trillions of dollars.
“We are not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” Massie said on the House floor. “We’re putting coal in the boiler and setting a course for the iceberg.”
Two Republicans, Massie and Warren Davidson of Ohio, broke with their party and voted “no.” Two other Republicans missed the vote, one of whom, New York Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino, admitted he slept through it after the House’s all-nighter.
The House passed the massive reconciliation package by a narrow 215-214 vote. Democrats likely would have been able to block the bill, but three of their members passed away while in office this year, including, most recently, Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia just this Wednesday.
The current House version of the megabill would:
• Extend tax cuts from the 2017 tax law for wealthy Americans
• Cut almost $700 billion from Medicaid, per the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
• Require Medicaid recipients who are able-bodied adults without dependents to, by the end of 2026, have employment or do at least 80 hours of community service a month
• Require recipients to verify their ability to continue using Medicaid twice a year, up from once
• Restrict payments to Affordable Care Act plans that offer abortions, aside from cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother
• Cut funding for the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP), which administers food stamps, by about $267 billion over 10 years
• Force states, starting in fiscal year 2028, to shoulder 5% of benefit costs and 75% of the administrative costs (up from 0% and 50%, respectively)
• Expand work requirements for Americans to get food aid. Able-bodied adults without dependents would have to work until the age of 64, up from 54.
• Phase out clean energy tax credits that Congress passed during Joe Biden’s presidency
• Increase the state and local tax deduction (SALT) cap from $10,000 to $40,000 a year
• Temporarily boost the federal standard income tax deduction for individuals by $1,000
• Increase the federal child tax credit by $500 through 2028
• Raise the estate tax exemption to $15 million
• Allow small businesses, partnerships, and S corporations to subtract 23% of their qualified business income from their taxes, up from 20%
• Pump $46.5 billion to restart construction of Trump’s desired border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border
• Allocate $4 billion to hire an additional 3,000 new Border Patrol agents and 5,000 new Customs officers
• Provide money to hire 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and investigators
• Charge migrants a new $1,000 fee if they seek asylum in the United States
The legislation now heads to the Senate, where Republicans — some of whom have echoed Massie’s concerns about the bill’s potential to add to the deficit — have promised to make major changes to the package.
