Millions of low -income Americans could suffer alarming economic losses with the package of internal policy measures that Republicans approved Tuesday in the Senate. The package reserves its greatest benefits to the rich and at the same time, threatens to strip the poor of medical insurance, coupons for food and other aid.
For many families, the loss of fundamental federal aid probably annuls any improvement that could experience as a light tax reduction, experts said. That reality could weaken Republican legislators and President Donald Trump, who insisted again this week that his legislative vision would benefit the entire economy.
The most recent evidence arrived in the hours before the congressmen finalized the details of their emblematic legislation. When studying a version of the Senate bill that has later been amended, Yale Budget Laboratory experts, a research center, concluded on Monday that would distribute their benefits disproportionately.
According to the analysis, which takes into account the wages received and the public benefits received, the Americans who constitute the last five lower groups of the income receivers would see their annual income after taxes an average of 2.3% in the next decade, while those of the highest part would experience an increase of 2.3%.
On average, this translates into losses of about US $ 560 for those who declare few or no income in 2034, and in profits of more than US $ 118,000 for those who earn more than US $ 3 million, according to the report. Martha Gimbel, co -founder of the budget laboratory, described the measure of the Senate as “highly regressive.”
The disparity is due in large part to the fact that Republicans intend to pay their fiscal measures dramatically cutting the programs for the poor, such as Medicaid and food coupons. The cuts suppose one of the greatest reductions of the federal safety network in a generation. But the savings they generate only compensates for a fraction of the total cost of the bill, which is expected to add more than US $ 3 billion to the federal debt by 2034.
Republicans have continued to defend the package as a victory for all Americans. On Tuesday, the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, described the bill as a “agreement for working people,” and said in Fox News that would protect Medicaid. Once the law was approved, Stephen Miran, president of the Blanca Economic Advisors Council, announced it as a gift for economic growth.
But the Budget Office of the Congress, which is not partisan, discovered before almost 12 million more Americans could run out of insurance by 2034 if a recent version of the Senate Republicans’s bill is approved. That includes the beneficiaries of Medicaid, who could lose benefits because of the way Trump and his party aspire to retouch the program financing structure.
The Democrats repeatedly raised these risks during a three -day marathon debate prior to the approval of the bill, while trying to avoid changes in the federal security network. But Republicans rejected each of those attempts, opting just to protect certain states from the most drastic cuts to win those who resist, such as Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska.
“How can a senator return home and tell his voters: ‘I’m sorry, did I take away health assistance because I wanted to give tax exemptions to billionaires?” Asked Senator Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat and minority leader, during the debate on Monday. He accused the Republicans of applying “ruinous policies for their own voters.”
The measures package signed by Trump must still obtain support from the House of Representatives, which approved a different version of the bill at the end of May. In recent days, some increasingly uneasy conservatives have suggested that they are not satisfied with the Senate project and that they might want to cut the expense even more.
Both the measures of the House of Representatives and those of the Senate would retain a series of tax cuts that the Republicans promulgated during Trump’s first mandate in 2017. In the absence of that extension, many Americans would see the increase in taxes next year, a measure that the White House has described as economic calamity. Republican legislators also intend to fulfill the campaign commitments of the president by 2024, including their promise to end taxes on tips wages and the payment of overtime.
As a result, most Americans will suffer some type of fiscal cut with the Republican plans, but the profits will not be distributed equally.
With the Senate bill, a person who wins US $ 217 thousand or more a year would receive a fiscal reduction of about US $ 12,500 on average, according to a new analysis published Monday by the Urban-Brookings Fiscal Policy Center, in which the last minute changes in the legislation were not taken into account. However, a person who wins US $ 35 thousand or less would only see a fiscal reduction of US $ 150 on average, according to the group.
“People with very low income could suffer a tax reduction, but it would be relatively small,” said Joseph Rosenberg, a member of the organization.
The rich are the ones that will benefit the most from a series of policies of the legislation approved by the Senate, such as the possibility of deducting most of their state and local taxes in their federal statements. Other fiscal changes, including Trump’s precious proposal to eliminate taxes on tips, can only mean limited help for workers, some of which may not gain enough to benefit from tax exemptions.
Even so, the Fiscal Policy Center only analyzed the modifications of the Senate to the Fiscal Code, not the broader scope of the legislation, which also includes substantial cuts of the expense. If these reductions are taken into account, some of the positive aspects are deleted and the risk of “incline people with low income in the opposite direction,” said Rosenberg.
Republicans specifically pointed to the federal security network, including the supplementary nutritional assistance program (SNAP for its acronym in English), better known as food coupons or stamps.
On average, SNAP provides monthly payments to about 42 million Americans, according to previous federal estimates. The Senate bill would drastically reduce federal expenditure on the program, forcing states to assume part of the costs of providing benefits, with a certain amount based on their index of inaccurate payments. The bill would also demand that more SNAP beneficiaries work in exchange for federal aid.
The approach imitates the SNAP cuts approved last month in the House of Representatives, although the Senate Republicans softened the requirements for some states, while they rushed to underpin the votes of their package.
Even with the changes, experts said families run the risk of losing their food coupons benefits, echoing the conclusion that the Budget Office of the Congress had reached weeks before.
When studying the bill of the House of Representatives, analysts discovered that labor requirements could make some 3.2 million people lose access to food coupons. They also projected that the Republican plans to make the cost of food coupons on states with liquidity problems could lead to state officials to reduce or eliminate benefits to 1.3 million poor Americans. (The office warned that the figures may contain some overlaps).
Gina Plata-Nino, deputy director at the Food Research and Action Center, a non-profit organization that supports hunger programs, said the combination of cuts would translate into “more people who go hungry.”
Even those who keep the benefits could suffer significant cuts in their food coupons. Like their counterparts of the House of Representatives, the Senate Republicans adopted new limitations to the way in which the monthly payments of the aid are calculated, while restricting the government’s ability to increase these amounts in the future.
“These provisions are things that will make some households have smaller SNAP benefits in the future,” said Dottie Rosenbaum, principal researcher focused on the program at the Center for Budget and Political Priorities, a group of leftist trend. “It is not a small number of homes.”
Many Americans with low income could suffer an additional blow due to the loss of medical insurance coverage, since the Senate Republicans intend to obtain more than 1 billion dollars in savings through cuts in Medicaid and other health programs.
The Senate’s bill would establish new and strict work requirements for some Medicaid beneficiaries, while restricting one of the key ways in which the states finance the coverage of the program. The changes are part of a broader set of provisions that could hinder Americans to obtain health coverage and the right to tax credits to reduce costs.
“We take care of Medicaid,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.
Before the vote, the Congress Budget Office offered a more serious vision: according to its projections, the combined cuts could leave without insurance about 11.8 million Americans more in 2034. The losses exceeded those provided in the version of the law approved by the House of Representatives, although Trump said at one time on Tuesday that the cuts would be “much less” than expected.
They look, the White House advisor, said later that the bill would create jobs, which “reduces the number of people in Medicaid” if they can obtain medical insurance through their employers.
But the changes proposed by Republicans could lead to much broader consequences for the entire health system, potentially by causing new economic tensions in rural hospitals. Republicans, pressured by members of their own party, approved 50,000 million dollars on Tuesday in new funds aimed at compensating the impact.
The proposed cuts enraged the Democrats and even disturbed some Republicans, such as the senator by Maine Susan Collins, who had tried to increase the funds for rural hospitals. But in the end he broke with his party and opposed the measure, alarmed by the possibility that the residents of his state lost access to Medicaid.
“My vote against this bill is mainly due to the harmful impact on Medicaid, affecting low -income families and rural health assistance providers, such as our hospitals and elderly residences,” he said in a statement.
The dynamic was evidenced before public opinion in the days that the Senate approved the bill, largely following the lines of the parties. In an infidite speech in the room, Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said he could not support the package because he was going to “harm the people.”
Trump did not take long against Tillis, who soon announced that he would not appear to re -election, reflecting the divisions in the party around his economic program.
“These are historical cuts in federal spending, and they will have quite historical implications for coverage,” said Robin Rudowitz, director of the Medicaid program and the un insured of KFF, a research group on non -profit health policy.