Lawmaker says GOP tax bill would cut health care for 16 million and add $3.4 trillion to deficits
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Summary
An unidentified member at a congressional hearing said the Congressional Budget Office estimates the Republican tax bill would remove health coverage for about 16 million people, cut nutrition assistance for 4.5 million, and raise deficits by roughly $3.4 trillion, while largely benefiting the top 1%.
Unidentified Speaker, who said he represents part of Philadelphia, told a congressional hearing that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation find the Republican tax proposal would have major coverage and fiscal consequences.
"According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Republican bill, the big beautiful bill for billionaires, will throw 16,000,000 Americans off their health care," the speaker said, adding that the bill would also "deny nutrition assistance to another 4 and a half million Americans." He cited analyses that the package amounts to about $5 trillion in tax cuts that "almost all" flow to the top 1 percent.
The speaker said the Joint Committee on Taxation found households earning under $55,000 a year would be poorer overall under the bill, and he said the proposal would increase federal deficits substantially. "On a dynamic basis, the bill increases deficits by $3,400,000,000,000," he said, arguing the measure would worsen rather than improve fiscal challenges.
Addressing common defenses of the proposal, the speaker summarized two Republican responses: disputing the CBO's analysis and characterizing those who would lose coverage as undocumented immigrants. He rejected the latter, saying the CBO "has verified these are almost all entirely people here legally or U.S. citizens."
On the hearing's stated subject of waste and fraud, the speaker said efforts to root out actual criminal behavior should be bipartisan. "When it comes to rooting out waste and fraud, this absolutely should be bipartisan," he said, adding that "those people frankly broke the law and should be prosecuted fully" where criminality occurred. He warned, however, that calling the millions projected to lose coverage "all just defrauding the system" was itself a misrepresentation.
The speaker framed the stakes as local and national. Saying he represents "half the city of Philadelphia," he urged constituents and the public to organize, noting recent narrow vote margins on related legislation and invoking past close votes on the Affordable Care Act. He closed by urging action to prevent what he characterized as the greatest loss of health care in American history, and then yielded back.
The remarks were a statement of position and interpretation of federal budget office analyses; no formal votes or committee actions occurred during this statement.