Ranking member says House Budget Committee tax bill would cut health care for almost 14 million Americans
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Summary
An unidentified ranking member of the House Budget Committee told the House the committee advanced a tax bill late Sunday that would "cut almost 14,000,000 Americans off their health care" and reduce food assistance; the member urged Republicans to sign a discharge petition to force a floor vote on the "Hands off Medicaid and SNAP Act," which currently has 211 Democratic signatures.
An unidentified ranking member of the House Budget Committee told the House that the committee advanced late Sunday a tax bill that would “cut almost 14,000,000 Americans off their health care” and cause millions more to lose food assistance.
The speaker said the bill was carried out of committee with only Republican votes and framed the measure as a way to “help pay for tax cuts for billionaires.” They said an attempt to pass the measure Friday failed after several hard-line conservative committee members withheld their votes, and that the measure returned for a Sunday vote after last-minute agreements.
The ranking member disputed a frequent justification from the other side of the aisle — that failing to advance the bill would raise taxes on ordinary Americans — and said Democrats offered an amendment to extend tax cuts for “every American making under $1,000,000,000” (as stated in the remarks). According to the speaker, every Democrat voted for that amendment and every Republican voted against it.
To block the committee-passed measure, the speaker said a discharge petition to force a House floor vote on their legislation, the “Hands off Medicaid and SNAP Act,” is at the well and currently carries 211 signatures, all from Democratic members. “We just need a few Republican members to sign that discharge petition, and we will be able to love and cherish Medicaid as well as SNAP,” the speaker said.
The speaker also accused colleagues of backroom deals, saying they had been told nothing had changed between the Friday and Sunday proceedings but that a Republican member later acknowledged flipping his vote because of agreements reached. The ranking member presented that exchange as evidence of a lack of transparency around the vote.
The discharge petition’s next step is to collect additional signatures from Republican members to meet the threshold required to force a floor vote; the speaker urged those members to sign. The speaker concluded by contrasting the priorities of the two sides of the aisle before yielding back.