House Republicans face a fundamental problem as they reach a critical phase in crafting their “one big, beautiful bill” to enact President Trump’s agenda. They want to slice deeply into federal programs without acknowledging that they are doing any meaningful damage to their constituents or states.
This vexing situation arises from the natural tension between the conservative determination to roll back federal spending and the tendency of politicians to want to keep their jobs. Doing the former can work against the latter.
That explains the verbal gymnastics that Republicans are performing this week to assert that their legislation would not really take anything away from Americans who are supposed to get it. They need, essentially, to find a way to cut huge sums from Medicaid without looking as if they are taking a hatchet to the government health program for the poor.
Not only are their own political futures and control of the House at risk, but they also do not want to antagonize President Trump. He has made it clear that he has no desire whatsoever to see a headline that says “Trump, Republicans Cut Medicaid,” though he also wants sweeping — and costly — legislation encapsulating his agenda of cutting taxes.
To meet these competing demands, Republicans insist they are going to make certain that only the “rightful” beneficiaries of assistance from programs like Medicaid and nutrition assistance continue to receive them — though “rightful” can be a subjective term. Their Medicaid proposal released late Sunday avoids some of the most drastic — and easily attacked — cuts while still imposing new requirements and costs on beneficiaries that the Congressional Budget Office said would eliminate federal health insurance for nearly nine million people and make it less affordable for millions more.
Republicans say they are going to shore up federal aid programs by ending “waste, fraud and abuse,” by checking eligibility more carefully and by making sure undocumented immigrants aren’t getting help they don’t merit — all without cutting off assistance to a single eligible person. In addition, able-bodied recipients will need to get to work.
The aim, as Speaker Mike Johnson said in a recent CNN interview, is to make sure that Medicaid is not going to “29-year-old males sitting on their couches playing video games.”
“This is not a talking point,” Mr. Johnson told reporters last week. “Republicans have a charge to do this in a way where no one loses their coverage.”
The flaw in the G.O.P. argument is that spending cuts of the scope the party is contemplating will almost certainly result in benefits and services being denied to some eligible beneficiaries, particularly if Congress pushes off more responsibility to the states, which may or may not make up the difference.
Democrats are not about to let that result go unnoticed or let Republicans’ claims go unchallenged, no matter how aggressively they argue that no deserving American is being denied help. Democrats and their political allies immediately assailed the new G.O.P. proposal as “horrific,” no matter how Republicans characterize the plan.
“For months Republicans have tried to muddle their way forward on their agenda with magic talk totally severed from reality,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said last week. “Republicans say they want trillions in tax giveaways for the wealthy, trillions in spending cuts, but somehow claim these drastic changes won’t hurt average Americans.”
“‘Cut Medicaid,’ they say, ‘but nobody will lose benefits,’” he added. “That is totally illogical.”
With the reality sinking in that deep cuts could provoke a deep backlash, Republicans have begun scaling back their aspirations for $2 trillion in overall cuts. Political anxiety is also part of the reason that the most difficult deliberations in assembling the Republican bill have been put off until this week, since lawmakers have remained divided over how to achieve their savings.
Now, decision time is arriving as the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Agriculture Committee and the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee must all come up with their portions of the overall plan beginning on Tuesday.
The entire exercise is frustrating hard-right conservatives who say they have no qualms about gutting federal programs and accepting the consequences since they believe that is what their voters sent them to Washington to do. They think Republicans should embrace the cuts rather than trying to downplay them and see their G.O.P. colleagues as cowards when it comes to making the hard choices on spending.
“They just don’t have any guts,” said Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee. “Congress never has any guts.”
Representative Jodey C. Arrington, the Texas Republican who leads the Budget Committee and has pressed for deep spending cuts to ward off what he sees as a coming economic cataclysm, expressed a similar view, albeit more diplomatically.
“What we’re lacking in Washington all around — maybe among others, like common sense and common decency — is courage,” Mr. Arrington said last week. “Courage to do what is necessary. Courage to do what every generation of American leaders have done when facing such an epic crisis that could in fact leave America irreparably damaged.”
Of course, another approach exists for Republicans who want to shy away from spending cuts but still want to extend trillions of dollars in tax breaks without piling the costs onto the federal debt: They could raise revenue through higher taxes.
Mr. Trump has flirted with the idea of raising taxes on very high earners in recent days, although he conceded that it could be a political loser for his party. But if there is one thing Republicans in Congress want less than a headline about cutting Medicaid, it is one that says “Republicans Raise Taxes.”
As the three committees move forward this week, it will become much more clear what is on the chopping block and whether Republicans can sell their claim that those entitled to federal help will continue to get it. Mr. Johnson thinks they can.
“There’ll be a lot of savings for the American people,” he said. “I think it will be wildly popular when we get it done.”
Carl Hulse is the chief Washington correspondent, primarily writing about Congress and national political races and issues. He has nearly four decades of experience reporting in the nation’s capital.
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