Fresh off a bruising fight over passage of President Donald Trump’s massive tax and policy bill, Republicans and Democrats are now waging a battle over selling it to Americans.
Trump celebrated the passage of the bill during a rally in Iowa on Thursday.
“Every major promise I made to the people of Iowa in 2024 became a promise kept,” he said of the bill’s passage.
Republicans see a lot to celebrate after weeks of delicate negotiations to get both chambers on the same page, with little room for error.
The package of $4.5 trillion in tax breaks would make permanent the tax code changes Trump signed into law during his first term, and include new campaign pledges, such as no taxes on tips for some workers, and a ‘senior deduction’ of $6,000 for older Americans making up to $75,000 annually.
It also includes billions in new defense spending and $350 billion for border security and immigration enforcement, to advance the administration’s mass deportation efforts.
“Republicans should be proud of passing this bill, because it delivers on a lot of the things that they ran on, and that the president ran on,” Mark Bednar, a Republican strategist who served as an aide to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told ABC News. “That’s what Republicans would be very wise to lean in on, going into this recess, going into August and the following year.”
Democrats searching for a message after last November have seized on the package’s gradual changes to safety net programs, such as Medicaid and food stamps — though a combination of work requirements and tax changes.
Nearly 12 million Americans would lose health coverage, and 3 million would not receive SNAP benefits under the legislation, according to initial estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Overall, the CBO estimated the measure would add $3.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.
Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who spoke against the bill on the House floor for nearly nine hours Thursday, told the stories of Americans who he said could be impacted by safety net cuts.
“Shame on the people who’ve decided to launch that kind of all-out assault on the health and the well-being of everyday Americans,” he said.
For their part, Republicans have challenged estimates of the overall impact of the package on the national debt. And they have argued that work requirements, if implemented properly, would weed out abuse in safety net programs.
According to a June poll from Quinnipiac University, 29% of voters supported the bill, while 55% opposed it.
The same poll showed that registered voters were evenly split on the issue of work requirements on able-bodied Medicaid recipients without dependents: 47% in favor of the new requirements, and 46% opposed.
A mid-June Fox News poll found similar results: 59% of registered voters said they oppose the bill, while 38% of them favored it.
About half of voters in that poll thought the bill would hurt them and their families, while 40% said they did not understand the bill very much, or at all.
Some Democratic leaders and officials believe the combination of tax cuts and potential changes to some Americans’ health care coverage could allow the party to recapture the anger and anti-Trump backlash that helped the party reclaim the House in 2018, after Republicans passed their tax package and repeatedly failed to repeal Obamacare.
“It’s going to be very important for the Democrats to define, for the electorate and for voters, exactly who’s most impacted by these Medicaid cuts, and in particular, what the longer term impacts of all the debt are actually going to be,” said Dan Sena, a Democratic strategist who oversaw the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018.
But the midterms may not be exact parallels.
Heading into 2018, Republicans were defending 25 districts that voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
Today, 13 Democrats represent districts carried by Trump last year, while just three Republicans represent districts won by former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Eight years ago, Democrats largely opposed Trump’s legislative agenda. But this time around, some Democrats have offered support for some of his policies, including the new provision for no taxes on tips.
Democrats also acknowledge they face a different Republican Party in 2025 — one that is more in step with Trump, and one that, despite some sharp policy debates, ultimately backed his top legislative priority.
That’s not to say there weren’t exceptions: Democrats pointed to the dissent of Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who slammed the bill’s Medicaid provisions, and its potential impact on his home state.
His comments led to criticism — and the threat of a primary challenge – from Trump.
When the dust settled, Tillis voted against the bill in the Senate, but also announced he would not run for re-election.
Speaking at the Iowa rally on Thursday, Trump suggested Republicans can use the megabill to their advantage in the midterms.
“With all of the things we did with the tax cuts and rebuilding our military, not one Democrat voted for us,” Trump said. “And I think we use it in the campaign that’s coming up — the midterms, because we’ve got to beat them.”
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