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House Republicans have to know the political consequences of what they did.
By a margin of 215-214, Republicans passed Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. What Speaker Mike Johnson accomplished for his majority was an act of political suicide to give billionaires a massive tax cut.
House Democratic leadership (Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Whip Katherine Clark, and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar) released a statement after the vote:
Today, every single House Democrat voted to stop the largest cuts to Medicaid and food assistance in American history. The GOP Tax Scam rips healthcare and food assistance away from millions of people in order to provide tax cuts to the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected.
House Republicans promised to lower costs. Instead, Donald Trump’s One Big Ugly Bill will mean millions of families will pay higher premiums, copays and deductibles. Hospitals will close, nursing homes will shut down and communities will suffer. It will take food out of the mouths of children, seniors and veterans at a time when too many families are already struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.
The GOP Tax Scam is deeply unpopular, which is why Republicans made every effort to advance it during the dead of night. For more than 28 hours, beginning with Rules Committee Ranking Member Jim McGovern, Democrats forced Republicans to debate this toxic legislation before the American people. This fight is just beginning, and House Democrats will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that the GOP Tax Scam is buried deep in the ground, never to rise again.
Every single House Democrat voted against this legislation. There was no bipartisanship involved in the process. Democrats fought House Republicans every single step of the way and made the passage of this legislation extremely time consuming and painful for Republicans.
The tax cut legislation is a ticking time bomb in more than one respect. Republicans gimmicked the bill so that the painful cuts to social programs don’t take effect until after the 2026 and 2028 elections, but cuts will have to be made long before then at the state level to prepare for the slashes in funding.