In Washington, congressional
lawmakers are wrangling over
passing important parts of
President Donald Trump's so-called
Big Beautiful Bill, with
three committees passing legislation
to cut taxes, Medicaid,
and food aid.
In Wisconsin, more than one million
people are covered by Medicaid,
the healthcare program for lower
income families and individuals.
The Republican provisions would also
cut food aid, known here
as Food Share.
These spending cuts combine with
legislation extending Donald
Trump's 2017 tax
cuts.
A Wisconsin member of the powerful
House Ways and Means Committee had
her sleeves rolled up this week
trying to bat back these
provisions.
Milwaukee Democratic Congresswoman
Gwen Moore joins us from Washington.
And Congresswoman, thank you very
much for being here.
Always good to be with you,
Frederico.
So you call this a
quote, big bonanza for
billionaires.
How so?
Well, you know, our jurisdiction,
Ways and Means Committee, our
instructions was
to increase the deficit by
$4.5 trillion
in order to
pass these tax
cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
You know, there was one amendment in
particular that I had to
look at the 199A
deductions.
And I'll just cut to the quick.
This is this is a program
that supposedly is one of
the most expensive provisions in
the bill costing
maybe 800 upwards
of 800 billion dollars
and it's
supposed to help quote-unquote small
businesses but you take dick
Dick Eline, for example,
he uses this pass-through
method to
claim $115
million in
benefits.
And 84 percent of these
so-called small businesses that
receive this benefit have
absolutely no employees.
And so it doesn't even help.
We're giving benefits.
$800 billion worth
of benefits and 84%
of them have absolutely
no employees
at all.
And so here's the benefit,
say you got a small business that
makes $200,000 a year,
They'd only get about $6,000
in cuts,
whereas, again, someone
like Dick Eli,
no employees.
Uh, perhaps gets $115
million so that
most of the benefit goes
to the 1% and
that's why I called it a big bonanza
for billionaires.
Uh, just stunned that they called
it a big beautiful bill considering
how many people are
harmed and left behind by
the provisions of the bills in the
three committees.
Don't average taxpayers also
benefit, though, from extending the
2017 cuts?
Oh, that's one of their huge talking
points, Frederica, is that
if we don't pass this big,
beautiful bill, everybody,
including lower income taxpayers,
are going to suffer a big
gimmick that they temporarily
raise some of the
benefits for people
in the lower quintiles.
And, of course, just to
get them through the 2026 election
cycle, and then they go away,
whereas they make the rest of the
corporate benefits permanent.
I mean, it is so nefarious,
and it's really not funny.
On the Medicaid provisions,
we know it would require able-bodied
adults to work, volunteer or be
in school for 80 hours
a month.
Why is that onerous,
and how could it reduce the number
of people covered by Medicaid?
What is able-bodied,
Frederica?
You know, I just lost my
nephew last October, 33
years old, had had a heart
transplant, wasn't on social
security or SSI,
and yet he was very, very disabled.
But he was working to try to
maintain Medicaid because of
the expense of his anti-rejection
medication.
He died October 20th, but
to look at him, He
looked like something snatched off
the cover of Sports Illustrated.
There are so many people who are
disabled or have
medical problems that
are not.
Um that are not
designated as disabled by the
social security administration is
very very hard to get
an SSI or SSDI
disability people apply
and reapply and are rejected
but you know the in the
case of uh Medicaid this
they have actually scored
Throwing people off and
say if you're a 54-year-old
man who's done roofing
all your life, it's very likely
that by the time you're age 53.
That you may not be
really that able to climb up on
those ladders and fix roofs anymore.
Or you might find yourself some
woman who's 50 years old,
52, starting to have diabetes
or arthritis and you
haven't been designated as
disabled, but you
know, you're not able to stand up in
a restaurant for, you know
an eight hour day and
wait on tables or
And you know, but you will be.
Called an evil body
simply because you're
not, you know, designated
by the Social Security Act.
The other thing is that most people
work when they can.
Everybody likes to have money.
They like the self-esteem.
They like it. And when people can't
work, it's for very good reasons.
Sometimes, you it's not
because they have overwhelming
disabilities themselves, but they
have children at home.
They have elders at home that
they're taking care of.
I mean, we spent a half trillion
dollars a year on uncompensated
care. People who have their
mothers living with them to keep
them out of nursing homes, and they
have to cut their hours in order to
take care of them.
Some people are taking care
kids because their children
are meeting work requirements
and they can't afford childcare.
And actually it is so
nefarious that is so mean-spirited.
To put these work requirements
in place because all
it does is throw otherwise
eligible needy people off the
ropes.
So some Republicans don't like that
the work requirement doesn't go into
effect until 2029
and want steeper
cuts.
What else do the Medicaid provisions
in this legislation do, including to
the Affordable Care Act.
Well, the Affordable, let me start
there. One of the things that this
does is, you know, they have
characterized the, it's Obamacare,
okay?
And of course we remember,
Frederica, that 60 times
the Republicans have tried to
undermine and eliminate the
Affordable Care Act, so-called
Obamacares, and then John McCain
did the thumbs down.
They, you now, they
are undermining the Affordable
care Act. And so those people who
are working those
people who are getting credits.
Through the Affordable Care Act.
They're not poor enough to qualify
for Medicaid at 100%
of the poverty level, but they don't
have employer-sponsored insurance.
These are people who are
going to lose coverage because they
will not be able to afford the
expensive health care as
rates go way up without
the premiums, and they'll find
themselves
out of luck and
off of
care, you know, and with
the Medicaid changes,
even more onerous.
We're thinking that there are
probably about 14 million
people at a minimum.
That are going to lose benefits
because of the changes that they've
made to Medicaid.
And these are onerous
benefit cuts.
They say, oh,
we're not going to
make cuts to individuals.
But I'm telling you, Medicaid is
part of a larger
health care system.
You know, hospitals, about a
quarter of their income relies
on Medicaid reimbursements.
Nursing homes, probably 75,
77%
of the
cost of nursing homes
comes from Medicaid.
And there are things like people
being able to stay in
their homes and not go
to nursing homes.
This might be one of the first
things on the chopping block.
When states have to face
cuts in Medicaid.
You know, benefits like getting a
ride to your medical appointments
are things that are subject
to being cut.
States will have to make
real choices
in order to fill the
gaps. And of course, this
will hurt, not just individuals,
but we find rural hospitals that
might find themselves just being
shut down, urban
hospitals that will close their
maternity wards.
People might fight, and even people
who have private health insurance
will be affected.
They might find themself having a
heart attack, have good
coverage, but have to drive
30 miles in
order to get treatment and succumb
to death.
Because the patient
mix will have been disrupted such
that their hospitals that were
closer to them will
shut down.
The Energy and Commerce Committee
were given instructions to cut
Medicaid and they cut it
for over $700 billion
and don't believe
for a second that it won't
hurt you.
Another big item are cuts
to food assistance.
Will that affect people in
Wisconsin?
Oh my goodness, there
are probably 18,000 veterans
that are going to be harmed by
cuts in SNAP.
And because of the changes that
they have made, you know, SNAP,
current law, 100
percent of SNAP
benefits and funding comes from the
federal government, and the
administrative costs come from the
state.
With these changes that the did
in the Energy and Commerce
Committee, they have in a
zero tolerance for error.
Zero tolerance.
So that if people get even one
dollar, one
dollar in extra
SNAP benefits, food stamp benefits,
the state will be dinged.
And if they find that they have over
a 6% error rate,
they will be responsible for up to
15% of the
cost of SNAP.
You know, in Wisconsin,
you know, our governor has
calculated that the state
would find itself having to come
up with $200 million
just in Wisconsin to
fill the gap.
The other thing that's so onerous
about SNAP is that they get
53-year-old folks,
54-year old folks,
again, who will only
be eligible for SNAP for
three months every three
years.
Three months out of every three
years that they'll be eligible for
SNAP. And this
is a way that they will quote
unquote cut the
benefits.
They'll also cut it by putting
an onerous bureaucratic
tape, red tape
in, requiring people to report
numerous times a year
and really calculating
people's human error.
With regard to following up with
mail or appointments to
slash their Medicaid benefits.
So this budget really
relies on budget
gimmicks, people
not being able to meet work
requirements, people
not be able to keep up with the
paperwork.
And this is how
they've calculated their
loss and benefits.
It's really, really a
very nefarious plan.
And yet it's very likely
to pass.
Well, you know, yesterday,
we had two members of the budget
committee saying, in the budget
committee's meeting, probably as we
speak or in a few minutes of
when we're having this conversation,
Francesca, and you
know they,
Two people said they were hard nos.
A third, we only needed one more
person to say no.
And that was a member who was
away because his wife just gave her,
they flew him back some kind of
way. And he's there today.
And I'm sure that
between Trump and the Republican
conference, they're putting intense
pressure on these members to
pass it out of the budget committee.
We have never seen anything like
this among our Republican colleagues
who are being threatened.
You know, with primaries,
Elon Musk has said that he
will finance primaries
against any Republicans that defies
Donald Trump.
And we literally have
Republicans behind closed doors.
So many of them are saying that
they don't want to see these
cuts. They have been pressured, in
particular, by their constituents,
particularly on Medicaid.
We have people in wheelchairs
outside of the Energy and Commerce
Committee, in wheel chairs,
being arrested, putting,
as John Lewis would say, the late
great, putting their bodies on
the line to stop these
cuts, because they're in such
dire need of them.
And yet...
We have an administration who's
been able to intimidate them.
And so, you know, our
guess is, is that it'll probably
pass out of the budget committee
today, but it's not over
yet. It's not over yet
because people are still
out there raising their voices.
I'm encouraging them to continue
to do it.
Don't forget the John McCain
thumbs down.
We can always have
someone who shows some
spines, some guts.
Between the House and the Senate
to bring us back,
pull us back from the brink.
Congresswoman Gwen Moore, thanks
very much.
And thank you.
Have a good day, Franjica.
Thank you.
That was... You're Francesca.
It's, my name is Hard.
It's Frederica.
I mean, but I've known you for like,
well, even when I
caught myself immediately,
Yeah, but you corrected it.
Jessica. You correct.
It's a nice day, you know?
Francesca, it's nice.
I could have gone with that.
But no, that was really important,
and thank you for all of
your explanation, for our
audience, about all
of the parts of this and
how it relates to people here
in Wisconsin. Thank you.
Be well.
You too.
You too, thank you.