Democrats on Capitol Hill have little power to prevent GOP leaders from moving President Trump’s ambitious policy agenda through Congress this year. But they’re going out of their way to make the process as painful as possible for vulnerable Republicans.
In the House this week, the Democrats’ top super-PAC announced a new campaign to highlight the Medicaid cuts that are all but inevitable as part of the Republicans’ nascent effort to pay for an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.
In the Senate, where GOP leaders are poised to move a budget wishlist this week, Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is urging his troops to push amendments to amplify the Democrats’ charges that GOP leaders want to slash working-class benefits to help the wealthiest taxpayers.
And both efforts come on the heels of a choreographed tactic by Democrats on the House Budget Committee to offer a long series of policy riders to the GOP’s budget resolution aimed at preventing steep cuts to federal nutrition, healthcare and other programs benefiting low-income families in every district in the country.
The Democrats’ can’t unilaterally block the GOP’s agenda, since it’s expected to move by a budget procedure, known as reconciliation, that empowers the reigning Republicans to push legislation through both chambers with a simple majority.
But Democrats are hoping to use one power they do have from the minority — public outreach and mobilization. And in that effort their message is clear: We may be in the minority in both chambers, they say, but any Republican who supports Trump’s cost-cutting agenda will have to answer for its effects on middle-class families on the campaign trail.
“Republicans’ budget proposal is a betrayal of American families — slashing Medicaid, Medicare, & Social Security to finance $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for billionaires,” Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) said. “Budgets reflect values — and theirs puts working people last.”
At the center of the looming budget debate is Medicaid, the massive federal program providing subsidized health care benefits to millions of Americans, including children, the disabled and nursing home residents. The Republican effort to offset the cost of extending their 2017 tax cuts leans heavily on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been tasked to find $880 billion in savings over 10 years — a figure Republicans say will necessarily mean cuts to Medicaid, which falls under the panel’s jurisdiction.
GOP leaders have defended that strategy, arguing that there’s plenty of errant spending within the program that can be weeded out. They’re also pushing for new work requirements for some Medicaid beneficiaries that would reduce costs even further.
“If you eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid, you’ve got a huge amount of money that you can spend on real priorities for the country,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters last week in the Capitol.
“And if you make sure that people who are able bodied workers — you know men under the age of 40 for example, who have rolled on to Medicaid and gotten onto the expansion and need to be working — … it makes sense to people.”
Democrats are skeptical, arguing that there’s no way to find the savings in Medicaid that Republicans envision without slashing real health benefits for some of America’s most vulnerable populations. They’re accusing Trump and Republicans of promoting a massive transfer of wealth, from the poorest people to the wealthiest, in order to offset the cost of extending the GOP’s tax cuts.
“Their objective, actually, is to pass massive tax cuts for billionaires, donors and their wealthy corporations. And then … stick working-class Americans with the bill by slashing and burning things like Medicaid to the ground,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace recently.
“It’s all connected at the end of the day,” he continued. “And we’ve got to break through with that narrative that ties it all together for the American people and then battle it out in these different forms in the Congress, in the courts and in the community.”
The prospect of Medicaid cuts is getting plenty of push-back from some moderate Republicans, especially those with large Medicaid populations in their districts. Those voices are already sending warning signals that GOP leaders will have to prove that their plan cuts the $880 billion without slashing program benefits — or the bill will never reach Trump’s desk.
“If the inference is there’s no path to 880 without drastically hurting poor people, then the bill is dead — then the bill won’t work because scores of Republicans will vote against it and the president will blast it,” said one centrist House Republican. “So now is the time for the committees to do their work and then subsequently show it to members to figure out how to get to 880 without crushing poor people.”
Democratic campaign operatives are hoping to exploit those GOP anxieties.
On Tuesday, the House Majority PAC, which works to elect Democrats to the lower chamber, issued a memo accusing Republicans of “putting Medicaid on the chopping block” at the expense of their own constituents.
The release included a breakdown of the Medicaid enrollment in 27 battleground districts currently held by Republicans, including the number and percentage of children in the program.
The group offered a warning of its own, saying HMP will target any vulnerable Republican who votes in favor of the Medicaid cuts to advance Trump’s tax cuts.
“The cuts currently pushed by House Republicans will be a defining issue in 2026,” the memo says, “and HMP will hold them accountable for abandoning their constituents to further enrich the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations.”
Mychael Schnell and Al Weaver contributed.
