Representative Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia, a nine-term congressman who was the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, died on Wednesday, his family said in a statement. He was 75.
Mr. Connolly died at his home surrounded by his family, the statement said. It did not give a cause of death. Mr. Connolly had announced in 2024 that he was being treated for cancer of the esophagus.
In April, he announced that his cancer had returned and that he would not seek re-election in 2026. He also said he would soon relinquish his spot on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
U.S. Rep. Gerald “Gerry” Connolly, an outspoken Democrat who sought key reforms in the federal government while bringing transformational development to his populous Virginia district, died Wednesday. He was 75….
The spirited and at times bullheaded Fairfax Democrat became known for his voluble nature and willingness to engage in spirited debates. In one hearing, he accused Republicans of engaging in a witch hunt against the IRS, asking a witness if they ever read Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”
“I am heartbroken over the loss of my dear friend,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia. “To me, he exemplified the very best of public service.” He said Connolly “met every challenge with tenacity and purpose, including his final battle with cancer, which he faced with courage, grace, and quiet dignity.”
A fixture of Virginia politics for three decades, Connolly was first elected to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 1995. On the county board, he steered the transition of northern Virginia’s Tysons Corner from a traffic-heavy mall area to a downtown business hub.
In 2003, Connolly was elected board chairman, and he continued pushing for transportation investment that had been debated among officials for decades. Connolly sought billions in state and federal dollars to develop the regional rail system’s Silver Line connecting the national capital region to Tysons Corner.
Connolly’s dream was realized with the Silver Line’s opening in 2014, and eight years later, the rail line was extended an extra 11 miles (18 kilometers) to reach Dulles International Airport.
What’s happening in politics today:
The news getting the most attention today is the so-called “big beautiful bill” that Trump and House Republicans are trying to pass and send to the Senate. Yesterday, we got some shocking news about this nightmare bill. Not only does it cut nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid. It also cuts Medicare by more than $500 billion from Medicare. If you watched Lawrence O’Donnell’s show last night, you heard all about it. In case you missed it, here is O’Donnell’s interview with Rep. Brendan Boyle:
Rep. Boyle: The one thing I would point out, though, is this bill is actually significantly worse [than the GOP’s ACA repeal attempt in 2017], because this piece of legislation will throw 13.5 million, almost 14 million Americans off their healthcare.
First, you’re cutting people off Medicaid. But second, this does include very deep cuts to Obamacare as well. And finally, I have breaking news for you tonight, that literally just came out in the last few minutes as I’ve been sitting here: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the official authority on these figures, has now confirmed that this bill, in addition to Medicaid cuts, in addition to Obamacare cuts, includes $500 BILLION WORTH OF CUTS TO MEDICARE that is now in this bill as well.
Lawrence O’Donnell: That is breaking news…$500 billion in cuts to Medicare. That’s the biggest cut to Medicare ever contemplated by the Congress. There have been, over the years, trims to Medicare for budget reasons, but nothing on this order has ever been done to Medicare. What happened? Talk more about that, about that breaking news piece that the CBO has projected in here. Is that because of interactions that Medicare has with the Medicaid program?
Rep. Boyle: Yeah, and forgive me this…given your great experience on the Senate Finance Committee, you’ll understand this, but it does get a bit wonky for normal folks. Basically it’s because of those interactions and specifically because of a provision called “Paygo” that will force a certain amount of Medicare sequestration, again, to the tune–and these aren’t my figures, these are the Congressional Budget Office official figures–$500 billion.
So they take the biggest cuts to Medicaid in American history. They take massive cuts to Obamacare. And then, add on top of that, the impact of all their policies mean a result of the biggest cuts to Medicare in American history on top of all of it.
House Republicans are pushing to slash nearly $1 trillion from two of the nation’s bedrock safety net programs, Medicaid and food stamps, as part of their sweeping package aimed at enacting President Donald Trump’s agenda. If the legislation is approved, millions of Americans could lose access to these benefits as a result of a historic pullback in federal support.
Trump has repeatedly vowed not to touch Medicaid, while GOP lawmakers insist that their proposals would largely affect adults who could – and should, in their view – be employed. But the actual impact would likely hit a far broader range of Americans, including some of the most vulnerable people the GOP has promised repeatedly to protect, experts say. They include children, people with disabilities and senior citizens.
A sizeable share of the US population depends on these programs. More than 71 million people are enrolled in Medicaid, and roughly 42 million Americans receive food stamps, according to the federal agencies that oversee them.
Hospitals would also feel the financial fallout of the Medicaid cutbacks, which could prompt some to raise their rates for those with job-based insurance and others to close their doors.
States would have to shoulder more of the costs of operating these programs, which could force them to make some tough decisions. Among their options could be slashing enrollment, benefits and provider rates in Medicaid or pulling back on residents’ access to food stamps. They might also shift spending from other state-supported programs such as education and infrastructure or hike taxes.
In addition, grocery store owners are warning that cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as food stamps are formally known, could harm local economies and cost jobs.
Read the details at the CNN link.
The House Rules Committee met under cover of darkness beginning at 1:oo this morning.
House Republicans on Wednesday are set to try to push President Donald Trump’s massive tax and immigration package across the finish line, hoping to conquer internal divisions and tee up a vote that would send Trump’s sprawling agenda to the Senate.
The House Rules Committee worked through the night on the legislation, trying to push the bill past a procedural test that would allow for a final vote. Lawmakers were still debating its provisions early Wednesday after a committee session that began at 1 a.m.
But the GOP’s narrow majority is far from unified around the proposal. And although Trump visited the U.S. Capitol for a conservative pep rally Tuesday, warring Republican factions on both sides dug in to oppose what is now officially called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The House GOP’s narrow majority means leaders can afford to lose only a handful of votes — and for now, they don’t have the support they need to pass the measure.
The bill would extend tax cuts that Trump signed into law in 2017 that are otherwise due to expire at the end of this year, along with new changes to reflect Trump’s campaign promises — such as no taxes on tips and overtime wages — and spend hundreds of billions of dollars on border security, the White House’s mass deportation campaign and funding for defense priorities and a “Golden Dome” continental missile defense system.
The Congressional Budget Office, lawmakers’ nonpartisan scorekeeper, projects that it will add $2.3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. The national debt already exceeds $36.2 trillion.
Hard-line conservatives said Tuesday that the legislation did not sufficiently cut spending to pair with trillions of dollars of new tax cuts or extensions of current rates, and they angled for deeper budget reductions to Medicaid and federal benefits programs.
Blue-state Republicans demanded a higher cap on how much people can deduct from their federal taxes to offset what they pay to state and local tax authorities, and they warned that any cuts to the social safety net could cost them their political futures — and hand control of the House to Democrats after the 2026 midterm elections.
The big legislation Republicans are trying to pass this week would shrink economic resources for the poorest Americans while boosting the richest, according to a new analysis by Capitol Hill’s official budget scorekeeper.
The Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it’s officially known, would shrink household resources for the lowest-income households by 2% in 2027 and 4% in 2033, mainly because of cuts to health and nutrition programs.
Food Stamps are on the chopping block
”By contrast, resources would increase by an amount equal to 4 percent for households in the highest decile in 2027 and 2 percent in 2033, mainly because of reductions in… taxes they owe,” CBO director Phillip Swagel wrote in a letter to Democrats.
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, requested the CBO analysis of the bill’s distributional effects for the top and bottom 10% of households by annual income.
“This is what Republicans are fighting for – lining the pockets of their billionaire donors while children go hungry and families get kicked off their health care,” Boyle said in a statement. “CBO’s nonpartisan analysis makes it crystal clear: Donald Trump and House Republicans are selling out the middle class to make the ultra-rich even richer.”
The legislation uses about $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to help pay for $3.8 trillion in tax cuts that benefit all income groups, but especially wealthier Americans. The CBO has previously estimated the legislation would shrink Medicaid enrollment by more than 7 million, including through increased eligibility checks and limits on benefits for people without jobs.
What will happen to the U.S. debt if the bill passes the Senate in it’s current form?
The United States hit its record debt level at the end of 1945, after a world war and the Great Depression.
That record, in which the debt was briefly larger than the size of the entire economy, is almost certain to be broken in the next several years. Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office published in January showed that the country was on track to overtake it in 2032 — and that was before the Republicans’ large tax and spending bill was taken into account.
Under the G.O.P. megabill being considered in the House, budget experts now say, the U.S. debt would blow past the record even sooner and climb significantly higher in coming decades.
America has had periods of high debt before, but they have tended to occur during wars, recessions or other major shocks. Generally, federal deficits have been lower during periods of low unemployment. Today, there is no war or recession to easily explain the rapidly increasing pace of borrowing.
Because the government has been spending more than it collects in taxes over the past two decades, the debt has been growing. Without any changes to existing law, the Congressional Budget Office predicts the debt will rise to about 117 percent of the economy’s size by 2034, higher than the 1945 record.
The Republicans’ bill would widen the gap further by extending and expanding tax cuts and increasing military spending, partly offset by spending cuts in other areas. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that favors debt reduction, estimates that the nation’s debt could be as high as 129 percent of the economy by 2034 under those plans.
More details at the NYT. I’ve run out of gift links for this month, unfortunately.
The president went to Capitol Hill to urge Republicans to unite behind a budget-busting budget bill, and Axios reported that his strong-arm tactics were putting conservatives into a precarious position.
“Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill‘ is projected to add trillions to the deficit over the next decade — rattling conservatives who have long warned that the U.S. is barreling toward fiscal catastrophe,” Axios reported. “Some Republicans now find themselves trapped between two of the party’s most animating principles: Deficit reduction vs. absolute loyalty to Trump.”
The White House is hoping the budget bill will receive a vote on the House floor this week, and the president and his aides have brushed off warnings that the tax cuts embedded in the measure would explode the national debt without politically toxic cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
“This tax bill’s enormity is being underplayed … [It] will cost more than the 2017 tax cuts, the pandemic CARES Act, Biden’s stimulus, and the Inflation Reduction Act combined,” Jessica Riedl, a budget specialist at the conservative Manhattan Institute, told Yahoo Finance.
The Trump administration claims Biden created the deficits and Trump policies will lower the debt.
“[Those projections] assume consistent economic growth,” Jim Millstein, a former chief restructuring officer at the Treasury Department, told Bloomberg. “Just imagine the Trump tariffs … cause a recession. They are risking a fiscal disaster.”
For decades, budget hawks warned that America’s debt load was unsustainable and that runaway spending financed with borrowed money was eventually going to scare investors away from lending to the United States. Those fears are now taking hold more strongly in the bond market, and are at risk of spreading further.
Tax cuts pushed by the Trump administration are amplifying debt and deficit concerns among bond investors, a powerful group of market players who strongly influence how much it costs for the government to finance its budget. The buying and selling of government debt, known as Treasuries, also influences interest rates on a wide variety of debt extended to American households and businesses, including mortgages, credit cards and car loans.
Those investors were already on edge over President Trump’s whipsawing tariff policy. Then this week’s attempt to push through sweeping tax cuts without significantly slashing spending — in what the president has called a “big, beautiful bill” — set off a fresh bout of bond market turmoil. Mr. Trump put more pressure on Republican lawmakers on Tuesday, visiting Capitol Hill and warning that failing to advance the bill would lead to higher taxes.
Since dropping below 4 percent in early April, the 10-year Treasury yield has risen back above 4.5 percent, a large move reflecting deficit worries. The moves for the 30-year yield this year have also been stark: It has jumped above 5 percent, its highest level in about a year and a half.
As you probably know, that’s how much we have to pay the bondholders.
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Raphael Bostic, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, warned that volatility in the Treasury market could add to already heightened uncertainty about the economic outlook.
That risks making people “even more cautious about how they engage,” he said. “If that happens, then I’ll have to assess the extent to which that should change my outlook on how the economy is going to perform.”
House Republicans’ internal negotiations on the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” went south Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, with GOP hardliners publicly digging in their heels against the legislation.
Why it matters: Some of the anger centers on a deal House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is nearing with blue-state Republicans to raise the State and Local Tax Deduction cap.
“I think, actually, we’re further away from a deal because that SALT cap increase upset a lot of conservatives,” House Freedom Caucus chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said in a Newsmax interview.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), another GOP holdout, told Axios in a text message: “THINGS ARE NOT LOOKING GOOD!!”
State of play: Johnson and a group of House Republicans from New York, California and New Jersey were close to a deal on SALT as of Tuesday night, Axios’ Hans Nichols reported.
The deal would have raised the SALT cap to $40,000 a year for those making up to $500,000.
The income phaseout would grow by 1% for 10 years, and then the deduction would become permanent.
Yes, but: Johnson’s right flank has long been skeptical of the SALT cap, which would increase the deficit and disproportionately benefit taxpayers in high-tax Democratic states.
Some conservative hardliners also feel the bill doesn’t go far enough in cutting Medicaid and nutrition assistance spending.
I don’t buy it. My guess is the right-wingers will vote for it in the end. But if they don’t go with the SALT increase, blue state Republicans are going to lose their seats. In fact, if this bill passes, I think that will guarantee Democrats take the House in 2026.
I’m going to end there. All this talk about tax cuts, cuts to social programs, and the exploding U.S. debt are making me very tired and depressed. Take care, everyone!
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem, under sharp questioning from Democratic senators during a Tuesday hearing, incorrectly described habeas corpus as a presidential authority to deport individuals.
Noem was on Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the Department of Homeland Security’s budget for fiscal year 2026. She was asked by Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., to define “habeas corpus.”
The secretary responded: “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”
In reality, habeas corpus is a bedrock constitutional legal principle that safeguards individuals from unlawful imprisonment by enabling them to petition the court to review the legality of their detention.
Responding, Senator Hassan corrected the secretary, stating, “Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea.” She then pressed Noem, asking whether she supports “the core protection” of habeas corpus — that the government must present a public justification to detain or imprison someone.
“Yes, I support habeas corpus,” Noem replied. “I also recognize that the President of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not.”
President Trump’s campaign to dismantle FEMA is on the verge of a high-stakes stress test, as the U.S. hurtles toward peak disaster season under uniquely dangerous conditions.
Why it matters: Extreme weather is growing deadlier and more destructive. But instead of strengthening the systems that help states respond, the Trump administration is gutting FEMA, banning climate change research and urging governors to go it alone.
State of play: With less than two weeks until the start of Atlantic hurricane season, leaks from inside the government continue to suggest that FEMA is understaffed, underfunded and underprepared.
Acting FEMA head Cameron Hamilton was fired earlier this month after testifying to Congress that eliminating the agency — as Trump has called for — is not “in the best interests of the American people.”
His successor, David Richardson, has no experience managing natural disasters and acknowledged in private meetings that the agency doesn’t yet have a fully formed hurricane response plan, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“As FEMA transforms to a smaller footprint, the intent for this hurricane season is not well understood,” warned an internal review obtained by CNN. “Thus FEMA is not ready.”
The Trump administration is allegedly shipping people who are from Vietnam and Burma, in southeast Asia, to wartorn South Sudan, in East Africa. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us…
with the South African president sitting next to him, Trump suggests there is a white genocide happening in his country and says, "I hope you can have an explanation of that"
I was ashamed of my country during the Nixon and Reagan years, and the during both Bushes but Trump makes me feel things beyond that. He has turned us into the international Monster of countries.
Thanks for the bill information, BB. I’m looking for what they’re cutting in Medicare. I hope the senate version is more sensible.
Some $500 billion in cuts to Medicare could be avoided if Congress instructs the White House budget office to disregard the reconciliation package’s debt impact.
“President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans’ mammoth tax and immigration bill would add so much to the national debt that it could force nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare beginning in 2026, Congress’s nonpartisan bookkeeper reported late Tuesday.
Trump and the GOP’s budget reconciliation package — officially titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — would add $2.3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office projected, forcing budget officials to mandate across-the-board spending cuts over that window that would hit the federal health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities.
When legislation significantly adds to the national debt, which already exceeds $36.2 trillion, it triggers “sequestration,” or compulsory budgetary reductions. In that scenario, Medicare cuts would be capped at 4 percent annually, or $490 billion over 10 years, the CBO reported in response to a request from Rep. Brendan Boyle (Pennsylvania), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee.
“Having Medicare cuts suddenly enter the discussion has struck a lot of people by surprise,” said Timothy D. McBride, a health economist at Washington University in St. Louis. “Taking out 4 percent of the Medicare budget might not sound like much, but everything hurts at this point.”
Those reductions are not a foregone conclusion. Congress could instruct the White House budget office to disregard the reconciliation package’s debt impact, pass new legislation to reduce the deficit or change federal budget scorekeeping rules.
Allowing cuts to Medicare would probably come with dire political consequences. Trump on the campaign trail swore off reducing Medicare benefits, and Republicans have pointedly excluded cost-cutting from the program as part of their tax and immigration package.
Any cut in Medicare funding, economists say, would have a chilling effect on older Americans and people with disabilities at a time when a fast-aging population and rising health-care costs are already straining the system. Many hospitals, especially in rural areas, rely on Medicare for more than half of their funding, said McBride of Washington University.
“If you start taking whacks at these programs, these rural hospitals won’t survive,” he said.
It’s unclear exactly how these cuts — if they happen — might affect Americans and health-care providers, though economists say they would expect funding cuts for doctors, hospitals and insurance companies, and higher premiums for patients.
“A cut of this magnitude would be very, very large,” said Jonathan Gruber, chairman of the economics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But, he said, Medicare cuts remain unlikely: “What Republicans have done in the past is just waived the rules, and I presume they’ll do that again.”
Even if lawmakers find a way to sidestep the forced Medicare cuts, economists say there are ways other parts of the tax bill could spill into Americans’ Medicare benefits. Eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, for example, would probably result in lower payroll taxes — which are a key source of funding for Medicare as well as for Social Security.
Republicans are also proposing sweeping cuts to Medicaid that could leave nearly 9 million people without health-care coverage and more than 7 million without insurance over 10 years. Those cuts are likely to put added strain on Medicare funding, Roberts said, particularly for the 13 million Americans are who are enrolled in both programs and rely on Medicaid to cover Medicare premiums and co-pays.
“No matter what, the scale and breadth of the cuts in this bill will be felt in populations that policymakers have said they want to protect,” said Eric Roberts, a health economist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “The size of the Medicaid and Medicare programs and the number of people they touch across the lifespan — children, working-age adults, pregnant individuals, older adults and people with disabilities — means that you can’t just go in and cut out a piece without cascading effects.”
“”Boyd was originally incarcerated at the Orleans Justice Center for Second Degree Murder, Attempted Second Degree Murder, Aggravated Battery, and Threatening a Public Official,” LSP said.
Gary Price, Kendell Myles, Robert Moody, and Dkenan Dennis are the other four escapees who have been captured.
House budget bill would lead bottom income quintile to lose ~4% of their income on average ($800), but top percentile would see their incomes rise 4% (nearly $70,000). If tariffs remain in place, the overall impact on families would be even more regressive. budgetlab.yale.edu/research/dis…
The president of the United States of America, in the Oval Office, held up photos of the burial site of Black women raped and burned alive in Congo, lied that those photos show the “burial site” of white farmers in South Africa, and wrongly claimed that the photos were “evidence” of “white genocide.”
But the GOP’s narrow majority is far from unified around the proposal. And although Trump visited the U.S. Capitol for a conservative pep rally Tuesday, warring Republican factions on both sides dug in to oppose what is now officially called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The House GOP’s narrow majority means leaders can afford to lose only a handful of votes — and for now, they don’t have the support they need to pass the measure.
Tax cuts pushed by the Trump administration are amplifying debt and deficit concerns among bond investors, a powerful group of market players who strongly influence how much it costs for the government to finance its budget. The buying and selling of government debt, known as Treasuries, also influences interest rates on a wide variety of debt extended to American households and businesses, including mortgages, credit cards and car loans.
Comments
21 responses to “Wednesday Reads: Trump’s Big, Ugly Bill”
You probably saw this already, but I’m posting it anyway. Kristy Noem is an embarrassment. How could anyone who has been a governor be this ignorant?
NPR: DHS secretary misstates meaning of habeas corpus under Senate scrutiny.
Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem, under sharp questioning from Democratic senators during a Tuesday hearing, incorrectly described habeas corpus as a presidential authority to deport individuals.
Noem was on Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the Department of Homeland Security’s budget for fiscal year 2026. She was asked by Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., to define “habeas corpus.”
The secretary responded: “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”
In reality, habeas corpus is a bedrock constitutional legal principle that safeguards individuals from unlawful imprisonment by enabling them to petition the court to review the legality of their detention.
Responding, Senator Hassan corrected the secretary, stating, “Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea.” She then pressed Noem, asking whether she supports “the core protection” of habeas corpus — that the government must present a public justification to detain or imprison someone.
“Yes, I support habeas corpus,” Noem replied. “I also recognize that the President of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not.”
Axios: Trump’s FEMA risks “flying blind” into hurricane season.
President Trump’s campaign to dismantle FEMA is on the verge of a high-stakes stress test, as the U.S. hurtles toward peak disaster season under uniquely dangerous conditions.
Why it matters: Extreme weather is growing deadlier and more destructive. But instead of strengthening the systems that help states respond, the Trump administration is gutting FEMA, banning climate change research and urging governors to go it alone.
State of play: With less than two weeks until the start of Atlantic hurricane season, leaks from inside the government continue to suggest that FEMA is understaffed, underfunded and underprepared.
The big picture: Trump — whose budget proposes more than $646 million in cuts to FEMA — has signed executive orders aimed at streamlining the federal disaster agency and shifting more responsibility to the states.
Trump lied constantly. He is a horrible perosn.
I was ashamed of my country during the Nixon and Reagan years, and the during both Bushes but Trump makes me feel things beyond that. He has turned us into the international Monster of countries.
Thanks for the bill information, BB. I’m looking for what they’re cutting in Medicare. I hope the senate version is more sensible.
Trump and GOP’s tax bill would force cuts to Medicare, CBO says
Some $500 billion in cuts to Medicare could be avoided if Congress instructs the White House budget office to disregard the reconciliation package’s debt impact.
“President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans’ mammoth tax and immigration bill would add so much to the national debt that it could force nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare beginning in 2026, Congress’s nonpartisan bookkeeper reported late Tuesday.
Trump and the GOP’s budget reconciliation package — officially titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — would add $2.3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office projected, forcing budget officials to mandate across-the-board spending cuts over that window that would hit the federal health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities.
When legislation significantly adds to the national debt, which already exceeds $36.2 trillion, it triggers “sequestration,” or compulsory budgetary reductions. In that scenario, Medicare cuts would be capped at 4 percent annually, or $490 billion over 10 years, the CBO reported in response to a request from Rep. Brendan Boyle (Pennsylvania), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee.
“Having Medicare cuts suddenly enter the discussion has struck a lot of people by surprise,” said Timothy D. McBride, a health economist at Washington University in St. Louis. “Taking out 4 percent of the Medicare budget might not sound like much, but everything hurts at this point.”
Those reductions are not a foregone conclusion. Congress could instruct the White House budget office to disregard the reconciliation package’s debt impact, pass new legislation to reduce the deficit or change federal budget scorekeeping rules.
Allowing cuts to Medicare would probably come with dire political consequences. Trump on the campaign trail swore off reducing Medicare benefits, and Republicans have pointedly excluded cost-cutting from the program as part of their tax and immigration package.
Any cut in Medicare funding, economists say, would have a chilling effect on older Americans and people with disabilities at a time when a fast-aging population and rising health-care costs are already straining the system. Many hospitals, especially in rural areas, rely on Medicare for more than half of their funding, said McBride of Washington University.
“If you start taking whacks at these programs, these rural hospitals won’t survive,” he said.
It’s unclear exactly how these cuts — if they happen — might affect Americans and health-care providers, though economists say they would expect funding cuts for doctors, hospitals and insurance companies, and higher premiums for patients.
“A cut of this magnitude would be very, very large,” said Jonathan Gruber, chairman of the economics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But, he said, Medicare cuts remain unlikely: “What Republicans have done in the past is just waived the rules, and I presume they’ll do that again.”
Even if lawmakers find a way to sidestep the forced Medicare cuts, economists say there are ways other parts of the tax bill could spill into Americans’ Medicare benefits. Eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, for example, would probably result in lower payroll taxes — which are a key source of funding for Medicare as well as for Social Security.
Republicans are also proposing sweeping cuts to Medicaid that could leave nearly 9 million people without health-care coverage and more than 7 million without insurance over 10 years. Those cuts are likely to put added strain on Medicare funding, Roberts said, particularly for the 13 million Americans are who are enrolled in both programs and rely on Medicaid to cover Medicare premiums and co-pays.
“No matter what, the scale and breadth of the cuts in this bill will be felt in populations that policymakers have said they want to protect,” said Eric Roberts, a health economist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “The size of the Medicaid and Medicare programs and the number of people they touch across the lifespan — children, working-age adults, pregnant individuals, older adults and people with disabilities — means that you can’t just go in and cut out a piece without cascading effects.”
https://www.threads.com/@aaronparnas/post/DJ6yrtlyh5v
CONFIRMED: Budget bill won’t just cut Medicaid and SNAP. It will cut Medicare as well.
I knew it was an inside job. A maintenance workers been arrested for facilitating the escape. They have five of the ten in custody now.
https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/crime/new-orleans-jail-escape/5th-escaped-inmate-captured-in-new-orleans-after-jail-break/289-6cec7dc0-fa46-423d-a2a2-fdd4fd40c4df
“”Boyd was originally incarcerated at the Orleans Justice Center for Second Degree Murder, Attempted Second Degree Murder, Aggravated Battery, and Threatening a Public Official,” LSP said.
Gary Price, Kendell Myles, Robert Moody, and Dkenan Dennis are the other four escapees who have been captured.
A prison maintenance worker accused of helping ten inmates escape was also arrested on Tuesday. Five fugitives remain at large five days after the escape, which has triggered sweeping audits, mounting fear among victims and prosecutors, and intense scrutiny of jail leadership.“
Two women arrested for allegedly assisting New Orleans jail escapees
https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/crime/new-orleans-jail-escape/orleans-jail-escape-arrests-aid-fugitives/289-2c796cab-d4ac-487a-8025-59c39181b20f?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook_WWLTV&fbclid=IwY2xjawKbYHNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFmOThXYURMS3hiYlprajAxAR6MSmNGKDigbgSTloUb6FsL1u5hwawY8z-UYdRb2lSp_6PN_Ljt3ushDdmIEA_aem_iQ8vDDrFY0pWv5O7oidEVA
The president of the United States of America, in the Oval Office, held up photos of the burial site of Black women raped and burned alive in Congo, lied that those photos show the “burial site” of white farmers in South Africa, and wrongly claimed that the photos were “evidence” of “white genocide.”
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/national/trump-displays-drc-visual-as-proof-of-south-african-genocide/article_dfb74f2d-6b38-54d9-b3ea-90c0e1bfdaf3.html