Fiscal Disaster Awaits

The tariffs are not the only regressive, economically insane move that's been proposed

On Wednesday, Democratic Senate and House leaders launched their “day of action” to underscore the MAGA attack on Social Security. Members visited Social Security offices to denounce “Donald Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE’s cuts to Social Security.” In addition, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), according to Axios, launched “a digital ad campaign against Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Susan Collins (R-ME.)” seeking to tie the Senators to efforts to dismantle Social Security.

Cuts to entitlement programs as well as those that serve the elderly, the sick, the young, the poor, and the middle class are driven by MAGA budget maneuvers to secure massive tax cuts for the rich at the expense of…everyone else. The budget might be less remarked upon than the disastrous tariff war Donald Trump has recklessly implemented, but it also threatens to exact real pain on vulnerable Americans while damaging the long-term interests of the American economy.

While we wait for the next shoe to drop in the constitutional standoff between Donald Trump and the rule of law, we must not ignore this looming fiscal disaster.

Former car czar Steve Rattner writes:

“On Thursday, the House passed the Senate’s version of the overall budget framework that will help determine the outcome of the efforts by President Trump and Republican legislators to implement their plans for tax and spending reductions.”

The “radical agenda that at the least, will add trillions of dollars to the national debt,” envisions $5.3 trillion in tax cuts that will overwhelmingly benefit the super-rich and add “more to the deficit (and debt) than the last five major pieces of spending legislation combined.”

That’s right. “It dwarfs the $2 trillion of additional deficits created by the three major pieces of legislation passed under President Joe Biden.”

The hypocrisy of MAGA Republicans (who decried the runup in the debt) should hardly surprise those who have watched the GOP morph from a conservative party to a reactionary, unhinged cult of personality relying on phony math and outright lies.

To put this in perspective, our debt under the MAGA plan would increase to 134 percent of the economy by 2034. Worse, that debt will be much harder to sell, and repayment interest will grow higher as Trump destroys confidence in the U.S. economy, investors dump Treasury bonds, and the Treasury is forced to raise yields (interest rates) to finance our debt. In other words, Trump is making us more dependent on debt holders, including places like China. He is making China richer; the U.S. poorer.

Moreover, Republican would have us rack up mounds of debt not to get roads, bridges, universal internet, and other productive investments—but instead to reward billionaires. In a letter to the public, Senate Democrats made clear: “The Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans are planning to give another round of tax handouts to the ultra-wealthy and corporations that are paid for by gutting the healthcare you and your family need to stay safe and healthy.” The only way to make even the fuzzy MAGA math work is to enact historic, crippling cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and SNAP food benefits.

Many Americans are unaware whom Medicaid benefits. “Seniors living in nursing homes, children with disabilities who need home-based care, and veterans for whom Medicaid is a lifeline will shoulder the harm caused by these cuts, all while Republicans’ tax breaks make corporations and billionaires like Elon Musk even wealthier,” as Democrats explain. Add healthcare for children (under CHIPS) and treatment for mental health and drug addiction, and the universe of people covered rises to 79,034,066 people. That works out to nearly 1 in 4 Americans.

Even Senator Collins can smell a rat. She recently said: “I'm sure there's some fraud, and we certainly should go after that, but I don't see how you get to $880 billion [in cuts.]” Surely she knows that only by decimating these programs, and Medicaid specifically, can you chop that amount of spending. Let’s hope she grows more than merely “concerned,” and, if not for the sake of American’s wellbeing, at least with an eye toward 2026, votes against this monstrous attack on healthcare (just as she did in 2017 when she opposed the ACA repeal).

The Kaiser Family Foundation looked at the magnitude of the $880B proposed cuts, and the nearly 30 percent of the funding states get from the federal government. That works out to the equivalent of spending for “3 million seniors and people with disabilities (18% of enrollees in that group), 14 million other adults (38% in that group), or 22 million children enrolled in Medicaid (76% of that group).”

The devastation will fall most heavily on rural populations whose interests MAGA lawmakers from red states are supposed to represent. “In six states—including New Mexico, Louisiana, and South Carolina—more than 50% of children in rural areas are covered by Medicaid/CHIP,” the National Rural Health Association explains. “Medicaid covers 18% of adults in rural areas. Among non-elderly adults, at least 20% rely on Medicaid in 15 states, with the highest rates in Arizona (35.9%), New York (33.9%), and New Mexico (31.6%)”

The bottom line: “Cuts to Medicaid would shift health care costs onto rural families, many of whom already struggle with financial instability.” Coupled with anticipated rural hospital closures, the effect on health and rural economies (suffering even more under Trump thanks to tariffs and elimination of USAID, which purposes billions in food from U.S. farmers.)

Why would MAGA Republicans vote for such a debt-expanding, fiscally insane, rural economy-wrecking, and regressive measure that spells potential electoral disaster in 2026? Because they are scared of Trump and tremble with fear over the prospects of a primary challenge. If they finance the cuts on the backs of future generations whose economic prospects will be crushed under a load of debt and the lives of rural constituents, well, that’s just the cost of keeping their plum jobs.

In sum, MAGA Republicans are ready to wreck your lives to keep their seats. It is incumbent upon all Americans to make clear that if they try to do so, those lawmakers will join the ranks of the unemployed in 2026.

(Your senator’s phone number can be found here.)