Republicans Want to Kill Us with Their "Big, Beautiful Bill"

The GOP Budget Would Strip Healthcare and Food from Millions—All to Pay Billionaires

I know it sounds doomer (because it is), but once again I’m here, shouting into the increasingly privatized void, about the Republican Party’s latest attempt to disenfranchise—and let's be honest, potentially kill—millions of Americans.

In the coming weeks, House Republicans are poised to push through what they’ve dubbed “THE ONE BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL”—yes, they actually called it that, like it’s a Cracker Barrel special and not a sweeping legislative grenade. The bill includes a casual $880 billion in cuts to food stamps (SNAP), green energy programs, and most notably, Medicaid. All this in the name of “fiscal responsibility”—or, more accurately, to help offset a proposed over $4 trillion in tax breaks for billionaires. That’s billionaires, plural. Not you. Definitely not you.

If passed, the cuts would slash Medicaid coverage by 8.6 million people over the next decade. That’s not a line item—that’s your neighbor, your cousin, your Lyft driver, or, depending on how things go, you.

Hospitals in rural and low-income areas will shutter. Emergency rooms will overflow. Premiums will balloon. And yes, even if you have that sweet, sweet employer-provided insurance like I do, you’re not off the hook—higher healthcare costs will find you. They always do.

Starting today, three House committees—Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Agriculture—will begin marking up the bill. Speaker Mike Johnson is rushing to have the whole thing shepherded through the House Budget Committee and passed by Memorial Day, just in time for your long weekend of barbecues and existential dread.

This is all part of the second Trump administration’s dress rehearsal—a continued, calculated attack on minority communities and America’s working poor. The question is: will it work?

We haven’t seen a legislative brawl like this since 2017, when Republicans passed the Trump tax cuts but failed to repeal Obamacare. Turns out, people like their healthcare. They get weird when you try to take it away. Who knew?

Even some Republicans are starting to sweat. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley (yes, that one) warned that gutting healthcare to fund billionaire tax cuts is both “morally wrong and politically suicidal.” It’s unclear which part bothers him more, but you can probably guess.

So here we are—on the brink of another high-stakes ideological showdown. A number of House Republicans have already told Johnson they won’t back cuts to Medicaid or the green energy tax breaks that businesses literally rely on to build wind, solar, and renewable infrastructure. But can they hold the line against Trump, who keeps yelling at the party to “UNIFY” because “The Bill is GREAT”?

(Spoiler: just cause you keep shouting that it’s great, doesn’t mean that it is.)

And while Trump claims there are “not many outstanding issues” with the bill, that might be wishful thinking. One major landmine: the Agriculture Committee’s proposed cuts to SNAP. The new rules would increase work requirements, forcing people up to 64 years old (up from 54) to work in order to receive benefits. It would also hit parents of kids as young as seven. Previously, you could focus on raising your children until they were 18. Now? Get back to work, mom.

Only regions with unemployment rates over 10% (read: basically nowhere) would be eligible for work requirement waivers. And these changes would limit future expansions of the program, shifting more financial pressure onto states—and by extension, onto people who can’t afford it.

So if you’re hearing Republican messaging about “waste, fraud, and abuse,” let’s be crystal clear: this isn’t about belt-tightening. It’s about gutting safety nets for people they deem unworthy and handing out financial trophies to the ultra-rich like it’s the Hunger Games, but for tax policy.

This fight is far from over. But you better believe it’s happening—loud, fast, and under a banner of “unity.”