Jonathan P. Baird

In the many years I worked as a staff attorney at New Hampshire Legal Assistance, I learned the importance of public benefits for low-income people. Two of the most important benefits were Medicaid and SNAP (also known as Food Stamps). Part of the importance is just the number of people these programs reach. 72 million Americans depend on Medicaid. Over 42 million rely on Food Stamps. Both of these programs are essential whether it is for access to health care or addressing hunger.

So it is shocking to see these programs in the Trump Administration’s crosshairs so they can fund an enormous tax cut to benefit billionaires. The budget bill that President Trump calls “the big beautiful bill” should properly be called the “Marie Antoinette Let Them Eat Cake” bill. It is taking from the poorest and neediest and giving to the wealthiest. You don’t hear Trump talk about cutting the bloated trillion dollar Pentagon budget.

Trump loves naming things but as is all too often the case his naming is opposite the reality. He ran for president, in part, on the idea that he would help the little guy. His concern now is how he can disguise his Robin Hood-in-reverse actions. Many of the Republican right are squeamish about the budget bill because they know it will shaft their voters who need medical care or food assistance. They want to figure out how to impose the cuts so no one knows what actually happened.

To allow for the tax benefits to the billionaires, the anticipated cuts from Medicaid and Food Stamps must be mind-bogglingly large. The Trump administration wants to cut $880 billion from Medicaid over 10 years and $230 billion from Food Stamps.

There are many possible ways these cuts could be imposed and it remains unclear how the Republican architects will get to the cut numbers they seek. They are scrambling to finalize the cuts with two goals in mind. First, they must maintain their threadbare majority in the House while getting across the finish line. Second, they must maintain the illusion that they are not hurting millions which they absolutely are.

One possible avenue that could be used is to tinker with the share of money states must pay for their matching contribution in what are joint federal/state programs. In both Medicaid and Food Stamps, the federal government has paid the lion’s share of cost. If the federal contribution is slashed it will be on the states to pony up. The likelihood of that is not a great bet.

A second avenue is the imposition of stricter work requirements. This would be a design to kick millions off both these programs . Since the goal is steep cuts, reducing the number of beneficiaries works toward the goal. There are other ways to impose cuts but all methods are about shrinking the programs and the numbers getting benefits.

What is crazy is that this is being done at a time when the risk of recession is rising. Food Stamps has always been a counter-cyclical program. It was set up to kick in and help more when economic need becomes greater. Cutting safety net programs before a recession is asking for trouble. It will sabotage response when need increases in the low-income community.

The sheer sinister absurdity of cutting Medicaid and Food Stamps to pay for a billionaire tax cut needs to be pondered. Trump has appointed at least 14 billionaires to serve in his administration. We all saw the coterie of billionaires standing behind him at his inauguration. That’s his team and the billionaires, especially Musk, bought him.

The combined wealth of the super-rich oligarchs at the inauguration topped $1.2 trillion. Elon Musk alone has a net worth between $335 billion and $396 billion. In the past five years, the five richest men in the world including Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have increased their wealth by $464 billion or 114%. Meanwhile, over half of Americans say they lack the cash to cover a $1000 unexpected emergency expense.

Wanting ever more, these billionaires could care less about pummeling Medicaid and Food Stamp recipients. Their greed is bottomless. How to explain the level of selfishness their behavior reflects? When you have so much why do you care about a tax cut? Warren Buffett once told the New York Times:

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

That quote is more true now than when he said it in 2006. For the last few months, the ransacking of federal agencies has been unprecedented. It is not surprising that Republicans have gone along with MAGA and the Trump cult. That Party leadership has become a sorry collection of bootlickers, opportunists, religious fanatics, racist xenophobes and bigoted conspiracy theorists.

What has been disappointing has been the Democratic response to the class war. With a few notable exceptions like Bernie, AOC, Jasmine Crockett and Chris Murphy, the Democrats seem incapable of throwing a punch. There is a reason the Democrats’ favorability rating is underwater. Their leadership is aged and moribund. They just got their asses kicked in an election but they seem determined to repeat the past.

The Bernie-AOC “Fight Oligarchy” message expresses the feelings of many among the frustrated Democratic rank-and-file voters. Democrats need to defend working people on all fronts. Democrats want to see passion and fight from our leaders, not pitiful silence. It is the 1% versus the 99% and the 99% need fighters who will challenge and oppose the billionaires at every turn. We have been taking a lot of punches. It is time to show we can throw and land some punches.

The budget is a moral document, expressing societal priorities. Funding a garrison state while depleting Medicaid and Food Stamps is an expression of nihilism. It means many more Americans will die unnecessarily or will become uninsured or hungry.