Trump will make the lives of ordinary Americans worse.
Here are 6 ways he will do that
Here are six ways the incoming administration has signaled it will harm ordinary American families:
1. Slashing Medicaid. Medicaid is the
largest health insurer in the nation, covering ninety million Americans. The GOP plans to
drastically slash its funding and restrict eligibility by imposing unrealistic work requirements, even though most people on Medicaid already work.
Republicans also plan to end the Affordable Care Act’s (a.k.a. Obamacare’s) Medicaid expansion and the ACA’s highly popular and effective premium tax credits, which
saved enrollees $700 per year on average.
Under this plan, millions of Americans will lose their health coverage. It will also impact other programs, including Home and Community Based Services, which allow older Americans and people with disabilities to get care in their own homes.
2. Cutting food assistance. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps more than forty-one million Americans afford to eat. The GOP plans to
slashthese benefits by
$180 billion over the next ten years and to restrict eligibility, forcing millions of Americans—including children—to go hungry so billionaires can enjoy more tax cuts.
3. Eliminating the Department of Education. Trump and his congressional allies have also said they want to
dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. This arm of the government contributes needed funds to public schools. It provides school breakfast and lunch programs, ensures quality education for students with disabilities, addresses inequalities between school districts with differing local tax bases, ensures gender equity and civil rights compliance, and provides student financial aid for higher education.
The GOP also plans to
revoke Biden’s student debt payback assistance, which has helped millions of low-income students afford higher education.
4. Restricting eligibility for the Child Tax Credit. The Child Tax Credit
provides an average of $2,000 to forty million families annually. When it was temporarily expanded in 2021 during the pandemic, it provided
the families of sixty million children with up to $3,600 annually. This reduced child poverty by half. The continuation of that highly effective expansion was
blocked by Republicans on Capitol Hill. Now, they
want to deny the benefit to children who are U.S. citizens but who have a caretaker without a Social Security number.
5. Defunding the IRS. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act provided funding for the IRS to pursue the wealthiest tax cheats—a small investment that
yielded enormous returns for American taxpayers. The GOP
plans to revoke nearly all of the remaining IRA-allocated funding, which would
cost $65 billion more than it saves by helping the wealthiest Americans dodge taxes.
6. Targeting Social Security and Medicare. Trump’s new non-governmental advisory outfit, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is
run by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. It has pledged to slash $2 trillion in federal spending, which can’t be done without cutting Social Security and Medicare. Expect to see them on the chopping block.
No matter how you slice the pie, it’s clear no crumbs will be left for the rest of us once Trump has helped the wealthy gorge themselves. We must tell lawmakers this is unacceptable, and demand better.