In the battle over the federal budget, the billionaire agenda couldn’t be clearer: transfer even more wealth and power to the billionaire class – while gutting the programs working people rely on to survive. Republicans are pushing forward a massive legislative package cloaked in the name of “fiscal responsibility,” but it’s nothing less than a full-scale attack on workers, the poor, immigrants, and public-sector employees. Unions have been speaking out against these cuts and organizing to fight them, but this battle is just warming up.
The bill, cynically titled “One Big Beautiful Bill,” pairs deep cuts to Medicaid, SNAP (food assistance), and federal worker pensions with massive tax breaks for the rich. While it dangles a few crumbs – like expanded deductions for tips and overtime pay, and a temporary boost to the Child Tax Credit – these are designed to sell a lie: that this bill helps working people. In reality, these token measures are far outweighed by what’s being stolen.
The bill passed the House on May 22 and now goes to the Senate.
Tax breaks for the rich, cuts for everyone else
At the heart of this bill is a proposed permanent extension of the Trump-era 2017 tax cuts – cuts that delivered 83% of their benefits to the top 1% and corporations. The new Republican bill would permanently enshrine these giveaways, costing the federal government an estimated $4 trillion over the next decade. While working people get a modest deduction here and there, the real beneficiaries are corporate shareholders and billionaire donors.
Restructuring federal pensions would require that federal workers pay more into their own retirement while ultimately getting less in benefits once they retire. The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers representing 800,000 workers, has condemned this as a retaliatory attack on federal workers and their union for resisting the efforts by DOGE to restructure the federal government, slashing the workforce and the social services they administer. Everett Kelly, the President of AFGE, was clear that “cutting [federal retirement] benefits will not come close to offsetting the cost of Trump’s massive $4.5 trillion tax giveaway.”
And yet, the bill doesn’t stop there. It slashes spending on Medicaid and SNAP, both lifelines for millions of working-class people. More than 71 million people currently rely on Medicaid, including nearly half of all U.S. children. The proposed budget would cut $880 billion through stricter eligibility and work requirements, removing more than 8 million people from their healthcare. SNAP supports over 41 million people, many in states with Republican leadership that claim to be “pro-family” while gutting the very programs that keep those families afloat.
If Medicaid cuts pass, the entire healthcare system which relies on those funds as a bedrock will suffer. Medicaid accounted for 18% of total national healthcare spending in 2023, and 50% of long-term care costs. Medicaid is an indispensable linchpin for the U.S. healthcare system – hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes rely on this money to keep the lights on. Slashing it would cause widespread service reductions, facility closures, and layoffs, deepening the crisis in a system already strained to the breaking point.
Nurses and healthcare workers sound the alarm
Major healthcare unions like National Nurses United have condemned the proposed cuts. In a recent statement, NNU President Nancy Hagans said, “Medicaid protects tens of millions of patients, and nurses care for them every day. Taking away their health care is deadly. This is an attack on children, on seniors, on patients who are pregnant or have disabilities — it is an attack on millions of our patients. We need to expand health care, not destroy it.”
The proposed budget would also impose even more restrictive work requirements on Medicaid recipients, despite decades of evidence showing such requirements push people off coverage without increasing employment. Meanwhile, defense spending and immigration enforcement are set to rise, continuing the endless funneling of public money into surveillance, detention and militarization. The increase to ICE and Border Control would add another 20,000 immigration enforcement agents, roughly doubling it, to push harder on mass raids and deportations of immigrant workers.
Wall Street demands deeper cuts
After the House Budget Committee advanced the tax break portions of the bill, five GOP Representatives broke ranks on the Medicaid cuts – not because they oppose them, but because they don’t think they go far enough. They are demanding even harsher cuts, more punitive conditions and deeper austerity.
Just hours after the vote failed within the House Budget Committee, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the U.S. credit rating from Aaa to Aa1. This move was no accident. Moody’s – the last of the major rating agencies to make such a downgrade – functions as a disciplinary tool of global finance, representing the interests of Wall Street, not the public. Their message is clear: If Congress won’t go far enough in slashing social spending, the bondholders and billionaire class will apply pressure themselves.
Moody’s didn’t issue a warning over the trillions lost to the 2017 tax cuts. They didn’t sound the alarm over corporate stock buybacks or Pentagon bloat. Instead, they struck precisely at the moment when there was resistance – not to defend “stability,” but to defend austerity.
We need a united fightback movement
Now more than ever, we need to build a militant working-class movement to combat the right’s attacks on vital programs working people rely on to survive – and fight to expand these services. Without a united front of labor unions, immigrant rights groups, and community organizations, the Trump administration will continue its crusade to slash as many social programs they can.
This year’s May Day gave us a window into what such a united front can look like. Now, we must build a mass movement ready to fight – and win – against the billionaire’s war on the working class.
Feature image: Trump is greeted by members of Congress prior to delivering his 2020 State of the Union address. Credit: Rawpixel/public domain
