Budget Games And Backstabbing In The House— Promises Made, Benefits Cut

Trump’s Big Beautiful Betrayal… Will The Budget Knife Cut Both Ways?

Will voters destroy the GOP next year?

On Friday, Republicans on the House Budget turned down Trump’s “big beautiful bill.” Presumably they made enough tweaks to it so that it will pass tonight… although satisfying the extremists who voted against it Friday, pretty much guarantees it will fail in the Senate. Shredding the social safety net is harder for some Republicans than is for others. The ones in safely gerrymandered congressional districts never seem to have any problem with it at all. It’s only the ones in electorally vulnerable situations— like Mike Lawler (NY), Nick LaLota (NY), Young Kim (CA), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA), Rob Bresnahan (PA), Derrick Van Orden (WI), Bryan Steil (WI), Ryan Mackenzie (PA), Tom Kean (NJ), Juan Ciscomani (AZ), Don Bacon (NE), Maria Salazar (FL), Gabe Evans (CO), Ken Calvert (CA), Zach Nunn (IA), Tom Barrett (MI), Jen Kiggans (VA), Jeff Hurd (CO), John James (MI)— when Republicans get a conscience about condemning their constituents to starvation or death. Funny how that works.

Saturday, a trio of Wall Street Journal reporters looked at the Medicaid piece of that puzzle and how the GOP extremists demand deep systemic cuts that will cripple the program, while the relatively more mainstream conservatives would rather just gradually starve it. The GOP conundrum “has opened up a constellation of intraparty fights that are complicating the GOP-controlled Congress’s efforts” to pass Señor Trumpanzyy’s package of domestic priorities. “The fight over Medicaid— how deeply and quickly to trim the program that serves more than 70 million people— helped snarl progress Friday on getting the megabill to the House floor.”

The state-federal healthcare program is a target because some $625 billion in Medicaid savings envisioned over 10 years will help finance an extension and expansion of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, accounting for more than a third of the $1.5 trillion they hope to save to partly offset $4 trillion in tax relief. Those Medicaid cuts are smaller and take effect later than what many House GOP conservatives want— and have disparate effects across Republican states.

The consequence is a free-for-all battle happening behind closed doors that is testing how far Republicans will go to put limits on the program, which they see as having expanded far beyond its intended goal of serving the poorest and neediest Americans. Republicans say that they want to get in line behind Trump’s agenda, but the Medicaid issue is pulling the party apart, and straining the math needed to make the broader package work.

… The package takes aim at Medicaid in part by instituting work requirements for most able-bodied adults through age 64 without dependents. The work requirements wouldn’t take effect until 2029— after Trump has left office. It also takes aim at California by reducing federal Medicaid payments to states that provide healthcare coverage for immigrants in the country illegally. That provision doesn’t take effect until October 2027—after the midterm elections.

“Cut it off now,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), a House Budget Committee member, referring to provisions that have delayed effective dates. “It’s not that complicated.”

Norman was one of a handful of GOP members of the Budget Committee to block the bill from advancing on Friday. The committee is reconvening Sunday night.

The push for a tighter line on spending comes as other Republicans have warned of the political dangers of deep cuts to healthcare coverage, potentially costing vulnerable members their seats in 2026. The clout of these [more mainstream conservatives] is the major reason that Republicans resisted large cuts, such as lowering the minimum share the federal government shoulders for Medicaid.

Democrats universally oppose the package, saying it cuts aid to poor people to pay for tax cuts for the ultrarich. A preliminary Congressional Budget Office analysis of the portion of the package dealing with Medicaid found that it would reduce the number of people with health insurance by at least 8.6 million in 2034. Analyses of the overall impact of the budget plan have found that high-income households gain the most from the policy changes, while lower-income households would have smaller gains or lose ground.

If that message takes hold before the midterms, the Republicans should lose at least between 30 and 40 seats. Even conservative voters don’t like it when a political party is taking crucial stuff away from them and their families. They may not vote for Democrats, but when conservatives stay home on Election Day, the angels in Heaven sing all day and all night. And far more meaningful to most Americans than Medicaid is Social Security— the Republican Party’s dream target… and the third rail of American politics. DOGE is too stupid to avoid that one and if that backfires on the GOP, they’ll be wishing they only lose 40 seats in the midterms.

A trio of Washington Post reporters wrote that the Musk destructo team arrived at the Social Security Administration this year “determined to slash staff and root out what it claimed was widespread fraud and wasteful spending— a mission Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team has pursued across the government. But as of this week, many of the major changes DOGE pushed at Social Security have been abandoned or are being reversed after proving ineffective, while others are yielding unintended consequences and badly damaging customer service and satisfaction. The problems come as the agency struggles to cope with a record surge of hundreds of thousands of retirement claims in recent months... Staff reductions and reassignments led by DOGE are slowing the pace of claims processing as field offices lose longtime staff and gain a smaller number of inexperienced replacements. DOGE-driven changes to the agency’s website are causing crashes almost every day, and phone customers complain about dropped calls and long wait times. A DOGE-imposed spending freeze is leading to shortages of basic office supplies, from printer cartridges to the phone headsets staff need to do their jobs.”

The tumult comes as Frank Bisignano finishes his first week as Social Security’s Senate-confirmed commissioner. After getting a chance to see agency operations up front, Bisignano has grown alarmed by the drastic downsizing ordered by DOGE and carried out by a mid-level employee, Leland Dudek, who led the agency in an acting role for four months, according to one current senior official and one former senior official briefed on Bisignano’s thinking. Bisignano is coming to dislike DOGE and hopes to minimize the team’s influence, the officials said. Another official, however, said Bisignano wants to “partner” with DOGE.

… DOGE staffers came to Social Security vowing to end fraudulent claims filed by scammers and grifters… Career staff attempted to explain that wasn’t true, but to no avail… And it turned up almost no examples of potential fraud, employees said. The agency already has reliable methods for identifying fraud on the phone, including the fact that staff answering the calls receive special training to catch fraudsters, they said.

… As calls flood in, staff are fleeing. Since February, Dudek has overseen the elimination of 7,000 jobs through early retirements, buyouts, resignations and firings. He told the remaining workforce of about 50,000 last month that he hoped such cuts would be enough— but DOGE disagreed, as The Post has previously reported, and drafted plans to slash thousands more staff.

Fearing firings, employees leaped at the chance to leave under a second-round resignation offer unveiled last month, with 2,500 taking the buyout— costing field offices about 10 percent of their staff. IT departments were especially hard hit, and some offices were wiped out completely, including the security division for the Office of Hearings Operations, according to an email obtained by The Post. Many employees in management roles accepted reassignment to lower-level field office roles because they were warned they would lose their jobs if they didn’t take the demotion, according to employees and emails obtained by The Post. Those staffers now face months of retraining as they learn to process claims.

Some arriving in field offices are finding a dire situation: No more paper, no more printers, and no ability to shred documents, pay phone bills or hire foreign-language interpreters, according to interviews with half a dozen staffers spread across the country. That’s because DOGE reduced federal spending cards to $1 and declared that one of less than a dozen people must sign off on purchases for all 1,300 field offices, leaving few able to replenish basic office supplies or pay for other needs.

“Some vendors are refusing service until they’re paid for past services provided,” one staffer said. “Things break and there’s no money to replace furniture.” Frustrated employees have begun paying out of their own pockets for everything from pens to— in one Northeastern office— a refrigerator.

“We are going to purchase a new fridge since the funds that would normally be available for Facilities to provide us with one are still frozen,” read an email sent in late April and obtained by The Post. “Before we do, I would like to see if anyone else is interested in contributing.”

Trump, MAGA Mike and most of the GOP vowed over and over that they wouldn’t do anything to take away benefits from Social Security recipients. Does that sound like they’re keeping their pledge? Not that I can tell— not even close. Behind the bluster and the America First slogans lies what we’ve come to expect from the DOGE-GOP, a cold, calculated agenda to dismantle the very programs millions of seniors rely on. They’ll swear up and down that they’re only targeting ‘waste’ or the it’s all about reform, but the math doesn’t lie— and neither do the line items buried deep in their budget proposals. When push comes to shove, their loyalty isn’t to retirees or working families— it’s to donors, crackpot ideologues, tax cuts, and the billionaire class. The second the cameras are off, they're back to slashing and burning the safety net. And no matter how they spin it, this is a betrayal, plain and simple.