Republican Psychopath Budget Bill: $4.5 TRILLION TAX CUT FOR THE RICH, paid for by cutting healthcare, SNAP benefits

The higher level of spending cuts in the newly released House Republican budget blueprint means some current food aid benefits for low-income Americans will likely be reduced, according to two GOP lawmakers.

Cutting current benefits to low-income families has been a point of tension with a handful of Republicans in competitive districts, who are warning against deep cuts across safety net programs ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Sweeping safety-net cuts have GOP centrists questioning Johnson’s budget

Conservatives are no longer the only concern for House GOP leaders.

David Valadao is among the centrist Republicans raising alarms about planned safety-net cuts.

By Meredith Lee Hill

02/14/2025 04:45 AM EST

Speaker Mike Johnson has cleared a major hurdle toward unlocking the massive, party-line bill he’s pursuing to enact President Donald Trump’s vast domestic agenda. Now he’s got more jumping to do.

On Thursday, as Republican hard-liners celebrated a concession they won from party leaders to force deeper spending cuts as part of the GOP’s sweeping policy push, centrists expressed deep alarm about the trajectory of the massive legislation that will include border security, energy, defense and tax provisions.

The emerging fault lines are many: GOP members in high-tax blue states are concerned that the plan doesn’t leave enough room to expand the state and local tax deduction.

And Senate Republicans and some House hard-liners aren’t ready to give up on a competing two-bill plan.

But Johnson’s most immediate problem comes from swing-district Republicans who believe that the steep spending cuts Johnson wants across Medicaid, food assistance and other safety-net programs for low-income Americans could cost them their seats — and Johnson his razor-thin GOP majority.

“I don’t know where they’re going to get the cuts,” said Rep. David Valadao, who represents a heavily Democratic district in central California, as he left the Capitol on Thursday.

The House Budget Committee cleared the fiscal blueprint for the massive policy bill on a party-line vote late Thursday night, and Johnson intends to bring it to the floor when the House returns from recess later this month.

But with a two-vote majority, Johnson has virtually no room for error. And opposition from members like Valadao could force him and committee chairs to go back to the drawing board.

Low-key and soft-spoken, Valadao is the stylistic and ideological opposite of the fire-breathing hard-liners on Johnson’s right flank.

His district in California’s Central Valley is one of the six Hispanic-majority GOP seats where more than 20 percent of households receive food aid benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is being targeted under the GOP budget for some $230 billion in spending cuts.

Valadao believes he is speaking for a larger group of House Republicans who are worried about what the cuts will mean for their districts.

Johnson’s own Louisiana district has a high rate of households that rely on food assistance, and hospital systems across the country rely on Medicaid revenue to stay in the black.

“There’s a lot of us, even leadership themselves, I think a lot of their districts are in the same boat as mine or close to it,” Valadao said.

The California Republican is also among the Republicans from high-tax blue states who worried the latest budget plan doesn’t provide enough room to sufficiently expand the SALT deduction, with more than a dozen votes at stake.

It’s also far from certain how the House GOP plan will play in the Senate, which has a long history of heavily editing tax plans sent across the Rotunda.

There’s roughly 40 provisions that expire at the end of this year, and Trump has a slew of tax cuts he wants on top of that, with lawmakers in both chambers prepared to do battle over their favorite perks.

The concerns about Medicaid cuts go just as deep, including inside the White House.

Valadao referenced private conversations Trump had with GOP centrists on that subject last month.

The president himself has been reticent to approve anything that could be perceived as a cut to health care given the collapse of his prior efforts in that realm back in 2017.

Valadao, referring to the major Medicaid reforms that would be required under the House GOP budget plan, said, “I think that goes against what he’s said and has been saying to members, both privately and publicly.”

House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), whose committee is tasked with shouldering more than half of the proposed spending cuts, has acknowledged that some changes to Medicaid might not be able to pass the House.

That includes so-called per-capita caps, a major cost-saver that would convert the program from an open-ended entitlement to a population-based grant to states.

But conservatives say the White House has been open to some Medicaid reforms, and House GOP leaders have been in close contact with administration officials.

Trump’s top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, attended reconciliation meetings with GOP leaders and rank-and-file Republicans in the speaker’s office this week, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

House Republicans view Hassett as supportive of Johnson’s one-bill approach, sharing their concerns that a separate tax package wouldn’t clear the chamber.

Nebraska Republican Don Bacon also expressed uneasiness about the potential level of Medicaid cuts that could hit his district, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential election.

“Most of us support work requirements for able-bodied adults with no children, and we should make sure it’s not going to people who don’t qualify,” Bacon said.

“Beyond that, President Trump said he was reluctant to see cuts in Medicaid that will impact the most needy,” he added. “His gut instinct is right here.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told CNBC's "Squawk Box" that he believes the founding fathers intended to keep government out of religion, not the other way around.

Driving the news: "The separation of church and state is a misnomer, people misunderstand it. Of course it comes from a phrase that was in a letter that [Thomas] Jefferson wrote, it's not in the Constitution," Johnson said.

"What he was explaining is they did not want the government to encroach upon the church, not that they didn't want principles of faith to encroach on our public life. It's exactly the opposite."

The big picture: Before entering Congress, Johnson spent much of his legal career working for a conservative Christian organization and fighting against restrictions on religion in schools, government and other public spaces.

Johnson frequently invokes his Christian faith as the bedrock of his politics. He told Fox News last month: "Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it — that's my worldview."

Asked in the CNBC interview about his decision to pray on the floor of the House after being sworn in as speaker, Johnson said religious faith is "a big part of what it means to be an American."

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