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The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
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Yglesias: GOP wants poor people to pay for Trump’s tax cuts

By Matthew Yglesias
Published: January 23, 2025, 6:01am

There are a lot of known unknowns about how Republicans will approach the major tax and spending issues facing the new Congress. But one thing is clear: Low-income Americans are going to be in the crosshairs.

A “menu” of potential cuts developed by House Republicans proposes somewhere north of $5 trillion in spending reductions, the vast majority coming out of the pockets of the most vulnerable.

The biggest item on the list is $2.3 trillion in proposed Medicaid cuts. But the most egregious is a $274 billion cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, that would reverse one of President Joe Biden’s best but least-heralded initiatives — an update to what’s known as the Thrifty Food Plan.

Here’s how it works. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends four bundles of groceries that represent a “nutritious, practical, cost-effective diet prepared at home” for a family of two middle-aged adults and two children. There’s a thrifty plan (the cheap one), a low-cost plan, a moderate-cost plan and a liberal plan.

For years, the list of foods in the thrifty plan was updated only sporadically. But in the 2018 farm bill, Congress directed the Department of Agriculture to update it by 2022, and then to do so every five years to take into account new prices and information about nutrition.

Republicans have hated this change since it was enacted — but struggle to articulate exactly why. One major concern they raise is that by making benefits more generous, Biden has reduced low-income people’s incentive to participate in the labor market.

But in a previous budget deal, Biden already agreed to establish work requirements for able-bodied prime-age Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients. And while prime age labor force participation is about one percentage point lower than it was in 1998, it’s considerably higher today than it was at any point during Donald Trump’s first term. So it’s hard to understand how Biden is supposed to be to blame.

Of course, Republicans are correct that doing more to help the poor costs more money. On the other hand, studies show SNAP has widespread benefits for low-income households — notably, less food insecurity and better long-term health outcomes — as well as community-level benefits like less theft.

Republicans are also contemplating cutbacks to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, social services block grants and the Affordable Care Act.

And then there’s that huge cut to Medicaid. Republicans want to consider “per capita caps” on Medicaid spending, so that the program’s budget would no longer account for the actual cost of providing health care services.

At any rate, the menu raises a larger question: Why cut so much spending on the poor?

On the one hand, it’s obvious. Republicans are committed to enacting very large tax cuts, but bond markets are worried about the budget deficit. Running the playbook from 2017, when they just put the cost of Trump’s Tax Cut and Jobs Act on the national credit card, may not work very well. At the same time, Trump has promised higher spending on the military and to hold harmless the two largest domestic programs, Social Security and Medicare.

With those constraints in place, it’s hardly surprising that Republicans are going after the poor: That’s where the money is. Most of the federal budget goes toward interest payments, the military, the elderly and the poor. Interest payments aren’t really negotiable, and when you take the military and the elderly off the table, only the poor are left.

Is this “populism”? Does it make moral sense to cut taxes for the richest and offset them with cuts to programs for the poorest? Does it even make political sense not to try to address fiscal issues in a more balanced and bipartisan way?

Far be it from me to second-guess the guy who just won an election. But Trump didn’t talk about these ideas during the race, much less campaign on them. Maybe Republicans hope that if they move fast enough, they can get this done without anyone noticing. But attention deserves to be paid.

Matthew Yglesias is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.

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