With House Republicans discussing major reductions in Medicaid spending, Democrats — who have been largely cut out of the budget process — are bracing to fight against the anticipated cuts in committees and on the floor of Congress, potentially aided by cracks forming in the GOP caucus over how far to go to pay for President Donald Trump's mass deportations and tax cuts for the wealthy.
The House is expected to vote on its budget blueprint as early as Tuesday. House Republican leadership has proposed some $880 billion in cuts from programs managed by the Energy and Commerce Committee; $230 billion in cuts from programs managed by the Agriculture Committee; and $330 billion in cuts from programs managed by the Education and Workforce Committee. In total, such deep cuts would necessarily mean slashing Medicaid, SNAP benefits and other services.
The cuts are intended to pay for the extension of Trump's 2017 tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit corporations and wealthy Americans. Those and other tax cuts under consideration could cost as much as $11.2 trillion in lost federal revenue over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The House is expected to vote on this budget blueprint Tuesday, which will officially kick off the budget process in the House if Republicans manage to push it through.
Republicans, however, cannot afford more than a single defection given their 218 to 215 majority. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., acknowledged Monday afternoon that indeed there “may be more than one" Republican opposing the current proposal.
“This is a prayer request. Just pray this through for us, because it is very high stakes,” Johnson said at an Americans For Prosperity event. “The thing about having a small majority is it brings great clarity. It’s clarifying. I don’t think anybody wants to be in front of this train.”
Rep. Robert Scott, D-Va., the ranking member on the Education and Workforce Committee, as well as a member of the House Budget Committee, told Salon that he sees the incoming GOP budget as an attack on working people. Democrats, he said, will seek to drive that message home in the coming weeks.
“This budget resolution exemplifies my colleagues' willingness to betray the American people in the name of so-called fiscal responsibility," Scott said. "While some talk about deficits, Democrats are working to clean up the mess left by Republicans over the last six decades. Democrats will continue to fight for the programs that families and students rely on to put food on the table and secure a better future."
Democratic staffers told Salon that they suspect Republicans, to meet their goal of $230 billion in cuts to agricultural programs, will look to cut SNAP benefits, or food stamps, which have downstream implications for everything from school meals to farmers’ bottom lines. One simple way Republicans on the Agriculture Committee could approach their goal is by rolling back the 27% increase in SNAP benefits seen under former President Joe Biden, via a re-evaluation of the Thrifty Food Plan, a 1975 framework used to calculate the financial benefits SNAP recipients receive via a calculation of the average cost to feed an individual or family in a given week.
Though the Republican chairman of the Agriculture Committee has publicly voiced opposition to SNAP cuts, NBC News reported that other Republicans have said it's mathematically difficult to meet their goals without slashing the program. If the House pursues this plan, it would represent a significant cut in assistance given to the roughly 41 million Americans who receive SNAP benefits, with more than 60% of households that receive benefits being families with children.
The chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Rep. Glen Thompson, R-Pa., has said publicly that he opposes SNAP cuts and that he is working to convince other Republicans to oppose them too. He has said that he supports creating incentives for states to go after fraud, though it's unclear whether that approach would net significant reductions.
Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank, said rolling back SNAP benefit increases might be a more politically palatable way for Republicans to pursue their cuts.
"In the case of revaluing the Thrifty Food Plan, they can just say they are making it 'more accurate.' No one will know what that means and only the nerds will understand it means cuts," Baker told Salon.
Another route Republicans could take to attempt to meet their budget-cutting goals is to shift the cost of funding SNAP benefits onto the states; currently, the federal government pays the full cost of SNAP benefits. Either method of budget cutting would likely disproportionately affect smaller and poorer states, with New Mexico, Louisiana, West Virginia and Oklahoma having the highest rate of SNAP recipients in the United States.
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In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for the Republican majority on the House Agriculture Committee denied that the panel is looking at rolling back the benefits. At the same time, the spokesperson pointed to a Government Accountability Office report which concluded that the Biden Administration’s SNAP benefit increases should have been submitted to Congress before taking effect. They also noted a letter from the Congressional Budget Office that claimed increasing benefits may have led to a decrease in the labor force participation rate and hours worked among SNAP recipients.
Critics note that SNAP already encourages employment by requiring able-bodied adults without dependents to find work in order to continue receiving benefits.
The GOP spokesperson also pointed to a report from the Foundation for Government Accountability, a right-wing think tank that contributed to Project 2025, which laid out a blueprint for how a Republican Congress could “reverse course” on Biden’s SNAP benefit increases, claiming it was causing inflation.
“Lawmakers could repeal President Biden’s unlawful food stamp expansion entirely. But if Congress did not want to repeal the increase for existing enrollees, it could at least temporarily pause future benefit hikes,” the report states.
There are signs that some politically precarious Republicans are wavering on major cuts to benefits like Medicaid and SNAP, fearing potential political consequences. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, for example, penned a letter calling on the House Speaker to reconsider cuts to Medicaid, education spending and SNAP benefits.
“Hispanic Americans played a decisive role in securing a Republican majority in 2025, having helped flip key districts, delivered historic gains in border communities, and put their faith in our party to gift for them,” Gonzales wrote the letter, signed by a total of eight House Republicans. “Hispanic Americans are the future of the Republican Party, and they are closely watching to see if we will govern in a way that honors their values and delivers results.”
Despite signs of unrest in the GOP caucus, Democrats are still preparing for deep and broad cuts. Democratic staffers on the Education and Workforce Committee, a committee which has been tasked with finding $330 billion in cuts, said that they are bracing for the impact that cuts to Medicaid and other benefits would have on schools, in addition to the discrete cuts that Republicans are hoping to find to education programs.
Many children with disabilities, for example, receive health care services that are necessary for their education at school, and in these instances, the school is recognized as the Medicaid provider.
Democrats on the Education and Workforce Committee have also indicated that, in addition to cuts for school meals and Medicaid benefits, they expect Republicans to come after student loan borrowers by capping the total amount of federal aid a student can receive, pushing borrowers into more “unaffordable” loan repayment plans and changing the eligibility requirements for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
These cuts are, as part of the GOP's budget framework, designed to help pay for a tax cut aimed at benefiting the wealthiest Americans. Sharon Parrott, president of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, characterized the Republican budget outline as "an extreme giveaway to the wealthy at the expense of families who already have a hard time affording food, health care, and college."
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