House Republicans have to get their spending bill passed by Friday to avoid a government shutdown. They can likely afford to lose just one vote. And that's the easy part. Then they'll have to get working on their plan to extend 4.5 trillion dollars in tax cuts passed under the Trump administration — a plan that will require huge cuts in government spending. Republicans are adamant that cuts to Medicaid are a non-starter. But the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report last week that said Republicans' budget likely would require cuts to Medicaid or Medicare.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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Congress is acting on one of President Trump's top domestic priorities.
And the next phase of our plan to deliver the greatest economy in history is for this Congress to pass tax cuts for everybody.
But achieving that goal will require trillions of dollars in spending cuts, which will dramatically reshape the federal budget. And one big potential target for those spending cuts is Medicaid. That was Democratic Representative Al Green disrupting President Trump's address to Congress last week. After he was removed from the chamber, he spoke with reporters.
And I was making it clear to the president that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid.
Now, House Republicans have said that cuts to Medicaid are totally off the table. Here's Republican Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee with NPR's Layla Fadl.
So what I think I hear you saying is that this $880 billion of proposed cuts... that people believe will hit Medicaid. You're saying it won't hurt people's coverage because that's really important to constituents.
No, ma'am. Yeah, I believe that is exactly what I'm saying, ma'am. That is exactly what I'm saying.
But that's a lot of money for it not to hit the actual health care coverage.
Ma'am, it's a whole heck of a lot of money, but we're finding that over and over and over again that there is waste, fraud, and abuse, and that's just the bottom line.
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