Representative Jeff van Drew, a Republican who has opposed his party’s efforts to reduce Medicaid to pay President Trump’s domestic agenda, says he has a powerful ally on his side: Mr Trump himself.
“He doesn’t want to hurt Medicaid,” said the Lord Van Drew, a congress member from New Jersey. “He didn’t agree, twice, three times – it’s about half a dozen times ago. And I had those conversations one on one.”
Mr. Trump has traditionally performed as the most effective whip of the Republicans when they are confronted with heavy voices, leaning on Holdouts personally and on social media and threaten to run an opponent against them if they are not in accordance with the party. But when it comes to uniting GOP legislators around the most politically dangerous part of their budget plan-medicaid to pay for the tax reductions they want to determine-the president has made it clear that he is not going to do arm.
“We do not cut medicaid, we do not cut Medicare, and we do not cut social security,” Mr Trump repeated last weekend in an interview with NBC. He said he would pronounce a veto about the megabill that would wear his agenda through the congress “if they cut medicaid”. “But they don’t cut it,” he added. “They look at fraud, waste and abuse. And nobody finds that worse.”
His unambiguous attitude on this has said that he does not want to “touch” Medicaid in any way-is a reason that Republicans have so far failed to merge around a cost-saving plan for the program. This, in turn, searched to produce the most important details of the “one big, beautiful bill” that they try to push the congress over the solid opposition of Democrats.
Mr. Trump complicates the situation and is known for abrupt changing of his thoughts about great issues as soon as his party has set a position, so that Republican leaders and their ranking and file members are uncertain about where he could end up and whether they could be in an untenable political position. They are sharply aware of the Potential political recoil That could result from reducing the government program that offers health coverage to tens of millions of Americans.
The President is considering at least one medicaid-cost-saving measures: adding a work requirement for some recipients, which he sees as a way to reduce the expenditure for the program without reducing benefits, according to people who are aware of the process. But he does not want to take action that can be characterized as a cut for the program, they said.
A well -known person said that the White House has proposed other measures to cover the total costs of the budget that have been achieved so far, and that Mr Trump rejects the idea that there must be significant medicid reductions to make room for his desired tax reductions.
That flies against the budget plan that house republicans have written and passed, that requires $ 880 billion in cuts from the committee that supervises medicaidA target that would be difficult to achieve without substantial cuts on the program.
“The president has been very clear that he does not want to reduce any benefits for people on Medicaid and Medicare,” said representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “He wants to create efficiency and reforms. He shows an openness for work requirements.”
In essence, dynamics reflects an ideological gap between Mr Trump and many in his party. The populist approach and restraint of the president to reduce social programs, in particular rights, are fundamentally at odds with the core principles of many Republicans in the congress. Those legislators came to Washington during the rise of the Tea Party with one goal: to reduce federal expenditure, in particular rights, to collapse the national debt.
“If the household budget-kissing package does not include a structural medicoid reform that achieves the desired republican results, we will set up mass increases and benefit reductions in the future,” wrote a group of 20 tax hard liners in a letter to speaker Mike Johnson. “For once, the congress must stop postponing, using apologies and ultimately fulfill the Republican agenda.”
Instead, Mr. Trump has shown more interest in a handful of options that would increase federal income, floating test balloons for ideas that Republicans on Capitol Hill have long seen as a contrary to the goal of the party to cut, not raise taxes.
In a phone call with Mr. Johnson on Wednesday, the president insisted with him to levy taxes on the richest earners and to delete tax benefits for some private equity managers, according to a person who was informed about the call that was not authorized to discuss it publicly.
On Friday morning, Mr. Trump seemed on social media in Dubbelwevens, with the argument that “even a” small “tax increase for the rich” Democrats would enable Republicans to accuse the violation of their often promise not to levy taxes.
“In any case, Republicans probably shouldn’t do it, but I’m fine if they do that !!!” He concluded.
Mr. Trump’s supplications not to reduce the benefits of Medicaid are unlikely Voted him with more moderate Republicans They are confronted with heavy re -election campaigns in Swing Districts and have the most aggressive options to reform the program. That in turn has the hard liners in the Republican conference of the house furious, many of whom are normally in the final step with Mr Trump.
This week, Mr. Johnson announced that house leaders had dropped one of the most aggressive options that Republicans were considering reducing the Medicaid costs. To reduce that plan to reduce the amount that the federal government pays states to ensure adults who were eligible in working age that were eligible for the program due to the medicaid expansion of the affordable care act- would have saved An estimated $ 710 billion for ten years.
The speaker also suggested that he leaned against another way to reduce the expenditure for Medicaid, by changing the way in which the federal government pays states – currently by providing a percentage of the medical accounts of beneficiaries – to a fixed compensation per person.
His explanation for why house republicans were Table Two of the largest policy routes for coming up with Medicaid savings repeated Mr Trump.
“It’s a sensitive thing,” Mr. Johnson told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday. “Look, our true and honest intention is to ensure that every Medicaid who is beneficial in that traditional community of people – you are talking about young pregnant mothers and young single mothers and the elderly and the disabled – those people are covered and nobody loses their coverage.”
Maggie Haberman And Andrew Duehren contributed reporting.
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