Democrats’ talking points about the House budget bill are not only a prime example of fearmongering, but also “four Pinocchios” level of false, according to House Republicans.
House GOP leadership is working to win over conservative fiscal hawks opposed to the current version of the budget resolution. They are also refuting Democrats’ claims about the budget bill as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries tries to make a vote on the budget resolution politically perilous for vulnerable Republicans. House Democrats, despite offering little evidence, are saying that the House GOP budget plan is going to put entitlement programs on the chopping block and give preferential tax treatment to wealthy Americans at the expense of the working class.
“The Republican budget represents the largest Medicaid cut in history,” Jeffries said in a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol Tuesday. “Let me be clear: House Democrats will not provide a single vote to this reckless Republican budget. Not one.”
“The reckless Republican budget will hurt everyday Americans who rely on Medicaid, rely on nutritional assistance and rely on veterans’ assistance,” Jeffries said. “It’s not a reality show. This is not a joke. It’s not politics as usual. It’s a matter of life and death.”
🚨 Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) on Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”
“Is there anything beautiful about cutting healthcare for millions of American families?” pic.twitter.com/LN75sEEGaA
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 25, 2025
Republicans have refuted Democrats’ talking points with one simple statement: the GOP budget proposal does not prescribe specific spending cuts.
“It is not lost on me that there will be spurious caricatures and distorted criticism that will be lobbed at this budget resolution,” House Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx said Monday prior to the House Rules Committee adopting the resolution. “Despite what my Democrat colleagues are likely to assert, it does not contain any programmatic assumptions or cuts.”
“Let me repeat that: it does not contain any programmatic assumptions or cuts,” Foxx added.
House GOP leadership reiterated Tuesday that the House budget resolution does not lay out specific cuts to any government programs but just provides instructions to committees to commence the next stage of the budget reconciliation process. Upon passage of the House budget resolution, relevant committees will be tasked with executing specific spending and tax instructions within their jurisdiction, but the resolution does not tell committees where to identify potential savings.
The budget resolution does not target specific entitlement programs, such as Medicaid. Although the House Energy and Commerce Committee — the House panel with jurisdiction over Medicaid — has been tasked with identifying $880 billion in savings over a 10-year period, House GOP leadership has given no indication that the popular entitlement program will be cut beyond rooting out waste, fraud and abuse.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told his Democratic colleagues and the corporate media that the House Budget resolution notably does not even mention the word “Medicaid.”
“The Word ‘Medicaid’ is NOT EVEN in This Bill.”
Majority Leader Scalise REFUTES Democrat Talking Point That Republican Budget Cuts Medicaid pic.twitter.com/U7SW2bQUWO
_— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 25, 2025
“Do you know that for every Democrat talking point where they talk about the horrible things that this budget is going to do, they talk about Medicaid cuts … there’s only one problem, the word Medicaid is not even in his bill,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Tuesday. “This bill doesn’t even mention the word Medicaid a single time, and yet, all Democrats are doing is lying about what’s in the budget because they don’t want to talk about the truth of what we’re voting to start. We’re voting to start a process.”
Republican lawmakers have also debunked House Democrats’ false allegations that the GOP budget proposal’s forthcoming tax provisions will only benefit high-income Americans.
“This budget is a Republican betrayal of the middle class,” Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern said Monday. “It guts the very programs millions of Americans rely on: health care, food assistance, education — all to hand massive trillion dollar giveaways to billionaires.”
However, House GOP leadership is emphasizing that working class Americans will have much to gain with an extension of the Trump tax cuts and enacting the president’s new tax priorities, such as no taxes on tips or overtime pay.
“99% of the people that would see a tax increase with no vote [on extending the Trump tax cuts] are people that make less than a million dollars,” Scalise said Tuesday. “That’s who Democrats want to see a tax increase on while they lie and use the names of billionaires. They’re going to be kicking in the gut the hard working people of America.”
Republican lawmakers have argued that Americans and businesses will see the largest tax increase in recent U.S. history if the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions, signed into law by Trump during his first administration, are not extended by the end of this year.
The budget resolution is the first step of the budget reconciliation process congressional Republicans are embarking on to execute Trump’s first-year legislative priorities. The House’s budget resolution approves up to $4.5 trillion in deficit increases to execute the president’s tax agenda and aims to cut between $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in spending. The House resolution also approves a $4 trillion hike in the statutory debt limit.
The House is slated to vote on its budget proposal as early as Tuesday evening.
Featured Image Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America
