A year after Republicans muscled the massive reconciliation bill to Trump’s desk, Democratic candidates in the most competitive Senate races are blasting their Republican opponents over their support for the tax cuts package, The Hill’s Helen Huiskes reports.
The legislation cuts more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and more than $180 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Vulnerable Republicans warned of the political consequences of those cuts as the bill was being debated but eventually voted for it anyway.
A year later, national Democrats and candidates in the key swing races are making sure voters know how many people in their states have lost SNAP benefits since enactment, which hospitals and clinics have closed, and how the Republican on the ballot is complicit in all of it.
Republicans hailed H.R. 1 as the biggest legislative achievement of President Trump’s first year. But GOP lawmakers almost immediately struggled to sell the bill to voters and ended up rebranding it as the Working Families Tax Cut Act.
Republicans still insist the tax cuts for higher-wage earners and corporations in the package are going to be a central facet of their midterm messaging, but Democrats are digging in with ads and campaign trail messages with a few months to go before Election Day.
