Dear Mainer: Déjà Vu and the House GOP’s Reckless Budget Bill

Health care cuts, tax breaks for the rich, and a ballooning debt: We’ve been here before

Before heading home for Memorial Day, the House GOP used its thin majority to push a partisan budget bill to the Senate’s doorstep — a bill that guts health care for the working poor and runs up massive new deficits to fund tax cuts that mostly benefit those who are already very, very wealthy.

Sound familiar? It should, and not just because their budget package has been dominating headlines for weeks. This sad saga has given many of us a sense of profound, disappointing déjà vu.

For me, it’s also been a reminder of why I came to Congress in the first place.

2017 and my road to Congress

The last time the GOP entered a new Congress with a governing trifecta was in 2017. That year, they pursued two major policy initiatives: the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and sweeping, budget-busting tax cuts for the rich.

Back then, I was House Majority Whip in the Maine Legislature. During my relatively short time in the Maine State House, I worked on health care issues — specifically improving mental health treatment for veterans. Veterans health care requires specific considerations, particularly because of the role of the VA, but all Americans have a need for affordable, quality health care.

During 2017 in Augusta, we were fighting to expand MaineCare (our state’s Medicaid program) under the ACA. We also were pushing to ensure fair tax reform that put middle-class families first. And we were doing the hard work necessary to balance the budget, as we did every year.

I ran for Congress because I saw Washington doing the exact opposite. The majority in Congress was working overtime to repeal the ACA. The fact they were also working to shift the tax code in favor of those at the top and leave our country further in debt just added insult to injury.

Their plan to repeal the ACA would have decimated health care in our country. Today, more than 170,000 Mainers have access to health care because of the ACA, either through Medicaid expansion or the insurance marketplace. Repealing the law would have turned back the clock to a time when fewer people had health coverage and insurance companies could discriminate against people with preexisting conditions. Thankfully, while the repeal effort passed in the House, the Senate blocked it, with the late Senator John McCain ending the repeal effort with his now-famous thumbs-down on the Senate floor.

But on the tax front, Republicans in both chambers worked together and succeeded: Congress passed the Trump Tax Cuts (technically the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”) — a massive slate of tax reforms that included some provisions for low- and middle-income families, but gave the lion’s share of its benefits to the wealthiest households and corporations. The unpaid-for bill was anticipated to blow a $1.6 trillion hole in the budget, exacerbating the fiscal instability that already threatened the future of Social Security and Medicare.

This year’s GOP budget bill: A note-for-note cover of a terrible song

Today, eight years later, the new GOP trifecta has picked up right where the last one left off.

• Health care cuts for the working poor? Check. While they abandoned outright repeal of the ACA, the bill would take health care away from nearly 14 million Americans who get coverage through Medicaid or the ACA insurance marketplace.

• Tax cuts tilted massively toward those at the top? Check. “In 2027 [the budget reconciliation bill] gives households earning more than $1 million a year an annual tax cut of roughly $90,000, while low-income households receive an average of just $90 from the tax cuts — the same households who will then bear the brunt of cuts to Medicaid and SNAP,” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

• A massive increase in debt? Check, check, check. The reconciliation bill would add $3.1 trillion to the national debt, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. This comes at a time when interest on the debt costs the federal government more every year than on national defense or Medicare and second only to Social Security as an annual line item in the federal budget

This year’s House GOP agenda is a note-for-note cover of a terrible song. I didn’t like the tune back then, and I still can’t stand it today. That’s why when I voted no, I said it was one of the easiest votes I’ve ever taken.