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With Donald Trump’s tax and agenda bill on the verge of collapse in the House of Representatives, the president is demanding that the GOP get it together to ensure the legislation becomes law.
“Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social, claiming that it will “cut Taxes for ALL Americans.”
One of the main priorities of the reconciliation package is to codify Trump’s 2017 tax cuts — which heavily favored wealthy Americans — into permanent law. But the tax package produced by the House Ways and Mean Committee won’t actually reduce taxes for all Americans. In fact, it will raise taxes on the poor.
According to an analysis by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, Trump’s reconciliation bill will raise taxes on Americans earning under $15,000 in 2027. By 2029 and going forward, the legislation will continue to increase taxes on those individuals, as well Americans earning between $15,000 and $30,000.
Millionaires, meanwhile, will see tax cuts in each year included in the analysis. In two of four years, according to the JCT analysis, millionaires will see a larger average decrease in their tax rate than Americans will overall.
From 2027 to 2033, Americans earning under $30,000 are expected to pay collectively nearly $18 billion more in taxes. At the same time, individuals who earn more than $1 million will collectively receive tax cuts totaling $242 billion.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) offered an explanation for why “tens of millions of working Americans will see a tax INCREASE in 2029 under Republicans’ bill,” in a thread posted Wednesday evening to Bluesky. He wrote that Republicans’ legislation would only temporarily cut taxes on tips and overtime pay, which were two of Trump’s key 2024 campaign promises — “as opposed to the cuts for the richest 1 percent, which they made permanent.”
On Friday, at least four Republican members on the the House Budget Committee withdrew their support for the reconciliation bill, failing to pass the massive piece of legislation to the full chamber on its first vote. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told reporters that he was a hard “no” until the legislation included language that would implement Medicaid work requirements sooner than the current 2029 start date, and move forward the repeal of Inflation Reduction Act green energy tax credits.
“If we’re going to continue to have […] able-bodied Americans getting checks, illegal aliens getting checks, subsidies that go to corporations that shouldn’t get them, I’m out,” Norman said.
The reconciliation bill’s current changes to Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income Americans and the disabled, are already expected to result in 10 million adults and children losing their insurance coverage.
Should it manage to pass through the House, where Republicans hold a narrow seven-vote majority, the legislation may already be in peril in the Senate. Last week, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote in an opinion piece for The New York Times that to “build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor,” is “both morally wrong and politically suicidal.”
“Republicans need to open their eyes: Our voters support social insurance programs. More than that, our voters depend on those programs. And there’s a reason for this that Republicans would do well to ponder. Our economy is increasingly unfriendly to working people and their families,” Hawley wrote, adding that his party was once again falling to old habits of “corporate giveaways, preferences for capital and deep cuts to social insurance.”
Despite the clear indicators that Republicans’ reconciliation package will be a disaster for working class Americans, in both the short and long term, the party seems hellbent on forcing them through Congress to appease Trump. What’s even more disheartening is that the majority of the opposition is not holding out over concern for their constituents, but a feeling that the legislation won’t rip the social safety net out from under them fast enough.
