|
Yesterday, House Republicans in Washington bent the knee to Donald Trump and passed a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans paid for by cutting critical health care and food access Kentuckians rely on.
In Kentucky, more than 158,000 people are at risk of losing their Medicaid coverage. Additionally, nearly 600,000 Kentuckians rely on SNAP to put food on the table – Republicans just voted to take that lifeline away for people across the state.
But don’t just take our word for it – the Editorial Board of one of Kentucky’s largest newspapers published a scathing editorial detailing the extent of the harm Kentucky Republicans are ready to force upon their voters.
Lexington Herald Leader: Despite Kentucky’s loyalty to GOP, Trump’s budget would hurt Kentuckians deeply
Herald-Leader Editorial Board
May 22, 2025
- Kentucky is the most crimson of states, which in 2024 voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump, while sending a Republican majority delegation to Congress.
- But the House budget released early Thursday morning — won by one vote — shows no such loyalty back. Instead it creates a blueprint that will decimate rural hospitals, empty food banks, and leave our children hungry and our families poorer.
- It is early days, and no doubt the Senate will make substantial changes to the final product of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” But the budget’s detrimental effects on everyone but the very rich should send voters of every stripe to their phones and emails to protest.
- As Jason Bailey of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy said: “One in three Kentuckians receive health coverage through Medicaid, including children, seniors, low-wage workers and people with disabilities. Similarly, 587,000 Kentuckians receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program food assistance to help afford groceries. These programs are essential to better health and are especially necessary in a time of rising household costs..”
- He added: “They inject tens of billions of dollars into the Kentucky economy each year, creating jobs at grocery stores, hospitals and health clinics. But the House bill makes harmful cuts to both, ensuring that doctor visits and groceries will be more difficult to come by for far too many.”
- Bailey and many others have noted the budget could have continued middle class tax cuts, while letting the upper income ones expire, instead of cutting programs that harm the most vulnerable.
- But that’s not what the modern GOP is about. Cruelty is the point of the Trump administration, and its underlying ethos of greed meant that the richest Americans became the top priority.
- It also estimated that in 2027, the plan would cause the bottom 10% of Americans to lose the equivalent of 2% of their income because of reduced benefits and increased costs to food and health care, while the top 10% would see a 4% increase to their income.
- But the biggest problem is cuts to Medicaid, which keeps millions of people out of medical bankruptcy. It helps our most vulnerable, but many more, like middle-class families who need it for a relative’s nursing home, or the thousands of Kentuckians who need access to addiction recovery services.
- As much as it sometimes seem impossible to get through to our elected lawmakers, it’s important they know how their constituents feel.
- Remind Rep. Hal Rogers what he said back in February: Representing one of the poorest regions of the nation, he declared: “We have no intentions of gutting Medicaid or other vital programs. However, we are on a mission to cut waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars, so that we can protect the future of programs like Medicaid for years to come.”
- He voted yes on the House bill.
- Tell senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul what you think. They still have the power to oppose a budget that could so much harm to our state.
- Tell them all and tell them often. They work for the voters of Kentucky and should be doing all they can to help it.
|
