‘Absolute Disaster:’ Senate Dems Take Aim At Trump's Tax Bill

Lawmakers slammed the fallout the bill could have for millions on Medicaid.

Senate Democrats laid into President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax bill on Sunday, emphasizing the impact it is poised to make on millions of Americans on Medicaid.

“This Republican budget bill is an absolute disaster for the country, in particular for middle-class and poor people,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, noting that it seeks to pay for tax cuts by curbing spending on social programs.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) echoed these concerns in an interview on NBC News’s Meet the Press, stressing that “Republicans are trying to push forward this big ugly bill that’s going to literally cut as many as seven million Americans off of their healthcare.”

Murphy and Warnock’s statements come as Republicans’ massive tax and spending bill heads to the Senate, where it’s likely to face staunch Democratic opposition as well as GOP dissent. The bill slashes spending on social programs like SNAP and Medicaid, while proposing trillions in tax cuts and billions in investments to strengthen border security. According to an initial analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, it would push 7.6 million people off Medicaid, in part by making it more difficult to qualify for the program.

One way it does so is by imposing a new work requirement, which would force many able-bodied recipients to prove that they’ve worked, volunteered or attended a training program to obtain Medicaid coverage.