The Congressional Republicans Who Could Have To Get Their Hands Dirty Implementing Health, Food Benefit Cuts

The so-called Big Beautiful Bill will pinch state budgets, leaving governors to pick up the slack.

WASHINGTON — Republicans on Capitol Hill are drafting legislation that would cut federal funding for critical health and food safety programs, essentially asking the nation’s 50 states to do more for the poor or show them the door.

For a surprising number of GOP lawmakers, it could end up as their problem. Several House and Senate Republicans are running or considering running for governor, meaning they could wind up having to implement their own legislation. In awkward interviews on Capitol Hill, they said they would be up to the task.

“If I run, and if I get to do that, that’d be the best, most fun I can ever — the changes that were made would benefit South Carolina,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a potential gubernatorial candidate, told HuffPost. “It’d be an honor to do it.”

Norman is a member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of Republicans that pushed for the deepest possible cuts. Other potential candidates for governor also sounded optimistic, but at the same time more realistic about the bill’s fiscal impact on states.

“You can do more with less. You can accomplish more with less. And we need to,” Rep. Dan Mueser (R-Pa.), who is mulling a run, said this month. He lamented that Pennsylvania has placed poorly in rankings of states. “Once the Pennsylvanian people realize that, like, ‘Wow, we got nowhere to go but up.’ That, to me, is an opportunity.”