Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Raising Taxes or Cutting Spending: House Budget Committee Argues Over Debt Crisis Fix

Raising Taxes or Cutting Spending: House Budget Committee Argues Over Debt Crisis Fix

Republican and Democratic representatives discussed the fiscal state of the United State in a House Budget hearing on May 7, 2025

Huiyan Li | Medill News Service

WASHINGTON –– Republicans and Democrats clashed on May 7 at a House Budget Committee hearing over how to address the nation’s mounting federal debt—whether to raise revenue through tax increases or cut spending on federal programs such as Medicaid.

Both parties agreed that the United States was on an unsustainable fiscal path and that urgent action is needed to prevent a debt crisis.


U.S. national debt will soon exceed $30 trillion, with annual deficits approaching $2 trillion; interest payments on the debt now surpass the entire defense budget, according to projections by the Congressional Budget Office.

“These figures represent a growing economic burden that threatens long-term prosperity,” said Joshua Rauh, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, in his testimony.

Republican representatives argued that the debt burden was driven by the “unchecked” growth of mandatory spending programs, particularly Medicaid. They blamed the expansion of Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act for adding pressure to the federal budget.

The Act allows states to extend Medicaid coverage to adults with incomes up to 138% of the poverty level (about $20,780 annually for an individual or $35,630 for a family of three). Currently, 40 states and Washington, D.C. have adopted the expansion.

“Are we not, through Medicaid, currently subsidizing the able-bodied massively more than the vulnerable, for whom Medicaid was actually designed to serve?” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said.

“If you’re illegal, you should not get a check from the federal government. If you don’t work and you are healthy, you should not get a check from the federal government,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).

Michael Linden, senior policy fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, opposed this idea, arguing that 80 million Americans rely on Medicaid, which covers most long-term care and nearly half of all births in the United States.

While Rep. Norman said, “It is not a cut. It’s just rearranging an inequity,” a Congressional Budget Office analysis released May 7 showed that several Republican proposals to slash Medicaid would lead to millions of people losing health insurance coverage.

“There is a reason why 80% of Americans, including the majority of Republicans, oppose cuts to Medicaid,” said Linden.

While Linden acknowledged that the program could be more efficient, he said he has not seen any proposals from the Republicans that would reinvest the money saved from cuts back into the program to benefit people.

“Instead, those cuts are going to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” said Linden.

Democrat representatives attributed the mounting debt crisis not to excess spending but instead to tax cuts, saying they benefited only the wealthy.

“The sweeping, indiscriminate tariffs that have raised prices on Americans, the slashing of critical programs from health care to education—why? All so that we can set up a $7 trillion tax break for the wealthiest in America,” said Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.)

A recent U.S. Treasury Department analysis found that Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act gave the top 1% of households an average tax cut of $60,300, compared with $660 for the middle 20% of households by wealth.

Rauh from Hoover Institution argued that raising tax rates discouraged work, savings, and investments, leading to lower growth and fewer new businesses and jobs, which would ultimately reduce revenues.

“Our research shows that when governments impose high tax burdens, you get lower than expected revenue growth,” said Rauh, supporting the tax cuts.

Linden disagreed with that theory. Quoting research from the Yale Department of Economics, he said at the hearing that corporations receiving the tax cut did not raise wages for their workers—but they did raise wages for their executives.

“Growth and prosperity come from everyday Americans going about their lives—creating jobs, being customers, being productive members of society—and they need basic things like health care and food and housing,” said Linden. “Not through a hope that the tax cuts for a giant multinational corporation will eventually trickle down to them.”

Huiyan Li is a reporter for Medill News Service covering business & technology. She is a journalism graduate student at Northwestern University specializing in politics, policy, and foreign affairs.

Read More

U.S. President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn on May 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.
U.S. President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn on May 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Getty Images, Andrew Harnik

Congress Bill Spotlight: National Garden of American Heroes, As Trump Proposed

The Fulcrum introduces Congress Bill Spotlight, a weekly report by Jesse Rifkin, focusing on the noteworthy legislation of the thousands introduced in Congress. Rifkin has written about Congress for years, and now he's dissecting the most interesting bills you need to know about, but that often don't get the right news coverage.

What do Kobe Bryant, Dr. Seuss, Walt Disney, Alex Trebek, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have in common?

Keep ReadingShow less
Just the Facts: Using the Military to Stop Riots

National Guard

File footage

Just the Facts: Using the Military to Stop Riots

The Fulcrum strives to approach news stories with an open mind and skepticism, striving to present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces. However, before our readers can analyze varying viewpoints, they must have the facts.

Before President Trump called up the military to stop the L.A. riots this week, has the military ever been called upon to stop protests in the United States?

Keep ReadingShow less
Marines Sent to Los Angeles “Presents a Significant Logistical and Operational Challenge”

Protesters confront National Guard soldiers and police outside of a federal building as protests continue in Los Angeles following three days of clashes with police after a series of immigration raids on June 09, 2025, in Los Angeles, California.

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Marines Sent to Los Angeles “Presents a Significant Logistical and Operational Challenge”

LOS ANGELES, CA - An estimated 700 U.S. Marines are being mobilized from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, approximately 140 miles east of Los Angeles, to Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. This mobilization will position the troops closer to Los Angeles, where they may potentially work alongside National Guard units to protect federal resources and personnel, according to NBC News.

The latest figures from police, nearly 70 individuals were arrested over the weekend during protests. This total includes 29 people arrested on Saturday for failure to disperse and 21 individuals arrested on Sunday on charges ranging from attempted murder involving a Molotov cocktail to looting and failure to disperse, as reported by the LAPD.

Keep ReadingShow less
GOP Funding Bill Could Put CA Rural Health Centers, Hospitals at Risk

Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California, makes up about 40% of revenue for Community Health Centers, which serve almost 32 million mostly low-income people nationwide.

Arlette/Adobe Stock

GOP Funding Bill Could Put CA Rural Health Centers, Hospitals at Risk

People who depend on Community Health Centers and rural hospitals could have trouble finding care if Medicaid cuts just approved by the U.S. House are signed into law.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated 8 million people nationwide could lose coverage over the next decade, including more than 3 million in California.

Lizette Escobedo, vice president of government relations and civic engagement at AltaMed Health Services in Los Angeles, said the costs to treat a flood of uninsured patients would overwhelm community clinics and small town hospitals.

"If this bill were to be implemented over the next 10 years, some federally qualified health centers and hospitals especially in the rural areas would probably have to close their doors," Escobedo projected.

Supporters of the bill said the savings are needed to fund other administration priorities, including President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts. The bill would also tighten work requirements for Medicaid coverage and force people to reapply every six months instead of annually. And it would slash tens of billions in federal funding to states like California allowing health coverage for undocumented people.

Joe Dunn, chief policy officer for the National Association of Community Health Centers, called the proposed cuts counterproductive, in terms of keeping people healthy and keeping costs down.

"Health centers actually save money in the long run, because it reduces utilization of emergency departments and other kind of higher-cost settings, like inpatient hospitalization," Dunn explained.

The bill is now in the U.S. Senate.

GOP Funding Bill Could Put CA Rural Health Centers, Hospitals at Risk was originally published by the Public News Service and is republished with permission.

Keep ReadingShow less