IVN is joined by Nate Allen, founder and Executive Director of Utah Approves, to discuss Approval Voting and his perspective on changing the incentives of our elections.
Podcast: Seeking approval in Utah

IVN is joined by Nate Allen, founder and Executive Director of Utah Approves, to discuss Approval Voting and his perspective on changing the incentives of our elections.
The Promoting American Patriotism In Our Schools Act would require all public schools nationally to display the American flag and start the day with the Pledge of Allegiance.
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.
A viral TikTok with 23+ million views, depicting what Americans do and don’t know, showcased a woman who could successfully recite the Pledge of Allegiance but didn’t know the solid form of water was ice.
What the bill does
The Promoting American Patriotism In Our Schools Act would require all public schools nationally to display the American flag and start the day with the Pledge of Allegiance.
However, any individual student could still opt out from the pledge for religious or personal reasons. That provision complies with 1943’s Supreme Court decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, which ruled 6-3 that Jehovah's Witnesses children could not be forced to salute the flag in school if it violated their religious beliefs.
The bill was introduced in February by Rep. Dale Strong (R-AL5).
Context
The Pledge of Allegiance states: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
The wording was crafted in 1892 by author Francis Bellamy, who popularized it upon inclusion in the children’s magazine The Youth's Companion. Today, it’s most frequently uttered by schoolchildren in classrooms at the start of the day, though it’s sometimes also recited before sports games or at political campaign events.
Over the years, Congress has enacted legislation about the Pledge at least three times:
What supporters say
Supporters argue that the current bill would increase patriotic sentiment and love of country.
“Unfortunately, many children in today’s society do not know the Pledge of Allegiance. The values and symbols that make America great are being overlooked and ignored. It’s time we change that,” Rep. Strong told Alabama’s Yellowhammer News. “[The bill] ensures that every child grows up understanding and appreciating our great nation, its symbols, and its history.”
What opponents say
Opponents may counter that the bill’s aim already effectively occurs, since almost every public school already starts the day with the Pledge. A full 45 states have laws requiring schools to recite the Pledge, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The only five states that don’t: Arizona, Hawaii, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Vermont. (Although since 2012, Nebraska has required it through a State School Board policy, even if not by an actual law.)
Other similar proposals
Democrats opposed or expressed concerns about some other recent “mandatory pledge” proposals, though for reasons that don’t precisely line up with the current congressional bill.
In 2023, Democrats expressed concerns about a Republican proposal for House Judiciary Committee meetings to begin with the pledge. But their concerns were largely over what they contended was Republican hypocrisy, with many GOP members saying the pledge yet voting to challenge the Biden-Trump 2020 presidential election results.
Also in 2023, Democrats voted against an Arizona Republican state bill to require the pledge in public schools. But their concerns were largely over the opt-out policy, which was more restrictive than this congressional version, only allowing opt-outs if a student was at least 18 or with parental permission for a minor.
That bill passed the state House by 31-29 but never received a state Senate vote.
A similar bill from 2021
While The Fulcrum was unable to find a version of this exact federal bill previously introduced, 2021’s Love America Act was at least similar.
It would have required public school students nationwide to read four different “foundational” American documents at four different grade levels:
The Republican-led bill never received a vote in the then-Democratic Congress.
Odds of passage
The current congressional bill has attracted 13 Republican cosponsors.
It awaits a potential vote in the House Education and Workforce Committee, controlled by Republicans.
Jesse Rifkin is a freelance journalist with the Fulcrum. Don’t miss his weekly report, Congress Bill Spotlight, every Friday on the Fulcrum. Rifkin’s writings about politics and Congress have been published in the Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call, Los Angeles Times, CNN Opinion, GovTrack, and USA Today.
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A banner advertising apartments for rent on display in St. Louis. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, more people than ever in the Midwest and nationwide are not earning enough money to afford the rent.
In several states, a renter must earn $20 or more per hour to afford apartments being leased at Fair Market Value. Nearly half of Americans don’t make enough money to afford a one-bedroom rental.
Personal stories about struggling to make ends meet appear throughout the report, “Out of Reach: The High Cost of Housing.”
Vee, from Missouri, said her small wage increases don’t make a dent in rising rent costs.
“Everything is going up, but the paycheck,” a woman named Detrese from Maryland told the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which authored the report.
The report focuses on the housing wage, defined as the full-time hourly wage needed for workers to afford “a decent rental home that doesn’t occupy more than 30% of their wage.”
On the national level, the data show that a renter needs to earn about $28 an hour to afford a modest one-bedroom rental without spending more than 30% of their income on housing. Half of working Americans earn less than that, according to the report.
Published on Thursday, the report begins with an open letter from Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri that warns about the ongoing affordable housing and homelessness crisis in the U.S.
“I know these challenges firsthand. As a child, my family and I lived in public housing. We relied on it to put a roof over our heads, and to make sure there was enough money to put food on the table,” Cleaver writes.
In at least four Midwestern states, minimum wage is not enough to afford a two-bedroom rental at Fair Market Value.
Renters in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri need to make at least $20 an hour to afford a two-bedroom rental. Minimum wage earners would need to work several full-time jobs to afford it.
Costs are even higher in Illinois, where it takes earnings of almost $30 an hour to afford a dwelling of the exact same size.
“People have lower incomes in those places, so the housing might be more affordable, you know, nominally, but not necessarily, relative to people's incomes,” said Dan Emmanuel, the coalition's director of research.
According to the NILHC report, only one out of four prospective renters eligible for housing assistance is able to receive that aid, and budget cuts to federal programs proposed by Congress will drastically impact those who need it.
Under the 2026 Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development measure, almost a billion dollars could be cut from HUD, an amount which the NILHC acknowledges is not as high as originally proposed.
In remarks at a July Appropriations Committee session, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who chairs the committee, said:
"The bill empowers local housing and community development decision-making through Community Development Block Grants and NeighborWorks—capacity-building activities that leverage private housing investment dollars.”
Emmanuel said many people will lose their housing and could become homeless as a result of the proposed cuts.
“(HUD) won't be able to serve the same amount of people as in 2025,” Emmanuel said.
Tina Murray, vice president of housing at Together Omaha, a food and housing advocacy organization, is concerned about the end of housing programs. She said there is already a big shift in housing affordability in Omaha due to the end of the pandemic-era federal funds and predicts a gradual rise in evictions after the federal funding is no longer available.
“What we're seeing now are a lot of individuals that I believe will not be able to afford where they're living, or be able to be re-house,” Murray said.
Omaha is one of the most expensive areas for renters in the state of Nebraska. The housing wage in the state’s largest city is about $24, while the state housing wage is $21.57. The average Nebraskan renter earns $17.71 an hour, only about four dollars above the state minimum wage.
According to the report, Kendall County, in the Chicago metropolitan region, is one of the most expensive areas for renters in Illinois. The housing wage there is $36.27, higher than the state’s housing wage of $29.81. The average Illinois renter makes $23.01 an hour, about seven dollars above the minimum wage.
Vikki from Illinois shares her story in the report, describing feeling trapped, as her only housing options to relocate with her son are in "unacceptable conditions."
Cleaver said people of color are disproportionately impacted by the rising cost of rent, lack of affordable housing, and low wages.
In comparison to white people, people of color face higher rates of housing, employment,t and income discrimination. Latina women face the biggest wage gap, earning nearly 11 dollars per hour less than white men. The unemployment rate for American Indians and Alaska Natives was 6.6%, roughly double the rate for white people.
“There is a long, long history of housing discrimination. Either through red line exclusionary zoning or predatory lending. And some of those practices are even persistent in the present," said Emmanuel.
In his introductory letter to the report, Cleaver sums up many factors contributing to what the NILHC calls an “affordability crisis” in housing.
“While the stories and circumstances are unique, the root causes of housing instability are not: there are not enough decent, affordable, and accessible homes in communities, and wages have not kept pace with the ever-increasing cost of rent,” Cleaver writes.
The NILHC states that another factor contributing to the shortage of affordable housing is the practice of upward filtering, where landlords and developers renovate old buildings and rent the units at higher prices.
The authors of “Out of Reach” say solutions to the affordability crisis are available.
The report urges Congress to protect housing programs and expand the existing assistance. One of its suggestions is to continue the Emergency Housing Voucher program, created through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
“Congress must not only protect existing housing programs but significantly strengthen them through sustained investment, expanded rental assistance, and policies that eliminate barriers to housing access,” the report says.
The NILHC points to the Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act as a step in the right direction. The bipartisan measure would provide 250,000 housing vouchers to families with young children to increase housing stability and offer them more choice in where they live.
Jessica Meza is a Journalism & Advertising and Public Relations student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Jessica is the Hortencia Zavala Foundation 2025 summer intern working with NPR’s Midwest Newsroom, the Latino News Network (LNN), and the Fulcrum, as part of our NextGen initiatives.
The Midwest Newsroom is an investigative and enterprise journalism collaboration that includes Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio, and NPR.
Maggi, a child care provider in New Mexico, works on an art project with a preschooler in her care. Parents have pulled children out of Maggi’s child care program as immigration enforcement has ramped up.
This story about immigrants in New Mexico was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Maggi’s home in a suburban neighborhood here is a haven for local families. It’s a place where after just a few weeks in Maggi’s family-run child care program this spring, one preschooler started calling Maggi “mama” and Maggi’s husband “papa.” Children who have graduated from Maggi’s program still beg their parents to take them to her home instead of school.
Over the past few months, fewer families are showing up for care: Immigration enforcement has ramped up and immigration policies have rapidly changed. Both Maggi and the families who rely on her — some of whom are immigrants — no longer feel safe.
“There’s a lot of fear going on within the Latino community, and all of these are good people — good, hard-working people,” Maggi, 47, said in Spanish through an interpreter on a recent morning as she watched a newborn sleep in what used to be her living room. Since she started her own child care business two years ago, she has dedicated nearly every inch of her common space to creating a colorful, toy-filled oasis for children. Maggi doesn’t understand why so many immigrants are now at risk of deportation. “We’ve been here a long time,” she said. “We’ve been doing honest work.”
Immigrants like Maggi play a crucial role in home-based child care, as well as America’s broader child care system of more than 2 millionpredominantly female workers. (The Hechinger Report is not using Maggi’s last name out of concern for her safety and that of the families using her care.) Caregivers are notoriously difficult to find and keep, not only because the work is difficult, but because of poverty-level wages and limited benefits. Nationwide, immigrants make up nearly 20 percent of the child care workforce. In New York City, immigrants make up more than 40 percent of the child care workforce. In Los Angeles, it’s nearly 50 percent.
The Trump administration’s far-reaching war on immigration, which includes daily quotas for immigrant arrests, new restrictions on work permits and detainment of legal residents, threatens America’s already-fragile child care system. Immigrant providers, especially those who serve immigrant families, have been hit especially hard. Just like at Maggi’s, child care providers nationwide are watching families disappear from their care, threatening the viability of those businesses. In America, 1 in 4 children under the age of 6 has at least one foreign-born parent. Some kids who could benefit from experienced caregivers are now instead at home with older siblings or elderly relatives, losing out on socialization and kindergarten preparation. Some immigrant workers, regardless of status, are too scared to come to work, exacerbating staffing shortages.
“Anti-immigrant policy can and will weaken our entire caregiving infrastructure,” said Karla Coleman-Castillo, senior policy analyst at the National Women’s Law Center. Home-based programs in particular will feel the squeeze, she said, since they tend to serve more immigrant families. “Anything that threatens the stability of families’ ability and comfort accessing early childhood education — and educators’ comfort entering or remaining in the workforce — is going to impact an already precarious sector.”
For Maggi, the fallout has been swift. In February, just a few weeks after the first changes were announced, her enrollment dropped from as many as 15 children each day to seven. Some families returned to Mexico. Others became too nervous to stray from their work routes for even a quick drop off. Some no longer wanted to give their information to the state to get help paying for care.
By May, only two children, an infant and a 4-year-old, were enrolled full time, along with six kids who came for before- or after-school care. She accepts children who pay privately and those who pay with child care subsidies through the state program for low-income children. She brings in about $2,000 a month for the infant and preschooler, and a couple hundred more each week for after-school care — down significantly from the $9,000 to $10,000 of late 2024. For parents who don’t receive a state subsidy, she keeps her rates low: less than $7 an hour. “They tell me that I’m cheap,” Maggi said with a slight smile. But she isn’t willing to raise her rates. “I was a single mom,” she said. “I remember struggling to find someone to care for my children when I had to work.”
Like many child care providers who emigrated to the United States as adults, Maggi started her career in an entirely different field. As a young mother, Maggi earned a law degree from a college in Mexico and worked in the prosecutor’s office in the northern Mexico state of Coahuila. Her job required working many weekends and late evenings, which took a toll on her parenting as a single mother. “I really feel bad that I was not able to spend more time with my daughters,” she added. “I missed a lot of their childhood.”
For a year when her girls were in elementary school, Maggi enrolled them in a boarding school, dropping them off Sunday nights and picking them up Friday afternoons. On some weekends, she took the girls to her office, even though she knew it wasn’t a place for children. Maggi longed for a different job where she could spend more time with them.
She started thinking seriously of emigrating about 15 years ago, as violence escalated. Her cousin was kidnapped and police officers she worked with were killed. Maggi received death threats from criminals she helped prosecute. Then one day, she was stopped by men who told her they knew where she lived and that she had daughters. “That’s when I said, ‘This is not safe for me.’”
In 2011, Maggi and the girls emigrated to America, bringing whatever they could fit into four suitcases. They ended up in El Paso, Texas, where Maggi sold Jell-O and tamales to make ends meet. Three years later, they moved here to Albuquerque. Maggi met her husband and they married, welcoming a son, her fourth child, shortly after.
In Albuquerque, Maggi settled into a life of professional caregiving, which came naturally and allowed her to spend more time with her family than she had in Mexico. She and her husband went through an intensive screening process and became foster parents. (New Mexico does not require individuals to have lawful immigration status to foster.) Maggi enrolled her youngest in a Head Start center, where administrators encouraged her to start volunteering. She loved being in the classroom with children, but without a work permit could not become a Head Start teacher. Instead, after her son started elementary school, she started offering child care informally to families she knew. Maggi became licensed by the state two years ago after a lengthy process involving several inspections, a background check and mandatory training in CPR and tenets of early childhood care.
It didn’t take long for Maggi to build up a well-respected business serving an acute need in Albuquerque. Hers is one of few child care programs in the area that offers 24/7 care, a rarity in the industry despite the desperate need. The parents who rely on her are teachers, caregivers for the elderly and people answering 911 calls.
In Maggi’s living room, carefully curated areas allow children to move freely between overflowing shelves of colorful toys, art supplies parked on a miniature table and rows of books. Educational posters on her walls reinforce colors, numbers and shapes. She delights in exposing the children to new experiences, frequently taking them on trips to grocery stores or restaurants. She is warm, but has high expectations for the children, insisting they clean up after themselves, follow directions and say “please” and “thank you.”
“I want them to have values,” Maggi said. “We teach them respect toward animals, people and each other.”
By the end of 2024, Maggi’s business was flourishing, and she looked forward to continued growth.
Then, Donald Trump took office.
Data has yet to be released about the extent to which the current administration’s immigration policies have affected the availability of child care. But interviews with child care providers and research hint at what may lie ahead — and is already happening.
After a 2008 policy allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check the immigration status of people taken into custody by local police, there was a marked decline in enrollment in child care among both immigrant and non-immigrant children. There was also a decrease in the supply of child care workers. Even though women were the minority of those deported, researchers found the policy sparked fear in immigrant communities, and many pulled back from their normal routines.
Maggi plays with a child in the back yard of her child care program. Maggi runs one of a few child care programs that provides 24/7 care in her town. (JACKIE MADER/THE HECHINGER REPORT)
In the child care sector, that’s problematic, experts say. Immigrants in the industry tend to be highly educated and skilled at interacting with children positively, more so even than native workers. If a skilled portion of the workforce is essentially “purged” because they’re too afraid to go to work, that will lower the quality of child care, said Chris Herbst, an associate professor at Arizona State University who has studied immigration policy’s effect on child care. “Kids will be ill-served as a result.”
Home-based programs like Maggi’s are among the most vulnerable. Children of immigrants are more likely to be in those child care settings. In the decade leading up to the pandemic, however, the number of home-based programs declined by 25 percent nationwide, in part due to financial challenges sustaining such businesses.
On a recent morning, Maggi stood in her living room, wearing white scrubs adorned with colorful cartoon ladybugs. Last year, the room would have been buzzing with children. Now, it’s quiet, save for chatter from Kay, the sole preschooler in her care each day. (The Hechinger Report is not using Kay’s full name to protect her privacy.) While Kay sat at a table working on a craft, Maggi cradled the infant, who had just woken up from a nap. The baby’s eyes were latched onto Maggi’s face as she fawned over him.
“Hello little one!” she cooed in Spanish. He cracked a smile and Maggi’s face lit up.
As one of her daughters took over to feed the newborn, Maggi followed Kay outside. The preschooler bounced around from the sandbox to the swings to a playhouse, with Maggi diligently following and playing alongside her.
Finally Kay came to a standstill, resting her head against Maggi’s hip. Maggi gently patted her head and asked if she was ready to show off her pre-kindergarten skills. The pair sat down at a small table in the shade and Kay watched eagerly as Maggi poured out small plastic trinkets. Kay pulled three plastic toy turtles into a pile. “Mama, look! They’re friends!” Kay said, giggling.
Kay came to Maggi’s program after her mother pulled her out of another program where she felt the girl wasn’t treated well. Here, Kay is so happy, she hides when her mom comes back to get her. Still, a key aspect of the child care experience is missing for Kay. Normally, the girl would have several friends her own age to play with. Now when she is asked who her friends are, she names Maggi’s adult daughters.
Maggi worries even more about the children she doesn’t see anymore. Most are cared for by grandparents now, but those relatives are unlikely to know how to support child development and education, Maggi said. Many are unable to run around with the children like she does, and are more likely to turn to tablets or televisions for them.
She has seen the effects in children who leave her program and come back later having regressed. “Some of them are doing things well with me, and then when they come back, they have fallen behind,” she said. One child Maggi used to care for, for example, had just started to walk when the mother pulled them out of full-time care earlier this year, at the start of the immigration crackdown. In the care of a relative, Maggi found out they now spend much of the day sitting at home.
Before the second Trump administration began, the child care landscape looked bright in New Mexico, a state with a chronically high child poverty rate. In 2022, New Mexico started rolling out a host of child care policy changes. Voters approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to early childhood education, with sustained funding to support it. The state now allows families earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or nearly $125,000 a year, to qualify for free child care. That includes the majority of households in the state. Among the other changes: Providers are now paid more for children they enroll via the state’s assistance program.
The increase has been helpful for many providers, including Maggi. Before the pandemic, she received about $490 a month from the state for each preschooler enrolled in her program, compared to $870 a month now. If she enrolls infants who qualify for child care assistance, she gets paid $1,100 a month, nearly $400 more than pre-pandemic. She needs children enrolled to get the payments, however. Running her program 24 hours a day, seven days a week helps. She earns extra money from the state when caring for children evenings and weekends, and she is paid monthly to cover the cost of housing foster children.
Child care advocates in New Mexico are concerned that immigration policy will affect the industry’s progress. “I am worried because we could be losing early childhood centers that could help working families,” said Maty Miranda, an organizer for OLÉ New Mexico, a nonprofit advocacy organization. “We could lose valuable teachers and children will lose those strong connections.” Immigration crackdowns have had “a huge impact emotionally” on providers in the state, she added.
Advocates and experts say upticks in immigration enforcement can cause stress and trauma for young children. In America, 1 in 4 children under the age of 6 has at least one foreign-born parent. (JACKIE MADER/THE HECHINGER REPORT)
State officials did not respond to a request for data on how many child care providers are immigrants. Across the state, immigrants account for about 13 percent of the entire workforce.
Many local early educators are scared due to more extreme immigration enforcement, as are the children in their care, Miranda said. They are trying to work regardless. “Even with the fear, the teachers are telling me that when they go into their classrooms, they try to forget what’s going on outside,” she added. “They are professionals who are trying to continue with their work.”
Maggi said she’s so busy with the children who remain in her care that there is no extra time to work an additional job and bring in more income. She won’t speculate on how long her family can survive, instead choosing to focus on the hope that things will improve.
Maggi’s biggest fear at the moment is the well-being of the children of immigrants she and so many other home-based providers serve. She knows some of her kids and families are at risk of being detained by ICE, and that interactions like that, for kids, can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, disrupted brain development and behavior changes. Some of Maggi’s parents have left her with emergency numbers in case they are detained by immigration officials.
Many of the children Maggi cares for after school are old enough to understand that deportation is a threat. “They show fear, because their parents are scared,” Maggi said. “Children are starting to live with that.”
Amid the dizzying policy changes, Maggi is trying to keep looking forward. She is working on improving her English skills. Her husband is pursuing a credential to be able to help more in her program. All three of her daughters are studying to become early childhood educators, with the goal to join the family business. Eventually, she wants to serve pre-K children enrolled in the state’s program, which will provide a steady stream of income.
In spite of all the uncertainty, Maggi said she is sustained by a bigger purpose. “I want them to enjoy their childhood,” she said on a sunny afternoon, looking fondly at Kay as the girl flung her tiny pink shoes aside and hopped into a sandbox. It’s the type of childhood Maggi remembers from her earliest days in Mexico. Kay giggled with delight as Maggi crouched down and poured cool sand over the little girl’s feet. “Once you grow up, there’s no going back.”
America’s Child Care System Relies on Immigrants. Without Them, It Could Collapse was originally published by The 19th and is republished with permission.
Jackie Mader covers early childhood education and writes the early ed newsletter at The Hechinger Report.
While the 870-page bill covers a whole host of issues and federal programs, there are four big takeaways from the BBB.
If a budget is a mirror of values, what does the “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) say about America?
On July 4, President Donald Trump signed into law Congressional Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill.” If you held up the bill to a mirror, most Americans would probably say that what they saw in the reflection was anything but beautiful.
A budget is much more than numbers. It is a representation of one’s values and priorities. So goes for the federal budget and our nation’s ideals.
The BBB prioritizes immigration, deportation, and tax cuts for the wealthy, while cutting Medicaid and food stamp programs, and with no regard to fiscal responsibility.
While the 870-page bill covers a whole host of issues and federal programs, there are four big takeaways from the BBB: an exponential explosion on the amount spent on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, and wide-sweeping cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), all with the backdrop of adding $3 trillion to the federal deficit, piling on to a national debt that is already out of control.
The Republican-led Congress set aside roughly $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border security efforts through the legislation, including $45 billion to ICE to expand its detention system over the next four years.
ICE will have more funding than the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI); the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the U.S. Marshals Service; and the Bureau of Prisons combined.
The bill marks the largest investment in detention and deportation in U.S. history, and scholars have even noted that ICE will become the largest federal law enforcement agency "in the history of the nation.”
In comparison, the FBI's fiscal year 2024 budget was approximately $11.4 billion.
While most Americans will see a small tax benefit as well as the addition to some new tax breaks, such as no taxes on tips up to $25,000 and a “senior deduction” that will allow more people over 65 to avoid Social Security taxes, the Tax Policy Center notes that the tax measure in the bill is regressive, which means it distributes most of its benefits to high-income households. They report that the bill’s revenue provisions would cut 2026 taxes on average by about $2,900.
The biggest beneficiaries would be households making between $460,000 and $1.1 million (the 95th-99th income percentile), who would get an average tax cut of $21,000, raising their after-tax incomes by 4.4 percent.
The monetary cuts, in contrast, will likely affect the most vulnerable Americans. The legislation includes an estimated $863 billion in budget cuts for Medicaid and $295 billion in cuts for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for fiscal years 2025 to 2034. The combined cuts exceed $1 trillion.
The KFF, which was formerly known as The Kaiser Family Foundation, reports that the cuts to Medicaid represent 29% of state Medicaid spending per resident and are likely to lead to reduced access to care, increased uninsurance rates, and potential strain on state budgets and healthcare systems.
SNAP currently provides basic food assistance to more than 40 million people, including children, seniors, and non-elderly adults with disabilities, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute.
These newly enacted changes to SNAP may cause 22.3 million families to lose some or all of their benefits, according to research from the Urban Institute.
Currently, many individuals are limited to three months of SNAP benefits every three years unless they are working for 20 hours per week or qualify for an exemption. The new legislation
expands work reporting requirements for adults from an upper limit of age 54 to age 64 and lowers the age limit for dependent children from 18 to 7.
Finally, the bill shows that Republicans no longer value fiscal responsibility as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the bill could add $3.3 trillion to federal deficits over the next 10 years.
The federal deficit is the annual shortfall between the U.S. government's revenue, primarily through taxes, and its spending in a given fiscal year. To pay for a deficit, the federal government borrows money by selling Treasury bonds, bills, and other securities.
The national debt, on the other hand, is the total national debt owed by the federal government of the U.S. to treasury security holders. As of this writing, the United States’ national debt is well over $36 trillion.
The reflection of the “Big Beautiful Bill Act” in the country’s moral compass mirror is downright ugly.
Lynn Schmidt is a columnist and Editorial Board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She holds a master's of science in political science as well as a bachelor's of science in nursing.