Alex Lawson, Social Security Works’ Executive Director, is on Capitol Hill confronting Reps like Miller-Meeks, who are cutting Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP while raising tariffs on the working class.
GOP is cutting your Medicare, Medicaid, & SNAP
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Summary
In a powerful Capitol Hill report, Politics Done Right host Egberto Willies speaks with Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works, actively confronting Republican lawmakers over their proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP, which, alongside tariff increases, disproportionately burden working Americans. The GOP’s goal, Lawson argues, is clear: take from the poor to fund massive tax giveaways to billionaires. This segment highlights the grassroots action’s moral and political urgency to block these devastating proposals.
- Alex Lawson reports from Capitol Hill, confronting GOP members like Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks for supporting healthcare cuts impacting tens of thousands in their districts.
- Republicans are pushing a plan that would cut $800 billion from Medicaid and $500 billion from Medicare, threatening millions of Americans’ healthcare access.
- Trump’s tariff increases are regressive taxes, raising consumer prices and disproportionately hurting the working class.
- These cuts would result in the closure of rural hospitals, degrade the quality of care nationwide, and eliminate programs like Meals on Wheels.
- The GOP plan centers on transferring wealth from poor and working-class Americans to billionaires like Elon Musk through tax cuts and budget slashes.
The GOP’s relentless war on the working class is veiled in fiscal conservatism but rooted in class warfare. By gutting essential programs and raising regressive tariffs, Republicans aim to enrich their billionaire donors while inflicting economic harm on millions of struggling Americans. Progressives must seize this moment to mobilize, expose the cruelty of these policies, and fight for a government that protects the people, not Wall Street elites
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In a nation of extraordinary wealth and promise, it is unconscionable that the Republican Party continues to wage legislative war against the most vulnerable Americans while shoveling riches to the already powerful. Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works, recently appeared on Politics Done Right to expose the GOP’s latest assault on working families, the elderly, and the sick—an assault cloaked in fiscal jargon but rooted in economic cruelty. In his urgent Capitol Hill dispatch, Lawson outlined a Republican plan to gut essential social safety nets, including Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP, all while allowing Trump to simultaneously raise tariffs that hit working-class Americans hardest, all to finance tax giveaways to billionaires like Elon Musk.
The Republican plan, which has already passed key committees and is now barreling through Congress, proposes slashing $800 billion from Medicaid and $500 billion from Medicare. According to a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis, these cuts would eliminate healthcare access for over 14 million people, many of whom reside in rural areas already facing a healthcare infrastructure collapse. Community hospitals would shutter, health centers would vanish, and entire states could face healthcare deserts. The consequences would be deadly, not just in rural America but nationwide. When local hospitals close, urban emergency rooms become overburdened. Care quality declines, costs rise, and health outcomes suffer.
These Republican cuts are not isolated budget choices—they are ideological declarations. They reflect a fundamental worldview that prioritizes plutocracy over people, austerity for the many to enable affluence for the few. And at the heart of it all lies the same recycled trickle-down lie: if the wealthy hoard more, some crumbs might eventually reach the rest of us. History has proven this false time and again. The 2017 Trump tax cuts exploded the deficit while disproportionately benefiting the top 1%. Now, Republicans seek to double down on that error, using health and nutrition programs as sacrificial offerings.
Adding insult to injury, Donald Trump’s tariff hikes are regressive. Tariffs on everyday goods such as clothing, electronics, and groceries disproportionately hurt low- and middle-income Americans. These are stealth taxes, passed through higher consumer prices. And who benefits? — Multinational corporations and the wealthy elite who use tax havens and stock buybacks to consolidate power. Even conservative pundit David Frum recently admitted that Trump’s tariffs function as a “tax on the poor” to fund tax cuts for the rich.
Lawson’s activism on Capitol Hill is a masterclass in grassroots pressure. By confronting lawmakers like Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks—who won her seat by a mere 800 votes and yet voted to steal healthcare from 67,000 of her constituents—Lawson underscores the power of democratic accountability. The political calculus would change overnight if every progressive activist mobilized to confront these lawmakers in their own districts.
More than a policy dispute, this is a moral battle. As Lawson rightly points out, Republicans conduct these legislative maneuvers in the dead of night because they know the American people do not support them. No one cheers when you take meals away from seniors (Meals on Wheels is on the chopping block), deny insulin to diabetics, or let rural mothers deliver babies in parking lots because the nearest hospital closed down. These actions are not just unpopular—they are unethical.
The progressive response must be multi-pronged. First, amplify the truth—every platform, podcast, social post, and street corner must echo what the GOP is doing. Second, mobilize locally—town halls, district rallies, and office visits to vulnerable Republicans must continue until the Senate kills the bill. Third, prepare for the electoral backlash—every representative who votes for this budget must be held accountable in November.
Let’s be clear: in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, the idea that we cannot afford universal healthcare, food security, or retirement dignity is a lie. What we cannot afford is the billionaire-donor corruption that robs working Americans to feed the greed of the top 0.1%. As Robert Reich and others have frequently warned, we are watching the oligarchic capture of American democracy in real time. But resistance is not futile. In 2017, the GOP tried to kill the Affordable Care Act. They passed it in the House but died in the Senate because people fought back.
This is one of those moments again.
As Lawson said, we are not just fighting to preserve programs—we are fighting for a society where everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected, can live with dignity. It is a fight worth waging, and this time, we must win.
