Megabill and CA Republican House Members

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Dan Walters at CalMatters:

“Congressman David Valadao is doing exactly what he promised: delivering real results, restoring fiscal sanity, and fighting for California families,” NRCC spokesman Christian Martinez said. “His vote is proof that strong leadership and commonsense still matter in Washington.”

A couple of hours later, Protect Our Care California, a health care advocacy organization with close ties to Democratic Party leaders, announced that it will air video ads criticizing Valadao and nine other Republican congressional members for their votes.

“Representative David Valadao just voted for the largest health care cuts in history in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations, and we’re going to make sure that every single one of their constituents knows it,” said Matthew Herdman, director of Protect Our Care California.

The ads are aimed at Valadao and other members of California’s Republican congressional delegation, including Young Kim and Ken Calvert, because they are considered to be the most vulnerable incumbents as the two major parties battle over control over the House in next year’s elections.

...

Valadao’s vote for the bill is especially noteworthy because Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by 12 percentage points in the San Joaquin Valley’s 22nd Congressional District, two-thirds of his constituents rely on Medi-Cal (California’s version of Medicaid) for their health care, and he had repeatedly promised not to vote for any reductions in the program.

The Megabill Aftermath

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Maeve Reston and Theodoric Meyer at WP:

History and dismal public polling suggest President Donald Trump’s $3.3 trillion tax bill, approved by Congress this week, could help Democrats win back the House in the 2026 midterm elections.

The bill is deeply unpopular — with nearly 2-to-1 opposition, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted in June. But Republicans still have an opportunity to shape public perception of the bill because more than a third of Americans had no opinion of it and two-thirds said they had heard either little or nothing about it.

...

While Trump made substantial inroads with low-income voters in the 2024 election, the top 10 percent of earners get about 80 percent of the bill’s benefits, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton budget model. The bill also makes deep cuts to federal support for wind and solar power and other renewable technologies — leading some experts to warn that the legislation could raise energy prices for consumers at a time when demand is soaring

....

Trump has pledged not to cut Medicaid and has falsely claimed that the bill simply targets waste, fraud and abuse in the program. But at least 17 million Americans will lose their health care coverage, according to nonpartisan estimates — the result of the bill’s cuts to Medicaid, the expiration of subsidies for health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, and other Republican changes. That could pose a major liability for vulnerable Republicans such as Rep. David G. Valadao, who represents a district in California’s Central Valley with one of the highest numbers of Medicaid recipients in the country, according to an analysis by KFF.

...

The bill includes a $6,000 deduction for seniors — which stemmed from Trump’s campaign pledge — but the provision will not benefit tens of millions of low-income seniors, who do not have a sufficient tax liability to claim the deduction. Our colleague Jeff Stein has the details on who will benefit here

...

Working-class voters in the swing state of Nevada — many of whom work in the hospitality industry — frequently cited Trump’s promises to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime as a reason they were leaning toward voting for Trump. Partially fulfilling those promises could help Republicans running in three Democratic-held House seats in Nevada that are perennial battlegrounds. (Both provisions will be phased out at the end of 2028.).

 

Don't overlook this. By backloading Medicaid cuts until 2027/2028, Trump and GOP have ensured that the bloodbath will start when JD Vance's 2028 campaign really gets going. "Working class populist" Vance will have to defend that carnage in real time.https://t.co/1gjAxXtLaA pic.twitter.com/HhB1ojuLuu

— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) July 5, 2025

Trump, the Hater

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. 

As the nation prepared to celebrate its birthday, Trump turned his prejudice and hatred up to 11.

Michael Luciano at Mediaite:

President Donald Trump turned back the clock and used an old-time slur about Jews before declaring his hatred of congressional Democrats.

Speaking at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa on Thursday night, just hours after the House passed his spending bill, the president took a victory lap.

In a private meeting with congressional Republicans on Wednesday reportedly demonstrated he did not know about nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts in the bill, which also cuts food assistance to millions of people. The legislation also extends the 2017 tax cuts and allocates more money to Immigration and Customs Enforcement than the vast majority of the world’s militaries. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill will add $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years. Republicans have responded to the estimate by claiming it is wrong.

“No death tax, no estate tax,” Trump told the crowd. “No going to the banks and borrowing from – in some cases – a fine banker, in some cases, shylocks and bad people.”

Trump went on to say the “shylocks and “bad people” managed to “destroy a lot of families.” The president then pivoted to slamming Democrats, who uniformly opposed his bill in the House and Senate.

“Not one Democrat voted for us,” Trump continued. “And I think we use it in the campaign that’s coming up, the midterm, because we’re gotta beat them. But all of the things that we’ve given, and they wouldn’t vote, only because they hate Trump. But I hate them too. You know that? I really do. I hate them. I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country.”

 

Trump on Democrats: "They hate Trump. But I hate them too. I really do. I hate them." pic.twitter.com/HZamLuVMQH

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 4, 2025

Tillis

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Annie Karni at NYT:

Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, announced on Sunday that he would not seek re-election next year, a day after President Trump threatened to back a primary challenger against him because Mr. Tillis had said he opposed the bill carrying Mr. Trump’s domestic agenda.

...

In January, Mr. Trump made it clear that he was contemplating finding a primary challenger to Mr. Tillis after the senator expressed grave reservations about his nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. Mr. Tillis eventually fell in line and backed the president’s pick, surrendering to Mr. Trump’s demands for loyalty.

Mr. Tillis in his statement blamed the lack of any middle ground in Congress on both parties, pointing to the recent departures of Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, both conservative-leaning Democrats before Ms. Sinema switched her affiliation to Independent, without naming them.

“When people see independent thinking on the other side, they cheer,” he said. “But when those very same people see independent thinking coming from their side, they scorn, ostracize and even censure them.”

 

Earlier today...

Donna King at Carolina Journal:

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis is under fire from President Donald Trump, who announced via social media this weekend that he may support a primary challenger to Tillis in the 2026 Senate race. The move comes after Tillis opposed advancing Trump’s high-profile legislative proposal—the “One Big Beautiful Bill”—in a narrowly divided US Senate vote.

In posts on Truth Social, Trump blasted Tillis for what he called a “BIG MISTAKE,” saying, “Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the Primary against ‘Senator Thom’ Tillis. I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks looking for someone to properly represent the Great People of North Carolina.” In several posts, Trump accused Tillis of grandstanding and being “missing in action.”


...


A Victory Insights poll conducted last summer shows Tillis trailing far behind Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and a Wilmington native, in a hypothetical GOP primary. Lara Trump leads with 65% support among likely Republican voters, compared to just 11% for Tillis.

On the Democrat side, former Congressman Wiley Nickel has already thrown his hat in the ring for Tillis’ seat, but most eyes are on former Gov. Roy Cooper to potentially challenge Tillis. A Democrat with statewide name recognition and deep fundraising capabilities, polling indicates Cooper could have a slight advantage over Republican contenders in a general election matchup.

In the Victory poll, a matchup between Cooper and Tillis shows the former governor leading the senator, 45.1%-44.1%. If Cooper were to face Lara Trump, his edge is slightly larger, 45.5%-44.3%. Annie Karni at NYT:

 

Yogurt, Not Wine

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Adam Wren at Politico Playbook:

Democrats are licking their chops about the prospect of running against the GOP megabill in next year’s midterms.

Polling on the megabill has already sent a chill down the spine of many in-cycle Republicans. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who faces a fraught reelection bid next year, has told his Republican colleagues the megabill’s cuts to Medicaid could be the party’s Obamacare — meaning it could yield major defeats for Republicans, much as backlash to the Affordable Care Act hurt Democrats in the 2010 cycle.

“It’s a slam dunk messaging opportunity for Democrats,” Democratic strategist Mike Nellis told Playbook last night. “It’s very easy to explain how it’s going to have a direct and immediate impact on people’s lives. They’re going to cut Medicaid and other critical government programs that people rely on to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.”

On message: Future possible Democratic presidential candidates from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are railing against it, homing in on the Medicaid cuts in particular. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told Playbook that the megabill risks closing 35 rural hospitals in his home state, “forcing people to drive hours just to see their primary care doctor and is estimated to eliminate the jobs of 20,000 health care workers” in Kentucky.

Expect to hear more like this: “It will force children to go hungry in a country that grows enough food to feed all Americans,” Beshear said. “And it doesn’t even work; it adds trillions to our national debt while blowing a hole in the budgets of all 50 states. It’s wrong, cruel and callous.”

“The ads, the tweets, the press releases write themselves,” Nellis told Playbook. “Easy for everybody to get behind opposing it, regardless of the district dynamics.”

Burgess Everett at Semafor:

If Senate Republicans can close up all their outstanding issues on Trump’s megabill, expect them to vote basically immediately.

“This bill is like yogurt, not wine,” one senator told Semafor.

Musk Leaves a Trail

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Neal Rothschild at Axios:

The big picture: Elon Musk claims that his DOGE team saved $175 billion in taxpayer spending, though an outside analysis estimates the verified savings are closer to $16 billion.The "One Big, Beautiful Bill," which passed the House last week, is projected to add $3 trillion to 5 trillion to budget deficits over the next 10 years. Even using Musk's most generous estimate, those DOGE savings would amount to just 6% of the projected increase to the deficit from the bill.

Coral Davenport and Stacy Cowley at NYT:

DOGE promotes the purported savings on an “Agency Deregulation Leaderboard,” posted this month, where it claims that the Trump administration has saved Americans $29.4 billion as a result of reversing regulations in health insurance, bank fees, appliance efficiency standards and other areas.

But many of those regulatory reversals will actually pile more costs on to individual Americans in the form of higher bank fees, electric and water bills, and health insurance payments, according to experts and government analyses. The New York Times examined 10 of the largest claims on the leaderboard and concluded that several did not show evidence of savings to households.

Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey at NYT:

As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according to people familiar with his activities.

Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.

It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.

DOGE Debacle

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. Trump and his congressional supporters are on track to blow up the federal debt.

 Jessica Riedl at The Atlantic:

These spending data do not flatter the Musk project. Total federal outlays in February and March were $86 billion (or 7 percent) higher than the levels from the same months a year ago, when adjusted for timing shifts. This spending growth—approximately $500 billion annually—continues to be driven by the three-quarters of federal spending allocated to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, veterans’ benefits, and interest costs. These massive expenses have been untouched by DOGE’s focus on small but controversial targets such as DEI contracts and Politico subscriptions.

...

Cost reductions from laying off federal employees have been too small to show up in the data. This is not surprising, because even laying off one quarter of the 2.3 million federal civilian employees would shave off just 1 percent of federal spending. To be fair to DOGE, more savings will materialize in October, when the salaries of the 75,000 federal employees who took a buyout come off the books. That should save Washington $10 billion a year, or 0.1 percent of federal spending—except even that is an overestimate, because Washington will surely end up hiring contractors to perform at least some of the work previously handled by those civil servants, and many contractors cost more than employees.

That, by the way, is the good news for DOGE. The bad news is that the project seems quite likely to expand long-term budget deficits. Slashing IRS enforcement will embolden tax evasion and reduce revenues by hundreds of billions of dollars over the decade. Laying off Department of Education employees who ensure collection of student-loan repayments will increase the deficit. Illegally terminated federal employees are already being reinstated with full back pay, leaving the government with little to show for its trouble besides mounting legal fees.

Even if DOGE somehow manages to end up in the black, any modest savings it achieves will be completely overwhelmed by the GOP’s push to expand the 2017 tax cut at a cost of roughly $500 billion annually. Claims that Washington can no longer afford to spend 0.1 percent of its budget providing lifesaving HIV treatments to 20 million impoverished Africans cannot be taken seriously when the administration and Congress are preparing to cut taxes and expand other spending by trillions of dollars.

 

A Millionaire Tax?

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  It includes a discussion of tax issues.

Trump has reportedly floated the idea of raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Emily Brooks at The Hill:

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, who has long worked to have politicians sign pledges to not raise taxes, said that Trump called him to ask his opinion about the matter on Wednesday.

“I told him I thought that it was a job killer, that it was bad for the economy, that it was political death,” Norquist said, reminding him of the many times he promised to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent. And suggestions from staff to the contrary, Norquist said, would not serve him politically.

“That’s what Darman did to Bush,” Norquist said, referencing the Office of Management and Budget director for former President George H.W. Bush — who lost reelection after making the promise, “Read my lips: no new taxes,” before agreeing to tax increases.

“That’s kind of a disgusting thing for a staffer to do to a president, is to tell him to go out and change his mind and say, ‘Oh, I lied when I ran for office,’” Norquist added.

Trump referenced the infamous Bush quote in a Truth Social post on Friday when he said Republicans should “probably not” raise on those pulling multi-million-dollar incomes, musing that Democrats could use it against Republicans.

But Trump also said it was not that broken promise that lost Bush in 1992: “NO, Ross Perot cost him the Election!” Trump said, referencing the independent presidential candidate who pulled nearly 19 percent of the popular vote.

 

Along with Newt, Grover has been warning against this move for some time. 

Chaos

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.t.

Alex Isenstadt and Marc Caputo at Axios:

• The promise of Elon Musk's DOGE is fizzling out, and many administration officials wanted him out of the White House well before he said Tuesday that he'll "significantly" cut back on his government work.
• Pete Hegseth's Pentagon is awash in firings, leaks and public warnings of internal ineptitude.
• Lots of officials are dumping on Trade Adviser Peter Navarro, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and others for their tariff strategy that provoked a global market meltdown, even though it's really Trump's policy.
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett is covering his own hide amid lots of leaks about him being the voice of sanity. Oddly, good press can be one way to end up on Trump's bad side.
• Last week in the West Wing, the simmering tension between Bessent and Musk boiled over into a prolonged and heated shouting match over an IRS commissioner appointment.
• And after juicing economic unease by dumping on the Fed and suggesting he might try to fire Chairman Jerome Powell, Trump has backed away from all that — and much of his harsh talk on tariffs. For now, anyway.

People are noticing.  Jared Gans at The Hill:

President Trump has seen his favorability ratings start to take a hit in the first three months of his presidency amid growing criticism of his handling of the economy and various controversies, according to the initial polling averages from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill.

The averages show that Trump is currently underwater after starting his term in January with a net positive approval rating. DDHQ/The Hill’s average had his approval rating above 50 percent for the first days of his presidency. By late April, his average approval rating had fallen under 45 percent.

Social Security Politics 2025

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. 

Megan Lebowitz at NBC:

Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday that politicians are “not being honest” when they say they won’t touch Social Security.

His comments come as President Donald Trump has said his administration was “not touching” Social Security and town hall attendees have expressed concerns about potential Social Security cuts. Elon Musk, who has spearheaded Department of Government Efficiency efforts to cut spending, has vocally criticized Social Security, prompting concerns from some Trump allies.

“We’re not being honest when we look people in the eye and say we’re not going to touch it. If we don’t touch it, it touches itself,” Curtis told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker. “You know that, right? That’s not being honest with the American people, and I think that’s one of the things that makes them not trust us, when we say something that they just know is not true.”

Todd C. Frankel and Hannah Natanson at WP:

Elon Musk put a big target on the Social Security Administration in the first weeks of the Trump administration, claiming it is plagued by “immense waste” and promising audits to root out “the extreme levels of fraud.” President Donald Trump said during his joint address to Congress earlier this month that Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service was already “identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud” at the agency.

...

But less than 1 percent of Social Security’s payments in recent years were determined to be improper — often the result of an accidental oversight or change in benefit status, according to a report last year by the agency’s inspector general. That works out to about $9 billion a year, and more than two-thirds of the mistaken payments were eventually clawed back. Another agency audit, which looked only at payments to retired workers, survivors and people with disabilities, found fraud was listed as the cause behind just 3 percent of improper benefit payments.

Despite the flood of money flowing through it, Social Security didn’t make a 2024 list by the General Accounting Office, the legislative branch’s nonpartisan watchdog, detailing the 16 agencies with improper payment rates of at least 10 percent. That report further found that 80 percent of all improper payments were due to just five government programs, including Medicare and Medicaid — but not Social Security.

Trump has been making the same claims about Social Security for nine years.

South Carolina GOP Debate, 2/13/2016

TRUMP: I’m the only one who is going to save Social Security, believe me.

STRASSEL: OK. But how would you actually do that? Can I ask you? because right now, Social Security and Medicare…

TRUMP: Because you have tremendous waste. I’ll tell you…

STRASSEL: They take up two-thirds of the federal budget and they’re growing.

TRUMP: You have tremendous waste, fraud and abuse. That we’re taking care of. That we’re taking care of. It’s tremendous. We have in Social Security right now thousand and thousands of people that are over 106 years old. Now, you know they don’t exist. They don’t exist. There’s tremendous waste, fraud and abuse, and we’re going to get it. But we’re not going to hurt the people who have been paying into Social Security their whole life and then all of a sudden they’re supposed to get less. We’re bringing our jobs back. We’re going to make our economy great again.

If such claims were true, why didn't he do anything about it when he was president the first time? 

 

Screwups: DOGE Hurts Veterans and the Elderly

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. 

Lindsay Ellis at WSJ:

Managers say essential staff have been cut, and that the administration hasn’t followed detailed rules on how to enact widespread layoffs. Government agencies have granted voluntary buyouts to tens of thousands of people, fired probationary workers—a term for those who were hired or promoted in the past year or two—and are planning for deep reductions in the next few months. So far, many cuts haven’t taken into account workers’ performance or the necessity of their roles.

...

In interviews, more than 60 current and former federal workers said the wide slashing has worsened services Americans receive and hindered remaining staff working on areas like improving healthcare and lowering energy bills. It also has discouraged top talent from working for the federal government.

...

In many parts of the country, the Trump administration’s job cuts have hit services and constituencies that Trump pledged to protect.

Chief among them is the Department of Veterans Affairs, which plans to cut about 70,000 positions and has already laid off thousands. The agency employs about 470,000 people.

Fewer VA staff are handling veterans’ claims that will get them treatment for military-service injuries and mental health conditions, two current employees said. This has already resulted in veterans waiting longer to get treatment in North Texas, one said.

 Tara Siegel Bernard at NYT:

The Social Security Administration, which sends retirement, survivor and disability payments to 73 million people each month, has long been called the “third rail” of politics — largely untouchable given its widespread popularity and role as one of the country’s remaining safety nets.

But in recent weeks, the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s crew of cost cutters at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has taken its chain saw to the agency’s operations. The agency has announced plans to cut up to 12 percent of its work force, at a time its staffing is at a 50-year low. It has also offered early retirement and other incentives, including payments up to $25,000, to the entire staff.

Many current and former Social Security officials fear the cuts could create gaping holes in the agency’s infrastructure, destabilizing the program, which keeps millions of people out of poverty and large percentages of retirees rely on for the bulk of their income.

The actions have caused Social Security employees and former commissioners and executives of both parties to sound alarm bells, saying it would be difficult to repair the damage, which could threaten access to benefits.

1. EXCLUSIVE

An internal Social Security Administration memo, dated March 13, lays out a plan to sabotage the agency.

The memo itself predicts "service disruption," "operational strain," and "budget shortfalls" will result.

Follow this thread for details. pic.twitter.com/nlf71ATp9z

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) March 17, 2025

Medicaid Messaging

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.

Hans Nichols at Axios:

The short-term funding bill only deals with discretionary spending and won't affect spending levels for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, according to GOP leadership aides.But in the GOP's separate budget reconciliation package, lawmakers have instructed the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut some $880 billion, which will be very difficult to do if they don't touch Medicaid.

The bottom line: It was unclear if Friday's Democratic demands on Medicaid apply to the CR or the bigger tax and spending package that has yet to fully take shape. But both House leaders are signaling to their rank-and-file that they expect party loyalty on next week's vote.

Dr. N. Adam Brown at MedPage Today:

Medicaid serves lower-income adults, children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities, as well as dually-enrolled Medicare-Medicaid older adults. Despite the talking point that people on Medicaid "don't work," 92% of adults under 65 who are on Medicaid and don't receive other social security benefits work full or part-time.

While 80 million Americans are insured through Medicaid, many people don't think of themselves as "on Medicaid" -- even when they are.

Why? Because Medicaid is not branded as Medicaid in most states. If you tell a patient in South Carolina they might lose Medicaid, their eyes may glaze over. Tell them Healthy Connections is at risk? You have their attention. In Tennessee, Medicaid is TennCare and in Ohio it is the Buckeye Health Plan. In Florida, Medicaid sounds like an orange juice brand: Simply Healthcare. (Seriously, it feels like that moniker should have an exclamation point behind it.)

Adding to the confusion, many states offer Medicaid coverage contracted through private companies. These types of plans are state-funded, private insurance-branded programs (called managed care organizations) often featuring actual private insurance logos, a fact that further distances them from their federally funded origin. No wonder Tennesseans shrug when we talk about Medicaid recipients. They don't think, or even know, they are one. And if they do not know the issue applies to them, they may be less likely to oppose cuts.

In every state, we need to call Medicaid by its real name.
...

This is why healthcare advocates need to translate the impact of cuts at the individual, family, and community level. Instead of saying "Republicans want to reduce Medicaid by $880 billion" try, "If Republicans' Medicaid plans come to fruition, you could lose your Buckeye Health Plan health insurance." Or try explaining how these cuts could erode their child's access to care. Nearly half of U.S. children rely on Medicaid and 40% of all births are covered by Medicaid. Cutting the program would destabilize pediatric practices, many of which already operate on thin margins. If parents think they already have to wait too long to get a well-child visit, just wait until these cuts take effect.

Federal Employees and Congressional Constituencies

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Justin Green at Axios:

Republicans represent a slight majority of the 60 congressional districts with the highest share of federal workers, including many lawmakers publicly cheering on Elon Musk's hack-and-slash efforts.

Why it matters: At first glance, it seems like DOGE's stabs at slashing the federal workforce mainly affect the solidly Democratic areas in the D.C. metro area.

• But dig a little deeper, and the story changes.
• Speaker Johnson (R-La.) is on the list. So is Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who leads the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
• Several endangered GOP incumbents — including Reps. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) and Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) — are on that list.

By the numbers: According to a Congressional Research Service report published in December, nearly all of the 10 districts with the highest proportions of federal workers are in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland.

• D.C. is essentially a company town where the factory is the vast federal government bureaucracy, as Axios' Cuneyt Dil recently noted. Many of its workers live in D.C.'s surrounding suburbs and exurbs.
• Once you get past the top 10 districts, red states like Oklahoma, Alabama and Texas start to show up.

Zoom in: Beyond D.C., the Defense Department — which isn't being spared DOGE's wrath — accounts for high concentrations in some districts.

• Kiggans and Cole represent districts with large military installations that have long been major employers for their constituents.
• Rep. Nick Begich (R-Alaska), who is in a competitive district, has a large military constituency. But agencies like the Interior Department, FAA and Postal Service also have significant presences, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Fakery

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

David A. Fahrenthold, Emily Badger and Jeremy Singer-Vine at NYT:

The reporters compared an archived version of the “wall of receipts” with the version posted late Sunday to identify which contracts had been deleted or changed.March 3, 2025

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has deleted hundreds more claims from its mistake-plagued “wall of receipts,” erasing $4 billion in additional savings that the group said it had made for U.S. taxpayers.

Late Sunday night, the group erased or altered more than 1,000 contracts it had claimed to cancel, representing more than 40 percent of all the contracts listed on its site last week. The deleted items included five of the seven largest savings that it had claimed credit for just last week. At the same time, the group added about 1,000 additional canceled contracts, worth smaller total savings.

It was the second time in a week that DOGE had deleted some of its greatest claims of success. Early last week, it erased all five of the largest savings it had claimed when the wall of receipts, which is what the group is calling its list of canceled contracts, was originally posted on Feb. 19.

Since that first posting, the total amount of savings that the initiative has claimed from cutting contracts has steadily declined, from $16 billion at first to less than $9 billion now.

Midterms on the Horizon

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Abby Livingston at Puck:

The midterms are already here: In normal times, the first quarter of the off-year congressional election cycle is sleepy and sluggish. But these, obviously, are not normal times. Hakeem Jeffries and his Democratic caucus are already steeped in the fundraising and recruitment fight, and last month, House Dems raised $9.2 million—their largest haul ever in an off-year January—compared to the N.R.C.C.’s $6 million. This isn’t just because of the committee’s storied digital fundraising: Many members, including Massachusetts’ Richard Neal and New Jersey’s Frank Pallone, have been hosting fundraising dinners. A group of House progressives hosted one last night, and the Congressional Black Caucus’s
political arm will host one in early March. Along with member dues, I’m told by a senior House Democratic campaign aide that this extra push has brought in $2.8 million, or nearly a third of the January haul.

But the more pressing task for both parties is recruitment, which will lay the foundation for the next two years. As Politico’s Elena Schneider reported this week, federal workers who fell victim to DOGE cuts might become a new talent pool of House candidates. Meanwhile, the Dems are also eyeing a huge potential get: Jimmy McCain, the Marine veteran and son of the late Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, to run against David Schweikert in Arizona’s 1st congressional district. Of course, the defection of the so-called McCain Republicans has been partly credited with flipping the state to Joe Biden in 2020, and for some high-profile statewide losses—Blake Masters and Kari Lake—for the party’s right wing.

For the Republicans, the recruitment picture is murkier: A party consultant told me there’s talent in the wings, but potential candidates are waiting on two developments. The first is the fate of the shutdown/debt ceiling/tax-and-spending-cuts negotiations this spring. The second is the price of eggs, which has supplanted the price of gasoline as the leading political economic indicator in my conversations. Republicans might also have to spend some of their recruitment energy on their incumbents. I’m hearing that, for a smattering of pre-Trump Republican members, this congressional term is turning out to be even more miserable than the last one—which, of course, included the defenestration of Kevin McCarthy. My impression is that if it weren’t for their party’s micro-margin in
the House, some Republican reps would be considering resignation.

Max Cohen at Punchbowl News:

House Majority Forward, the HMP-aligned organization, will launch a national cable ad Monday that attacks Republicans for threatening Medicaid. The HMF ad acts as the initial salvo in the Medicaid messaging wars ahead of the 2026 midterms, where House Democrats have forecasted that they will focus on health care access.

The ad centers on the recently adopted House GOP budget resolution, which the narrator says “opens the door to $880 billion in Medicaid cuts.”

The spot also argues that the potential Medicaid changes are “all to fund massive tax cuts for Elon Musk and billionaires.”

Next week, House Majority Forward will run similar ads in 20 battleground districts nationwide.

In other ad news: Liberal outside group Unrig Our Economy is running two new ads targeting vulnerable Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) and Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) for supporting the House GOP budget resolution.

 

Backlash

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. People are starting to notice.

Hannah Knowles at WP:

Town halls this week for congressional Republicans from Georgia to Wisconsin to Oregon grew testy as voters showed up to vent, outraged at the firing of workers and the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive data. Protesters showed up around the country at lawmakers’ offices.

The backlash extends far beyond federal workers in the Beltway, reaching purple districts that will decide control of Congress in 2026 and swing states like Georgia that helped return Trump to the White House. Layoffs just hit the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Funding freezes have halted clean-energy projects championed by President Joe Biden.

Catherine Lucey, Meridith McGraw, Lindsay Wise at WSJ:

At a town-hall meeting in a Republican-friendly, Atlanta-area congressional district, boos rained down on GOP Rep. Rich McCormick as he tried to defend President Trump’s efforts to slash the federal government.

In one tense exchange before the hundreds of people there, a woman challenged McCormick over how he would “rein in the megalomaniac in the White House,” according to a video of the Thursday event posted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Eventually, McCormick—whose district backed him by a nearly two-to-one margin last year—acknowledged the audience’s concerns.

“I don’t want to see any president be too powerful,” McCormick said. His office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The contentious scene was one of a series of clashes in GOP congressional districts across the country in recent days that offered an early warning for the White House. While Trump is broadly giving voters what he promised during his campaign, the scope and unilateral nature of his early executive actions, as well as his upending of longstanding foreign alliances, is throwing some Republican lawmakers on the defensive.

At a recent town-hall meeting in West Bend, Wis., Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R., Wis.) was questioned about spending cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency and Trump’s blaming of Ukraine for Russia’s invasion, according to local news reports. Rep. Kevin Hern (R., Okla.) and Rep. Cliff Bentz (R., Ore.) also found themselves pressed at similar forums about Elon Musk’s involvement in the DOGE downsizing effort, which has included mass firings of federal workers, local reports show.

Protesters gathered outside some GOP offices in Arizona, Iowa, Pennsylvania and New York. Phone calls continue to pour into Republican and Democratic offices following an uptick last month when the Trump administration placed a temporary freeze on federal loans and grants, affecting programs such as Head Start.

Melanie Zanona, Sahil Kapur and Ben Kamisar at NBC:

The House’s sweeping budget plan to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda could result in steep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, putting a key group of Republicans in a politically difficult position ahead of a potential vote next week in the narrowly divided chamber.

There are a handful of House Republicans who represent parts of the country where sizable shares of the populations receive government assistance from Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to an NBC News analysis of the most recently available Census Bureau data

The lawmakers from the 10 GOP-held districts with the highest percentages of Medicaid or SNAP beneficiaries span the ideological and geographical spectrum. They include members from deep-red districts, such as Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and veteran Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, as well as those in competitive battlegrounds, such as Reps. David Valadao of California, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania and Monica De La Cruz of Texas.

Trump Does Not Care About the Debt

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It notes that neither candidate talked a lot about specific deficit reduction plans.

Lachlan Markay and  Asawin Suebsaeng, Daily Beast, Dec. 5 2018 10:32AM EST:

Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s aides and advisers have tried to convince him of the importance of tackling the national debt.

Sources close to the president say he has repeatedly shrugged it off, implying that he doesn’t have to worry about the money owed to America’s creditors—currently about $21 trillion—because he won’t be around to shoulder the blame when it becomes even more untenable.

The friction came to a head in early 2017 when senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a “hockey stick” spike in the national debt in the not-too-distant future. In response, Trump noted that the data suggested the debt would reach a critical mass only after his possible second term in office.

“Yeah, but I won’t be here,” the president bluntly said, according to a source who was in the room when Trump made this comment during discussions on the debt.

Catie Edmondson and Andrew Duehren at NYT:

While Republicans have traditionally agitated for less government spending, Mr. Trump has displayed a laissez-faire attitude toward cutting costs and proposed a number of policies that would actually increase the nation’s debt.

Some Republicans have privately made it clear that they’d rather not include some of Mr. Trump’s most expensive proposals in the legislation, especially as they battle concerns from hard-right Republicans that the bill will cost too much.

But Mr. Trump has personally been lobbying lawmakers on some of the issues he campaigned on. In a private meeting with Republican congressional leaders in the Cabinet Room at the White House on Wednesday, he urged them to implement his campaign promise to eliminate taxes on tips.

He told them repeatedly that he saw the move as a winning issue, according to two people familiar with his comments who were not authorized to discuss the private meeting.

Of the suite of tax cuts Mr. Trump proposed during the campaign, terminating taxes on tips has gained the most traction on Capitol Hill. The idea won bipartisan support during the campaign, and Republican aides are working on legislation that would translate the “no tax on tips” slogan into policy that won’t kick off a gold rush of tax avoidance.

There are several other promises Republicans would rather avoid. Free traders on Capitol Hill have particularly bristled at Mr. Trump’s vows to enact across-the-board tariffs. While the president has the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs, some Republicans have studied the possibility of imposing tariffs through law — an idea that quickly proved unpopular within the party.

Trump v. Arithmetic

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. Trump completes the comeback with his inauguration today.

He faces big challenges as he becomes president again. These challenges have one thing in common: arithmetic.

Trump has promised “the largest deportation program in American history,” targeting millions of undocumented immigrants. According to the American Immigration Council, it would cost up to $88 billion to deport a million immigrants in a year. And that’s just the direct cost of finding, detaining, and removing them. Americans would have to pay billions more to replace the labor that undocumented immigrants currently perform.

Trump also wants to cut taxes and raise military spending. Together with the cost of mass deportation, these decisions would increase the federal deficit, now nearly two trillion dollars a year. Those deficits would add to the federal debt, which currently stands at an astounding thirty trillion dollars. American taxpayers must pay a trillion dollars a year for interest on this debt.

How will Trump offset his tax cuts and spending increases? He proposes new tariffs, claiming that other countries will pay them. That is false. American importers pay tariffs, and they pass the cost to American consumers. The result will be higher prices. Inflation led to Joe Biden’s defeat and would make Trump unpopular, so do not expect him to follow through with this policy.

Trump has named Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head a commission to fight wasteful spending. (Ramaswamy, however, will reportedly leave the commission to run for governor of Ohio.) There have been many such commissions over the years, and they have never had much impact on the deficit. Do not expect Musk to fare any better. He has no government experience or any expertise in the federal budget.

Perhaps the best thing for the United States would be for Trump to break his promises on taxes and spending.

RSC Proposes to Raise the Social Security Retirement Age

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.  Trump and the GOP are providing early Christmas presents to Democratic oppo guys.

Last year, the Republican Study Committee proposed raising the Social Security retirement age.  That idea is extremely unpopular.

Oops, they did it again.

Sahil Kapur at NBC:

A new budget by a large and influential group of House Republicans calls for raising the Social Security retirement age for future retirees and restructuring Medicare.

The proposals, which are unlikely to become law this year, reflect how many Republicans will seek to govern if they win the 2024 elections. And they play into a fight President Joe Biden is seeking to have with former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party as he runs for re-election.

The budget was released Wednesday by the Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 170 House GOP lawmakers, including many allies of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Apart from fiscal policy, the budget endorses a series of bills “designed to advance the cause of life,” including the Life at Conception Act, which would aggressively restrict abortion and potentially threaten in vitro fertilization, or IVF, by establishing legal protections for human beings at “the moment of fertilization.” It has recently caused consternation within the GOP following backlash to an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that threatened IVF.

The RSC, which is chaired by Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., counts among its members Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and his top three deputies in leadership. Johnson chaired the RSC from 2019 to 2021; his office did not immediately respond when asked about the new budget.

For Social Security, the budget endorses "modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy." It calls for lowering benefits for the highest-earning beneficiaries. And it emphasizes that those ideas are not designed to take effect immediately: "The RSC Budget does not cut or delay retirement benefits for any senior in or near retirement."