... JD Vance is being slammed after a twisted post on the costs of Republicans' budget bill.
Vice President JD Vance is being lambasted for dismissing social safety net rollbacks under the Trump tax bill currently making its way through Congress.
On Monday night, Vance attempted to rally support for the bill in a post on X, writing, "Everything else"the CBO score [the Congressional Budget Office cost estimate], the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy"is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions."
Many were rubbed the wrong way by Vance's claim that the bill's worrisome qualities are of little consequence compared to its staggering expansion of federal immigration enforcement (which a majority of Americans already believe has "gone too far" in carrying out Trump's deportation agenda).
Particularly odious was the suggestion that "the minutiae of the Medicaid policy," among other all-but-trivial concerns, is "immaterial." After all, in delivering "the most dramatic reductions in safety net spending in modern U.S. history," per The Washington Post, the bill could cause 17 million people to lose their health insurance and, according to some estimates, lead to tens of thousands of preventable deaths each year. It is also projected to add trillions to the deficit.
"If Republicans wanted to pass a big ICE funding bill they could," posted journalist Matthew Yglesias on X. "What they wrote is a bill that has trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of regressive tax cuts partially offset by cuts in programs for poor Americans but that also massively increases debt." ...