More from the OpEd...

... Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act made massive cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, leaving millions of children in low-income families without access to health insurance, adequate and healthy food and, in some cases, learning and developmental services in public schools.

Roughly 40 percent of American children receive health coverage through Medicaid. Although the bill's work requirements do not apply to children, they lose coverage when their parents do. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cuts will increase the number of Americans without health insurance by 7.5 million in 2034.

The budget office also projects that SNAP spending will decline by $211 billion through 2035. An analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates 1.5 million children, conservatively, have lost benefits since July 2025. Further reductions are likely as states are forced to pay a larger share of the program's administrative costs.

The 2025 bill did increase the Child Tax Credit from $2,000 to $2,200. But it left intact rules that prevent many low-income families from receiving the full credit. As a result, 30 percent of all children and 99 percent of those from the poorest one-fifth of families won't benefit from the increase.

Each of these individual policies is onerous, but the collective impact is especially damaging, since many families will be hurt by all of them. ...