State already facing a Trump administration’s cut in services, now seeking to find ways to fit Medicaid and snap cuts into their budgets.
Trump’s budget bill will affect all aspects of the economy
The budget bill passed and signed the law touches on the lives of all Americans in one way or another. Will you get better or worse?
Germantown, Maryland – Marshatonkins never got involved in politics. She was happy to make others worried about such things.
But she has given her the edge, notably President Donald Trump’s cuts to food stamps and health care for the poor and disabled people.
“I’m just worried and very worried,” said Tonkins, 57, who has a 17-year-old son with autism.
So for the first time in her life, she attended the town hall, where she was detained on July 10 by Congressional Democrat April McClain Delaney on July 10.
State officials across the country, like Delaney, are trying to understand how cuts affect their components.
In a half-dozen interviews, they told USA Today that after months of lobbying for the spending bill, they must figure out how their state can live with it. But they are not even sure what the impact is yet.
Reductions to Medicaid and SNAP will not be fully effective until after the 2026 midterm elections, but we cannot state a budget of one year or two in the future. Unlike the federal government, most states need to balance their budgets.
It means making difficult decisions about which people can afford to protect and which people are left to dodge themselves.
“As civil servants, we all feel a responsibility to fill these gaps, but the holes aren’t stained enough,” said Democrat Nevada Treasurer Zach Conine.
“The level of catastrophe being created here doesn’t make it a state like Nevada’s state organized,” he said.
Trump and Republicans in Congress say budget cuts are needed to curb government spending, reduce program fraud and abuse, and pay tax credits.
House majority leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said the new work requirements, particularly for capable Medicaid recipients, will create programs for those who rely on them.
“We intend to make the program work better not for those who are turning down jobs, but for those who are truly disabled and poor,” he said in a news release.
But by asking states to increase the share of Medicaid costs and food aid benefits for the first time, Conine and other state officials said federal cuts simply push costs and liability down to the states.
The state doesn’t have the money to cover all of the new responsibilities, he said, and “will soon be where decisions must be made between one group of vulnerable people or another group of vulnerable people.“
“Tsunami” of costs offloaded to the state
Tonkins joined more than 150 people in an amphitheater-style classroom on Montgomery College’s Germantown campus. They’ve been asking not only Delaney, but Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown and Secretary Brooke Lehman, both Democrats about what the state will do to plug an estimated $100 million hole in next year’s budget.
Lierman told participants that her office will prepare a report within 60 days, which outlines what Maryland’s income and tax bills mean. It’s up to Congress to decide how to spend the money the state brings.
The state isn’t just facing Medicaid and snap cuts, Delaney said. They are facing a “tsunami” of funding freezes, changes to education funding, and other ways in which the administration is “offloading” costs to the states to reduce the federal government.
“All of these are stacked on each other… No matter what their resources are, it’s going to be extremely difficult for any state to be able to stop that,” she said.
All states rely heavily on federal funds to balance their budgets. According to a report from the National Association of State Budgets, federal funds account for more than a third of total state spending in 2024.
“It’s kind of death from 1,000 cuts. And that’s really the challenge here. There wasn’t just one bill that would hurt our budget and hurt Maryland,” Lehman told the citizens gathered at City Hall. “There were a lot.”
It’s difficult to understand the full impact of “very big”
Officials in half a dozen states said today in the US they are still looking into how the bill will affect the billions of dollars that flow from the federal government each year for transportation and education. Changes must be considered in the state budget.
“It’s so big, I don’t know if you understand everything yet,” said Democrat Minnesota Auditor Julie Braha. “I think people are overwhelmed by how much of an impact it can have.”
How much of this new responsibility they can cover will be in different states, depending on the local economy, potential tax increases, and political priorities.
Will Connecticut work to fully fund employee pension programs, putting backlash from workers and unions at risk? This is one of the issues that Connecticut treasurers are frustrated.
Estimated snap reductions alone exceed the $262 million allocated to the Children, Aids and Family Divisions of New Mexico. Should New Mexico and other states immerse themselves in rainy day funding to continue providing food aid? What happens to people who rely on dry programs? That’s what I’m worried about New Mexico’s accounting.
State revenues can expand to date, with estimated new costs for Medicaid and SNAP expected to be tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in each state.
Braha, Minnesota, said she hopes her state and many others will raise taxes to cover costs, rather than reducing access to healthcare and food.
“We’re all going to have to pay more,” she said. “It’s going to raise the costs for all of us, or it’s going to be awful cruelty.”
“You have to make a difficult decision.”
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton said the cuts are part of balancing budgets and states have to make their own choices based on the money they get. The federal government was responsible for limiting spending, said Sexton, the only Republican state official to respond to USA Today’s request for comment.
“At some point you have to make a difficult decision,” he said. “You’ll have to do the hurtful things to make sure you’re financially healthy in the next five or ten years…and the harsh things today will only benefit us if we can reach more economic freedom (to) for the federal government than we currently have.”
He said Tennessee should look into the effectiveness of the bill when they come.
“If we were affected, it would be above us to pick it up and make that decision for ourselves as to whether we want to continue doing what we want to do,” he said.
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