The US House of Representatives has passed a massive budget bill by a margin of one vote. Every Democrat voted against it. Now the bill is off to the Senate, where it’s expected to be tweaked, but ultimately passed.
U.S. Congresswoman Becca Balint (D-Vt.) spoke with Vermont Edition's Mikaela Lefrak on Tuesday about the budget bill, including cuts to Medicaid and tax reductions. She also spoke about the war in Gaza, tariffs and the possibility of impeaching President Trump for a third time.
The following transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mikaela Lefrak: Let's talk about this 'Big Beautiful Bill' that House Republicans passed last week. The final vote was 215 to 214. You voted against it, as did every Democrat in the House. Why did you vote against it?
Becca Balint: I was deeply concerned about the cuts to Medicaid, which, of course, for so many Vermonters is insurance. Those Medicaid cuts will not just impact individual people. It will impact our ability to keep rural hospitals open, and that's true in Vermont and across the country. And it was also the largest cut to food assistance programs. The programs that people know as SNAP. Again, a lot of Vermonters take advantage of food assistance. It is not a generous program. We're talking about $6 a day, $2 per meal. And I just could not morally consciously with my conscience, make cuts to people's insurance and their food benefits to pay for tax breaks to billionaire donors like Elon Musk. And, the other piece that I want people to understand here is that because they also added — 'they' being the Republicans — added trillions and trillions of dollars to the national debt. This, from people who often call themselves deficit hawks. They voted for this massive hole in our budget. It will automatically trigger cuts to Medicare. And so it is it really important for Vermont to understand it doesn't matter what the President has said about this bill in terms of 'no cuts to Medicaid.' It doesn't matter what the my Republican colleagues have said. Every reputable source, including the Congressional Budget Office, and so many news outlets, have pointed out there are absolutely cuts to Medicaid here. And don't believe me, believe a conservative in the Senate, Josh Hawley. He was very outspoken last week, saying this is unconscionable to be cutting Medicaid and food assistance for the for the poor and the middle class who are just trying to make ends meet. And so those, those were some of the big ones.
It's also just a massive wealth transfer. And when you look at who is going to benefit from the tax cuts, it is people at the top. It is not people who really need those tax breaks. So for most people in the lower 20% of earners, your tax relief is going to be $1 a day. Whereas if you look at what the tax relief is for the point 1% at the top, it's going to be $700 a day. And at a time of incredible wealth disparity, when we have terrible health outcomes, when people are so anxious about getting their basic needs met. This is not a bill for working people and for the middle class. And it was also — I think you've probably seen the news — it was definitely shoved through in the middle of the night. I flew in for a hearing on Sunday night at night. This is unheard of. You don't do hearings at night. The bill that was going through the Rules Committee, the meeting was called for one in the morning. I had to give a floor speech at three in the morning. This is not a bill that many of my colleagues are proud of. They're really hoping that it will get through without people paying too much attention to what's really in the details. And I'm deeply concerned about how this will impact Vermonters, and I just want to say to your listeners, whether you voted for Kamala Harris or if you didn't vote, or you voted for Donald Trump, believing he would give you tax relief, and relief in terms of prices, this bill does not do that. And I'm always going to stand up for what is going to be better for Vermont, and I can't tell you how many health care facilities that have been in touch with my office saying this bill would be absolutely devastating for for rural health care in Vermont.
Mikaela Lefrak: We have a question about this bill from Carl in St. Johnsbury. Carl, you're on the air with Congresswoman Balint, go ahead.
Carl: Yes. Thank you, Mikaela and Becca Balint. Thank you for being on the job there and for being really engaged. It's really heartening to know that when first announced, I thought this, this possibly can't get through. It's so it's so drastic and horrible. And when you consider $3 trillion to the national debt that we just don't need, I was alarmed, horrified and confused and angry. But yeah, now that it's actually coming to pass will it be able to be reversed, if we get an administration with a Congress that can reverse it, or at least, perhaps lessen the blow?
Becca Balint: Yeah, I really appreciate the question Carl. And this is a really important point that I want to make to Vermonters, is the fight's not over. It shifts to the Senate now, and so it's really important that Vermonters contact your Senators. Of course, being Senator Welch and Senator Sanders, who I know are well aware of the issues they their offices, have been in touch with my office, knowing sort of the twists and turns in the House. And so we have to continue to put pressure on them. Maybe that's not the right term, because they're doing the work, I have no doubt. But to reach out to their Republican colleagues, like Josh Hawley, like others, who have always talked about themselves as standing up for the working poor, standing up for programs that support middle class Americans and get Republicans to make changes to the bill. That is our hope right now is people like Josh Hawley will also continue the drum beat of saying it is unconscionable to give people a tax break at the top when people are just barely getting by and you don't go after their food assistance and their health insurance and so not over by a long shot. We are going to continue to be putting pressure on our colleagues in the Senate as well.
Through every channel that we can in the House, we can continue to highlight some of the worst changes that were made. And also, I wanted to say there was an also an 11th Hour deal that was cut, once again in the middle of the night, to this bill that was had provisions in it that you can't even believe they're real, like giving tax breaks to companies that produce silencers for firearms, giving tax breaks to tanning beds versus for the people who are providing Medicaid beds in nursing homes.
And so there's just so much wrong with this bill. It's a handout for some of their their biggest donors. I saw Rand Paul on the talk shows this weekend also making the case that this is not a good bill, and that they need to make changes in the Senate.
Mikaela Lefrak: Thank you, Carl, for for calling in. We've talked a lot on Vermont Edition recently, Congresswoman, about the possible cuts to Medicaid and generally the the very tenuous position that Vermont's health care system is in. As you mentioned, this bill includes several proposed changes to Medicaid, including this new work requirement. It would require childless adults without disabilities to work 80 hours a month at least to qualify for Medicaid benefits. This has been a much debated topic, and I'm wondering what your opinion is on this requirement.
Becca Balint: If work requirements actually worked, then of course it seems like a common sense measure, okay? But what we've seen in states that have implemented these requirements, in fact, what has happened is they've increased so much red tape to the system, seemingly intentionally, to just drive people off of the rolls. And so I'm all for — I'm cheap, I'm a Vermonter. We're all cheap. We all try to make the cuts where we can. But this essentially is not about going after waste, fraud and abuse. Because you can't find that amount of waste and fraud in the system. There isn't $800 billion of waste in the Medicaid system. It's a very tightly controlled program. And so again, if we had data that showed that this would, in fact, benefit the people on a program, of course we should look into it. But the data doesn't show that it's just another means for kicking additional people off the rolls who need this care. And there are big ticket items that we should be going after, and one being the Pentagon budget. I've said it before. They've never passed an audit. There are millions, if not billions, of dollars in savings in that part of the budget, but we don't see them going after that. We see them going after the poor.
Mikaela Lefrak: Well, let's move away for a moment here from the big, beautiful bill, and talk about some of the other major issues that Congress has been facing recently, specifically Israel. The war in Gaza is obviously continuing, and big international organizations like the UN and Amnesty International have been warning of a devastating famine that could kill thousands of people, including children, if Israel does not allow for more aid to enter the region. Canada, the UK and France have all threatened 'concrete actions' if Israel doesn't change course. What is your opinion on the Israeli government's current war effort? And I'm curious if you think the US should also participate in a pressure campaign similar to the one that other countries are mounting right now.
Becca Balint: I do. I do. I don't know if listeners saw the remarks that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made this past week. He said, Look, there's no way else to look at this, that this is now approaching the place of war crimes committed by Netanyahu. And it pains me to say that, but there's there's no question that this has been an effort by this administration, meaning the Netanyahu administration, to starve the people of Gaza, to take over the West Bank, and we cannot be complicit in this. And I think this has been a great tragedy for some of the people across the country who thought that President Trump would have a different perspective on this, and therefore either gave their support to that candidacy of Donald Trump, or decided not to vote at all. What we see is Trump very clearly signaling that he has been comfortable with the plans of the Israeli government to to take over the West Bank and Gaza. And we have to have a very strong response to this. And I will give Vermonters a sort of a sneak peek at what is coming when I get back to D.C., but I and other progressive Jewish members of Congress have signed on to a bill to withhold additional offensive weapons from Israel. We don't have many levers right now. It's clear that the Trump administration and the Netanyahu administration do not have a great relationship right now. So I do not know to what extent that is a lever that can be moved, but former Prime Minister Olmert making those statements when he can — he is there in the region. He can see so much up close, I think it's clear that we can no longer participate in this. Thank
Mikaela Lefrak: Congresswoman Balint, at a town meeting in Rockingham last month, a constituent asked you about impeaching President Donald Trump, and you said you'd support it. He was already impeached twice in 2019 and 2021. He is President now. We got an email from Angelique, who wrote that you have often referred to Trump as a dictator. And Angelique says, "The founders gave Congress the tool of impeachment to deal with a tyrant. Will you lead the way on impeachment of President Trump?" And then I'd just add, if you do support it, why? What would it accomplish?
Becca Balint: I love this question so much because it is true that, as Angelique said, I do believe that this President is operating as a dictator, as an autocrat. The playbook that he is following is clearly, from my perspective, and many others who have studied history as I have, that he is acting in lockstep with what other authoritarian governments have done. And the point that you bring up is an excellent one, which is, to what end? Because nothing has changed in Congress in terms of being able to get a conviction on an impeachment proceeding, except that Republicans in the House have gotten even more extreme in their views. Many more of the people who are now in Congress with me are more extreme in their views. They are not what you might call moderate Republicans. A lot of the moderate Republicans have lost. So the people that would in the past be voting for impeachment articles are no longer with us. And so I want to couch my answer in saying there are grounds that can be argued in terms of having impeachment articles brought to the House. But we can't — first of all, we can't bring them to the House floor, because we do not have a majority. We have a representative in the guise of Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House. He has said that this is not ever going to see the light of day. We don't have the votes. We know that, and ultimately, at this moment, the American people are not with us in that in that movement. And so I one of the things that I said in in that conversation in Rockingham and others, is that there are many of us in Congress watching to figure out what the conditions are, where we could move it and actually get a conviction. And we're not there right now. We're not there. And just to remind people too, because I know to a lot of people the details are frustrating, but right now, for anything that we want to bring to the floor in the House, we need 218 votes. And Democrats right now have 213. And even when we do something called the 'discharge petition,' which we did a couple weeks ago to finally make it possible for nursing mothers to be able to vote remotely, we had a bipartisan bill. Republican Democrats signed on, and in the end, the House Speaker used procedural maneuver to not actually allow us to vote on it, and so our levers are limited at this time,
Mikaela Lefrak: Congresswoman, you mentioned that you're going to be heading back to Washington soon. You're currently in Vermont, and you'll be hosting a town hall in Newport tomorrow, very close to the Vermont-Canada border. I'm wondering what your goals are from that town hall. What are you expecting to hear about before you head back to Washington?
Becca Balint: Yeah, we have gotten a lot of feedback from the folks who will be attending, and they are deeply concerned about the ways in which we are seem to be dealing with an administration that doesn't believe in the rule of law as it relates to the issue of habeas corpus, as it relates to having due process and specifically to that region. A lot of people are not just concerned about trade with Canada and how this trade war with Canada is impacting us in our small businesses and in our pocketbooks. People are deeply concerned about the relationships that we have, both friends and family across the border, with folks in Quebec and generally with people in Canada. And I think that's been incredibly painful. I heard that when I was up also in Island Pond and in Johnson some weeks ago that this is very personal for Vermonters, and I think it's important for me, not just to be someone who convey what is happening in my committees and on the floor of the House, but to be there with open ears and open heart, listening to how it is impacting their communities, because that is something that that we've heard directly.
Broadcast live on Tuesday, May 27, 2025, at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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