Dem
47
GOP
53
The BBB (technically now BBL, but the Urban Dictionary has distracting meanings for that) is not very popular. In fact, it is so unpopular that the Democrats are planning to make it their main issue in 2026. Now the Republicans have to sell the public on the bill. Who is better suited to telling people about the benefits of taking away medical care from 12 million people in order to give millionaires and billionaires tax cuts than Yale-educated lawyer and Silicon Valley venture capitalist J.D. Vance? So Vance has been sent out to the hustings to seal the deal. And what better venue could there be than a small town in the Rust Belt, where the bill will hit hardest?
So Vance went to West Pittston—12 miles from Joe Biden's home town of Scranton, in northeast Pennsylvania—yesterday to pitch the new law. He will be the first of many administration spokespersons in the coming months. West Pittston is in PA-08, an R+4 district currently represented by Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), who narrowly defeated Democratic incumbent Matt Cartwright last November. Vance wants to shore up support for Bresnahan, but talking about everything except how to get jobs back to the area could backfire.
Vance spoke for 15 minutes. He is no Donald Trump. Only 250 people showed up to hear him. He talked about tax cuts (but not about who got the biggest ones). He emphasized that the new law exempts overtime pay from taxes. That will surely be well received by the unemployed workers throughout the Rust Belt. He also talked about the importance of the coal and gas industry which used to be important in northeast Pennsylvania. Nostalgia!
Reporters from a local newspaper interviewed some of the attendees of the micro-rally. Walter Volinksi, a 74-year-old retiree, said he hadn't read the 900-page law, but was sure the politicians hadn't either. But he trusted Donald Trump to make the country great again. Steven Taylor, a 52-year-old truck driver, liked the tax breaks on tips and overtime. But he was worried that the cuts to Medicaid could hurt his nephew, who has diabetes. If they do, he will probably say that he didn't expect Trump to do something to hurt his family, just other people's families.
On the other hand, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) is aggressively attacking Pennsylvania Republican congressmen who voted for the bill, like Bresnahan. On a local radio station he said: "I mean, Rep. Bresnahan told you, your listeners, your newspapers, told me to my face, this was a red line in the sand for him, he wouldn't harm people on Medicaid, he wouldn't harm our rural hospitals... He caved and voted for this bill." Bresnahan replied that the bill strengthens Medicaid by cracking down on fraud. (V)