Dem
47
GOP
53
Getting the votes in the House to pass Donald Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill was easy compared to selling it to the voters. Many Republican congresscritters are running into a buzzsaw of criticism from the voters back home at town halls and other gatherings.
The voters have various concerns. Some of them object to cuts in programs that benefit Americans across party lines, including Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps). Others object to putting an additional $4 trillion on the national credit card, saying that is unsustainable. Still others object to the idea of hurting ordinary Americans in numerous ways in order to give a big tax cut to millionaires and billionaires.
One Republican who got a flood of criticism from his constituents was Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE). When he tried to defend his vote for the bill, he was booed by his constituents. In one particularly painful moment, a voter asked about a provision in the bill that would make it difficult for a judge to hold a government official in contempt for violating a court order. The voter wanted to know how Flood could vote for a bill with that provision. Flood basically wondered how anyone could expect him to know what was in a 1,000-page bill he had no time to read. People in the audience yelled: "You voted for all of it."
When Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) told a town hall that she was proud to have voted for the bill, she got a chorus of boos from the audience. She got a similar outburst when she mentioned DOGE. On the other hand, the crowd burst into cheers when a constituent asked about the jet from Qatar: "Could you help me understand why you are silent about this corruption?" She evaded answering by saying she had proved she favors transparency by holding the town hall in the first place.
Another Republican, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), was asked about the cuts to Medicaid. The voter said they would cause people to die. Ernst gave a very, very tone-deaf response: "Well, we are all going to die."
That didn't go over well. She tried to recover by insisting that only people who are not eligible would be pushed off Medicaid. What she didn't mention is that the bill makes it harder to be eligible. In theory, if the bill made everyone ineligible, then indeed, only ineligible people would die, but that would be everyone. It took about a day for this T-shirt to go on sale:
Some Republicans took flak even outside town halls. Reps. Gabe Evans and Lauren Boebert, both of Colorado, were heckled when they spoke to a crowd on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol last week. Boebert said: "This is a victory for our values, for our communities and for our American way of life. It's about cutting wasteful spending—the waste, the fraud, the abuse, the illegal aliens who are receiving taxpayer benefits." But the crowd wasn't buying it. When Evans was asked how many of his constituents, about one-third of whom are enrolled in Medicaid, would lose coverage, he mumbled something about "categories of people who lose coverage." When a reporter asked for a number, Evans refused to provide one. (V)