Democrats don’t have many good things to say about President Donald Trump’s signature tax and domestic policy law — except when they do.
“There is one diamond within this sludge,” Rep. Wesley Bell of Missouri told NOTUS.
Bell was referring to the law’s reauthorization of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which provides payments to people sickened by radiation from the U.S. nuclear weapons program.
This summer, Bell, who has long supported the policy, joined Republican Sen. Josh Hawley at a ceremony in July touting its reauthorization.
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“Many folks around the country, but also in the St. Louis region, have been harmed, but also unfortunately died from radioactive exposure, and they deserve compensation. They deserve treatment,” Bell said.
Democrats have overwhelmingly panned Trump’s budget law, pointing to the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis that says it primarily provides windfall for the wealthy, while cutting social services for the poor. Public polling is on their side, showing the budget law underwater with voters — so much so that Republicans are attempting to recast Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” as the “working families’ tax cut.”
Bell is no exception to his party’s message.
“Ironically, the folks who needed that treatment are at risk of losing their Medicaid,” he said, referring to the laws’ sweeping cuts to the health care program.
But, since the budget bill passed in July, some Democrats appear to be testing the waters on a more nuanced message about the law’s more popular provisions.
Take Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
The Democratic congressman represents Kansas City, Missouri, one of the host cities for next year’s FIFA World Cup. Cleaver pushed to secure federal dollars for security at the event. The law includes $625 million in security funding for host cities. Days later, Cleaver championed the funding in a joint press release with Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas, saying, “I’m very happy that we were able to secure $625 million.”
Though Cleaver told NOTUS on Tuesday that “it was never tempting” for him to vote for the bill, he added, “I’ve got to be honest, I was roaming around on the edge because of the World Cup.”
“I did everything except vote for it,” he said of the law’s World Cup funding. “And it was an awkward vote.”
Money for people exposed to nuclear radiation and World Cup security are just two of the many policies in the over 1,000-page reconciliation bill that Democrats ostensibly, if not explicitly, support as standalone legislation. The law also extends the 2017 tax law’s boost to the child tax credit extension. There’s an expansion to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, which has had bipartisan support. There’s funding to update air traffic control.
Republican lawmakers took heat during the Biden administration for celebrating projects and investments in their home state that they did not vote for, particularly in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act. Now, they’re returning the jab.
“House Democrats voted against historic wins for working Americans, smeared them as ‘extreme’ and ‘cruel,’ and now are shamelessly running home to take credit,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella told NOTUS. “Voters see through their BS and Democrats already lost when they turned their backs on working families.”
Those policies, however, were wrapped together with over $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, $230 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and provisions that ban Medicaid payments to organizations like Planned Parenthood, vastly expand immigration detention and undo large swaths of President Joe Biden’s climate legacy.
The challenge for Democrats now is how to express support, and in some cases claim credit for shaping some of the provisions in the law, despite voting against the bill.
“Even a broken clock is accidentally right twice a day,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton told NOTUS, referencing the budget law. “That still doesn’t change the fact that it’s broken and should be replaced.”
Even more complicated is how Democrats are approaching the law’s “no tax on tips” provision.
Nearly a year ago, Rep. Steven Horsford introduced a bill that would codify Trump’s campaign-trail idea, known as the Tipped Income Protection and Support Act, or TIPS Act, indefinitely — unlike the budget law’s three-year window.
“I meet with workers every time I’m home, and they call me regularly, and what they tell me is, ‘We deserve relief. It’s getting more expensive to afford to live, whether it’s housing, child care, health care, and we do deserve to keep more of our hard, hard earned money.’” Horsford told NOTUS.
“That’s what workers say,” Horsford said. “But that’s not what the Trump betrayal of a bill does.”
Horsford highlighted on social media a letter that he and the other Democrats representing Nevada in the House sent to the Trump administration, seeking clarity on the provision’s implementation and saying that provisions like “no tax on tips” support “hardworking, middle-class workers, albeit in a temporary fashion.” Horsford said his letter resulted in new details from the Treasury Department on which jobs qualified for the tax break.
Rep. Susie Lee told NOTUS that on balance, her support for “no tax on tips” didn’t outweigh her opposition to the “full package,” which she called “devastating” for Nevada.
“Certainly anyone getting a tax break, it’s a good thing,” Lee said, referencing “no tax on tips.” “So I’m not opposing them getting a tax break.”
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