Subcommittee Democrats Denounce Republican Efforts to Rob Americans’ Housing and Health Care, Steal Food from Hungry Children

Washington, D.C. (May 8, 2025)—Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Healthcare and Financial Services, led Subcommittee Democrats in denouncing the Trump-Musk Administration’s attacks on federal investment programs like Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and federal housing assistance that provide a lifeline for people and families in financial need. 

“According to H. Con. Res. 14, the House Republicans’ instruction with regard to the budget reconciliation process, social safety net programs—very likely Medicaid and SNAP—will be cut to the tune of $1.1 trillion,” Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi said in his opening statement.  “If Republicans go through with this plan, kids will go to sleep hungry because their parents lost their SNAP benefits.  Millions—millions—will lose their health coverage.  These cuts will be catastrophic.  Funding tax breaks for special interests and the wealthiest among us by gutting life sustaining programs is disgraceful.” 

The hearing included testimony from Indivar Dutta-Gupta, Advisor, Community Change, and Doris Duke Distinguished Visiting Fellow, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University; The Honorable Ben Carson, Former Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development; Chris Edwards, Kilts Family Chair in Fiscal Studies, The Cato Institute; and Howard Husock, Senior Fellow, Domestic Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute. 

Committee Democrats condemned Republican plans to destroy successful and lifesaving federal assistance that millions of American families need for access to health care, food, and housing.

• Rep. Wesley Bell reiterated the value of federal assistance programs, explaining that “the low-income assistance programs we’re discussing aren’t just numbers on a page—they’re lifelines,” and explaining how for the more than 48,000 people in Missouri who rely on Medicaid expansion for health care, “many would have nowhere else to turn” if it was taken from them. 
   
• Rep. Lateefah Simon underscored the immediate and long-term harm of cutting lifeline programs and services, saying:  “The reality is—and I have been there—being poor is hard.  Being poor is hard, and the federal government should not be making poverty harder.  When we ask a family that is paying 50% of their income to rent, to afford childcare, eldercare, and medical insurance, we are sentencing them to lifelong debt, housing insecurity and hunger.  I want to be clear that any reduction in SNAP, any reduction in Medicaid, any reduction in housing benefits for the working poor or services that could be the difference between life and death or living on the streets for so many vulnerable individuals and families.”   
   
• Rep. Emily Randall highlighted the consequences of the Trump Administration’s proposal to cut federal housing support by nearly $27 billion and limit rental assistance to only two years for “able bodied adults:”  “What this means is that millions are going to be forced out of their homes, millions more are going to be couch surfing or on the streets.”   
   
• Rep. Simon shared her personal experience living in poverty, emphasizing the disconnect between how Republican lawmakers talk about poverty and the reality of being poor, stating:  “So few people who make laws for the poor have been poor.  Many of you all know that I was a teen mom.  I went to college.  I got food stamps.  $26 a month.  Every other week I was at the counter putting back food because again, people were making policy for poor folks who had no idea what it was like having to move through an economy that didn’t understand what it was really like to be poor.”

Committee Democrats laid bare how Republicans are sabotaging federal assistance programs to help Americans’ meet their basic needs so they can gift tax giveaways to billionaires.

• Rep. Randall highlighted the economic costs of Republicans prioritizing tax giveaways to the wealthy few over American families:  “In addition to the budget reconciliation package that we have seen and been discussing in committees that make steep cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and other critical programs to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, the Trump Administration’s skinny budget proposal that they released last week would slash many of the federal programs that families around the country rely on at a time when this president’s radical tax and tariff agenda is driving the country into a recession and making daily life, housing, childcare, baby strollers, more expensive for working families.” 
   
• Rep. Bell emphasized how “this Administration is targeting programs like Medicaid not to reform them, but to bankrupt them and gut them to fund tax breaks for billionaires.  Cuts to Medicaid don’t just hurt on paper, they hurt real people in every community.”  Rep. Bell continued, “The choice simple:  Protect billionaires or protect communities.” 
   
• Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi condemned Republican attempts to slash funding for critical programs like Medicaid and SNAP, saying:  “I am proud of what these programs have allowed my family and millions of others to achieve.  I have no intention of sacrificing these programs on the altar of tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.  Not only is such a plan fiscally imprudent, it is flat out morally wrong.”