Equitable Growth responds to passage of the federal budget bill
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 7, 2025
CONTACT: Madison Moore, mmoore@equitablegrowth.org
WASHINGTON – On Friday, President Donald Trump signed the 2025 federal budget bill, cementing into law the most regressive piece of tax and budget legislation to be passed in the United States in at least 40 years. The law will disproportionality hurt low- and middle-income families, leaving an estimated 12 million Americans uninsured over the next decade and stripping away vital Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program dollars directed to feed hungry families. These damaging cuts will help fund a permanent extension of the 2017 tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit the ultrawealthy.
The budget bill includes:
- $1.3 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and supplemental nutrition assistance, resulting in approximately 12 million Americans losing their health insurance benefits and 4.5 million losing their SNAP benefits
- A 3.8 percent income reduction for the poorest 20 percent of Americans and a 3.7 percent income increase for the richest 20 percent
- A modest increase (or possible decrease) in annual U.S. Gross Domestic Product
- An added $3.4 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, increasing fiscal risk, raising interest rates, and reducing public investments
- A permanent extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, plus expanded cuts that amount to more than $5 trillion over the next 10 years, including:
- A permanent extension of the qualified business income deduction (Section 199A), which gives more than $700 billion to already wealthy business owners
- A permanent increase to the estate tax exemption, which gives more than $200 billion to the ultrawealthy
- An expansion of the qualified small business stock exclusion (Section 1202), which gives $17 billion to venture capital investors and tech CEOs
Exclusive survey data from Yale University’s Jacob Hacker and Patrick Sullivan finds that when Americans saw how the bill would affect the income of less wealthy workers and families, as opposed to the top 1 percent, only 11 percent of those polled supported it.
“The president’s budget bill dramatically exacerbates inequality by sending more than 50 percent of its tax benefits to the top 10 percent of U.S. households, all while delivering negligible economic growth and ballooning the national debt,” said Elena Waskey, senior director of communications and marketing at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. “The real winners of President Trump’s budget are the uber wealthy, who will see their take-home pay rise more than $300,000, as millions of Americans lose the health insurance and nutrition benefits they rely on to survive. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that the Trump tax cuts, which have now become permanent law, neither boost wages nor spur economic growth.”
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The Washington Center for Equitable Growth is a nonprofit research and grantmaking organization dedicated to advancing evidence-backed ideas and policies that promote strong, stable, and broad-based economic growth. For more information, see www.equitablegrowth.org and follow us on X @equitablegrowth and Bluesky @equitablegrowth.bsky.social.
