In this NPR interview from the start to 7:10, Colorado MAGA Republican congressman Gabe Evans tells us how wonderful Trump's tax breaks for rich people and more debt for us law really is. Some basic fact checking shows that Evans is a cynical, insulting liar or a self-deceived idiot.
Two of Evans' most insulting, outrageous falsehoods:
- NPR pointed out that if his grandfather, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was still alive today he would be arrested and deported by djt's ICE. Evans deflects and said at ~4:55-5:11 that (1) his grandfather earned his family's US citizenship by fighting in WWII in Patton's 3rd Army in Europe, and (2) the two Purple Hearts his grandfather got in WWII paid for the citizenship of his family in blood. That conveniently deflects from the fact that if Evans' grandfather was still alive today he would be arrested and deported by djt's ICE. djt could not care less about illegal immigrants fighting for the US military or winning Purple Hearts or any other military award. He wants to deport all of them. Most likely, Evans is either lying or stupidly deceiving himself.
- At ~5:23-5:49, NPR asked about people in Evans voting district who oppose djt's tax and spend bill in part because of large cuts in Medicaid spending. He responds by saying (1) there is a lot of misinformation about the bill, and (2) Medicaid spending will increase every year the law is in effect, not decrease as widely reported. **
** A quick fact check shows that Evans' assertion of increased Medicaid spending is false: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office provides official cost estimates for legislation. It projects that djt's bill will reduce Medicaid spending by approximately $930 billion over ten years, causing about 11.8 million people to lose their health care insurance. That amounts to the largest cut to Medicaid in the program's history. Authoritarian MAGA Republicans cynically insult us by arguing they are targeting "waste, fraud, and abuse" and focusing benefits on the most deserving populations — primarily pregnant women, children, and disabled individuals. Health policy experts say that most Medicaid recipients already work, and the cuts would achieve savings primarily by making it more difficult for eligible people to maintain coverage, i.e., killing them with paperwork.
And FWIW, the law's $4.5 trillion in tax cuts mostly benefit higher-income households (at least ~60% of cuts go to the top 5% of households) while cutting $1.2 trillion from social safety net programs. The CBO projects this will increase the federal deficit by $3.3 trillion over ten years. Multiple analyses confirm that while the legislation provides tax cuts to most income groups, the combination of tax cuts and spending reductions creates a regressive transfer of resources from lower-income to higher-income households 7 8 4.