There's Nothing Beautiful About This Bill That Congress Is Considering

By Paul Graham, Minnesota Reformer

June 30, 2025

Early morning May 22, 2025, when most families were still asleep, members of the U.S. House passed a bill to make sweeping cuts to Medicaid, SNAP — which helps people afford groceries — and other basic safety net programs, all to finance tax breaks for the wealthiest in our country.

A Senate vote is imminent.

The 215 representatives who voted for this bill said “yes” to kicking over 13 million people off their health care through Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, while raising costs for millions of others. These representatives said “yes” to ransacking the pantries and clearing off the dinner tables of 3 million families on SNAP who are struggling to get by. These representatives said “yes” to taking away school lunches from 18 million kids.

In Minnesota, the effects of these cuts will be devastating. Fully $11 billion of the $18 billion that Minnesota spends on Medicaid comes from the federal government. Cutting these funds will leave people without access to doctors and the medicines they need to survive. SNAP serves over 450,000 Minnesotans who are trying to make it to another day.

These 215 of our U.S. representatives said “yes” to endangering the health, livelihood and well-being of millions of families, all to reconcile their budget that seeks first and foremost to cut taxes benefiting the top 1%, who already pay in too little compared to other developed countries.

This is a cruel, fiscally irresponsible and wildly unpopular budget bill.

Touting this as a “beautiful” bill is disingenuous and brazen. There is nothing beautiful about denying people cancer treatment. There is nothing beautiful about children going hungry. There is nothing beautiful about prioritizing those already well off at the expense of families just trying to get by. Should this bill become law, it will cause irreparable damage to families.

Not in our name

As faith leaders and members of our community, we cannot remain silent to the cruelty unfolding that denies the humanity and dignity of our families, congregants and neighbors. Our policies and our budgets reflect what we value. Yet, what House members passed in the budget bill — and what the Senate is currently considering — defies the values of the vast majority of Americans. No matter our worldview or ideology, most of us recognize the wisdom of the Golden Rule.

It is troubling to see politicians who claim to be Christian govern in a way antithetical to the core values of the teachings of Jesus.

Biblical writings emphasize again and again the importance of caring for one another, particularly the sick, hungry and vulnerable.

But do you know what you won’t find in the Bible? Instructions to deny sick people care. A parable advocating for letting a child go hungry. A proverb praising a rich man for stepping on others to amass more wealth for himself.

Our faith tradition doesn’t only emphasize caring for vulnerable people in our communities because it’s right — and it absolutely is. Our faith tradition emphasizes it because over millennia, societies and people in power needed to be reminded again and again when they lost their way of caring for one another.

To the 215 representatives who voted for the House bill: You most certainly have lost your way.

Another moral crossroads

We are at another moral crossroads in our country. Will we have a government that makes life better for all? Or will we have a government that aims above all to further enrich the rich on the backs of working families?

Will we allow our elected leaders to continue to draw sharper, wider lines between the “haves” and “have-nots,” or will we embrace budgets that ensure everyone is better off by making sure everyone has their basic needs met?

As a country, we have faced identity crises before — of who we are and what we stand for. We’ve wrestled with dark parts of our history tainted by injustice, cruelty and prejudice. We’ve expanded rights, freedoms and protections for those who were too long denied them. Frankly, we’re still wrestling. But we’ve risen to the occasion before, and we must do so now again.

What the passage of the House bill signals is grave but not guaranteed.

The House bill passed narrowly by one vote (215-214), four of whom were Minnesota representatives. Now the Senate is deliberating. You can contact your Congress members. You can urge senators to think hard about the budget bill that cuts people’s health care and food assistance.

If your representative voted for the House bill, politely ask them what kind of government they want to have a hand in making.

If and when it comes to the House again, insist they do better.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..