There are a lot of well-documented ways the alliterative Senate reconciliation package, passed Tuesday with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance, will mess over lower-income Americans in order to subsidize tax cuts for the wealthiest. But the Senate GOP has also tucked some less prominent policies into the tax cut legislation that stand to harm vulnerable people in more obscure but still impactful ways.
One such policy, which was included in the House version of the bill and initially even managed to slip past some GOP officials whose job it is to actually read the legislation they’re voting on, was a provision to ban states from regulating artificial intelligence for 10 years. That provision can be referenced in the past tense, since it and a watered-down variation of it were removed from the Senate package after Republicans including Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) fought against it. While a full, 10-year regulation ban passed out of the House, there is no moratorium of AI regulation at all in the Senate bill.
So many of the bill’s provisions were in flux up until the final moments as senators scrambled to acquiesce to the demands of their colleagues, adapt to the Senate Parliamentarian’s rulings, and appease President Donald Trump.
Still, policies currently on track to hit the president’s desk range from the needlessly harmful — like the end to a nominal air pollution grant program for low-income schools — to one which threatens to prevent lower-income students from pursuing higher education at all. And, of course, Senate Republicans have found low-key ways to fund niche corporate interests, all while taking food from the mouths of children.
Here are some Senate reconciliation package provisions you may have missed.
Hits to the social safety net
More people kicked off Medicaid more often
States will be some of the biggest losers with a provision requiring them to increase the frequency of eligibility checks for Medicaid expansion recipients. The additional eligibility requirements are expected to result in Medicaid recipients losing coverage more frequently, according to a report from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, or CBPP. ”Because the Senate bill increases redeterminations from once every 12 months to once every six months, we assume that under the Senate bill, the portion of disenrollment due to procedural reasons such as incomplete paperwork would occur every six months instead of every 12 months,” the report stated.
This and other Medicaid cuts could result in 23% of the rolling enrollment of Medicaid recipients losing coverage every six months, said CBPP.
Ending deductions for SNAP recipients
There are some allowances Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients can claim that adjusts their income to more adequately reflect their household expenses and better determine their SNAP benefit amounts. Two of those allowances are for utilities and basic internet costs. The bill Vance just cast the tie-breaking vote to pass eliminates these allowances, saving the federal budget around $17 billion.
In 2022, more than 71% of SNAP households “claimed some form of utility expense,” according to the Food Research & Action Center, or FRAC. That means almost three-quarters of SNAP recipients stand to see their benefits decrease because of this policy.
States are already buckling against the pressure of steep cuts to SNAP. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said changes to the SNAP formula threaten to completely end the food assistance program in the state. “There’s real question as to whether or not we’d even be able to operate SNAP any longer, given the change in the formula and given the people that are going to be knocked off,” Shapiro told reporters after an unrelated news conference in Harrisburg, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
A CBPP analysis found GOP cuts to SNAP would hit 40 million people, a number that includes 16 million children, 8 million seniors and 4 million adults with disabilities.
In all, the changes to SNAP and Medicaid, as of June 30, were expected to deduct $700 from the annual income of the bottom 20% of earners while netting an annual increase of $30,000 for the top 1% of earners, according to a Yale Budget Lab analysis.
Attacks on education
With so much attention on his public feud with Harvard University, it could be easy to miss the creative ways Trump is expanding his attack on higher education through the reconciliation package. Here’s a shortlist:
- To decrease education spending by a meager $300 million over 10 years, the bill will deeply limit loan deferment and cancellation plans.
- Senators voted to completely end the grad PLUS loan program for graduate and professional students, which comes with a fixed interest rate and helps students afford “education expenses not covered by other financial aid,” according to the Department of Education.
- Graduate students have a lower cap for borrowing from the federal government under the package passed by the Senate.
Barbara R. Snyder, the president of the Association of American Universities, said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that the reconciliation package would likely keep students from pursuing higher education.
“AAU remains concerned that the arbitrary student loan thresholds set by the Senate combined with changes to other existing loan programs…will limit a student’s ability to pursue studies at the institution of their choice, especially for students with the highest financial need,” Snyder said.
A hit to immigrants that swipes at U.S. citizens, too
In 2022, people in the U.S. sent around $79 billion to people abroad in personal remittances, according to the World Migration Report from the International Organization for Migration. This includes U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike.
GOP senators just voted to levy a 1% tax on money sent abroad, which is expected to help raise $10 billion over 10 years to fund Trump’s tax cuts and national security agenda. House lawmakers proposed making the tax 3.5% to 5% and protecting U.S. citizens from the additional expense. Ultimately, though, a blanket 1% excise tax is what passed the Senate.
An analysis from the right-leaning Tax Foundation found the 3.5% version of the tax would only result in “far more paperwork, not more revenue.”
Needlessly cruel environmental hits, with GOP states losing out
Former President Joe Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act earmarked $50 million for low-income schools to combat air pollution. Though $34 million of those funds have already been awarded, GOP senators just voted to end that program and claw back those funds.
The senators also appear to have voted against the clean energy economy in their own states by voting to curtail a tax credit for alternative electricity sources including wind and solar. According to the U.S. Wind Turbine Database, four out of the top five states that operate the largest number of wind turbines — Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas — went for Trump in the 2024 election. California is the only blue state in the ranking.
North Carolina, Florida and Texas are also among the states operating the largest number of large scale solar farms, according to a federal database.
The tax credit phase-down was tweaked at the last minute to “ease [the] move,” the New York Times reports, and its dollar impact is unclear.
Rum and oil investors rejoice
Trump and his allies want to spend nearly $2 billion to benefit liquor makers who produce rum in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands via a federal tax rebate.
Another provision passed in the reconciliation package costs taxpayers nearly $4 billion by adjusting rules and lowering taxes for publicly traded companies deeply invested in energy extraction and storage.
This post has been updated.
