The GOP’s Cruel Plans for Another Big Ugly Bill

My grandmother immigrated to the US from South Korea when I was three years old. She arrived in the country legally and got her green card around the same time my parents became naturalized US citizens a few years later.

She took care of my little brother and me so that my mother could work as a typist for an insurance company (yes, those jobs once existed). Our family couldn’t afford child care. I remember hal-mon-ee meeting me every day at the corner near my elementary school, my little brother in tow. She didn’t speak English, so she didn’t feel comfortable coming to the playground where the other kids got picked up.

As a permanent legal resident over age 65, she qualified for Medicare and Medicaid, which helped to pay for her medications as she grew older. She spent the last frail years of her life in a nursing home that these programs also helped to pay for.

I’m grateful to this country for welcoming my parents and my grandmother. I’m grateful to the safety net programs of Medicare and Medicaid, which gave her the care she needed, along with the comfort and dignity we all deserve at the end of life.

My grandmother was on my mind as I read the House Republican Study Committee’s new blueprint for a second reconciliation bill, cynically titled “Making the American Dream Affordable Again.” The proposal includes a series of embarrassing gimmicks aimed at “affordability” (e.g., “Don” payment assistance for homebuyers). But in the midst of all this fluffy largesse is a carefully sharpened stick: The RSC wants to strip all legal immigrants, including green-card holders, asylum-seekers, and refugees, of all access to federal benefits.

In particular, the RSC would “make all non-citizen foreign nationals ineligible for Medicaid, The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), housing assistance, and other forms of government benefits.” In other words, safety net programs would be available to US citizens only. The malice doesn’t end there. The plan also proposes a 20 percent penalty on states that extend Medicaid coverage to undocumented immigrants, and it calls to exclude non-citizens in allocating population-based formula funding for federal health programs. In addition, the RSC would prohibit “foreign nationals” from receiving benefits if they ever send money to relatives in foreign countries. (How that would be enforced raises alarming questions over privacy.)

The proposal is breathtaking in its cruelty and would have unimaginably tragic repercussions for countless families. It’s also deeply unfair.

Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, pay nearly $580 billion in federal, state, and local taxes every year, according to the American Immigration Council, and their economic contributions substantially outweigh what they “cost” in public benefits. According to a 2023 Cato Institute study (yes, Cato), the net fiscal benefit to the economy is about $4,800 per immigrant—which means immigrants are subsidizing US citizens. Yet, the RSC’s proposal perpetuates the myth that immigrants are nothing but a drain on taxpayer resources.

Granted, my grandmother didn’t pay taxes herself, but she provided our family with thousands of dollars of unpaid labor so that my parents (and ultimately my brother and me) could be productive citizens in the US economy. If my grandma hadn’t had access to Medicaid, especially at the end of her life, would my mother have been able to keep her job? Or would she have had to become a full-time caregiver? Would I have been able to go to college and then law school? Would I be writing these words now?

I doubt it.

What the RSC wants to do will surely limit opportunity for millions of families across America. And it will cost lives. Already, ICE crackdowns have left many desperately sick people too scared to go to the doctor. A 2025 KFF/New York Times poll found that nearly half of immigrants of all statuses have foregone needed care for fear of running into ICE. Doctors have reported dire consequences from delayed care, including stillbirths and other crises among pregnant women, ruptured eardrums from untreated infections, missed vaccinations, and a burst appendix.

But ever and always, the cruelty is the point.

New at the Monthly…

How to thwart Trump’s threats of election interference. Trump has made any number of concerning noises about “nationalizing” the elections this fall, and some have worried that he may cancel them altogether. Constitutional scholar Josh Douglas urges not to panic. Rather, he says the best defense against Trump’s efforts is to mobilize massive and overwhelming turnout that leaves no doubt about the people’s will. Read here.

Tariff-ying damage. After the Supreme Court slapped down most of his tariffs as unconstitutional, Trump doubled down on this losing policy with a 15 percent “global tariff.” Wrong move, argues economist Rob Shapiro. “The Supreme Court offered him the opportunity to restore global faith that the United States will stand behind its commitments,” Rob writes. “But that’s not how Donald Trump rolls.” Rob warns that we can expect worsening inflation and a hit to growth. Read here.

How are your quadratic equations? If you’re among the 90 percent of Americans who don’t use algebra in your job, the answer is probably “not great.” Yet why do so many colleges still require algebra as a graduation requirement? College algebra has proved to be an unnecessary barrier to completion for millions of students, including returning students who may not have thought about polynomials for decades. The Monthly’s Samantha Powers profiles a growing movement among educators to eliminate algebra requirements for students who don’t need it for their majors. Instead, these reformers argue, schools should be requiring quantitative reasoning, statistics, or other equally rigorous disciplines that are relevant to people’s careers. Read here.

Big Easy Turnaround. In 2003, New Orleans public schools were among the worst in the country—both corrupt and incompetent. Two dozen school officials had been indicted for corruption, and $70 million in federal money was missing. Meanwhile, barely 50 percent of kids were graduating. Fast forward to today, and the college-going rate for New Orleans’ graduates is 65 percent—nearly double what it was in 2004 and higher than the state average. How’d they do it? In this week’s podcast, Reinventing Government author David Osborne talks about Turnaround, his new documentary that charts the story of New Orleans’ remarkable transformation. (No spoilers, you’ll have to check out my interview with David here.)

Calling all book reviewers! The 7th annual Kukula Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Book Reviewing—journalism’s only award for nonfiction book criticism—is now open for submissions. Last year’s winners were Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Johnson, for his review of a biography of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo; and Christoph Irmscher, for his review of Arlie Russell Hochschild’s diagnosis of Appalachia, Stolen Pride. You can watch interviews with the winners on our podcast here and here.

Plus…

• Politics Editor Bill Scher weighs in on the growing furor over allegedly missing materials from the Epstein files involving Trump and his alleged assault of a minor. Bill also chatted with Matt Lewis on Substack live this week (catch the recording here).
• Contributing writer James Zirin muses on how the rest of the world at least is holding Epstein’s associates and co-conspirators accountable.
• National Interest editor Jacob Heilbrunn reviews Jason Zengerle’s new biography of Tucker Carlson, perhaps the second-most dangerous man in politics. Jacob describes the book as “vivid, well-researched, and astute.”
• East Tennessee State University’s Elwood Watson defends the study of humanities in the age of AI. “Such an education fosters the ability to think critically and holistically about issues, including business, science, and technology,” he writes.

And elsewhere (late Rome edition)…

Barbarians at the gate. The rich are different from you and me, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said. And they apparently now need moats around their houses to keep the villagers with pitchforks at bay. The Wall Street Journal reports that ultra-rich homeowners are increasingly turning their homes into high-tech fortresses. “Security measures once reserved for presidents and royalty—safe rooms, biometric access controls, laser-powered perimeter defenses—are now mainstream items in luxury homes,” the Journal reports. Some owners have opted for “casino-grade cameras with AI-powered facial and vehicle recognition capabilities,” specially bred and trained guard dogs that cost an eye-popping $177,000 apiece, and yes, moats.

Careless people. Donald Trump currently holds the prize for the world’s worst orthography. His Truth Social posts are rife with embarrassing errors in spelling and capitalization. He tortures words until sentences squeal. But it turns out he had close competition in this department from none other than Jeffrey Epstein. Town&Country’s Andrew Zucker notes that Epstein’s emails “reveal someone with a command of the English language closer to an Internet scam artist than the Forbes List honorees he advised.” Zucker further observes that poor spelling, grammar, and syntax seem to be a common problem with other uber-elites, like billionaire Mark Cuban, basketball mogul Jacob Lacob, Paramount owner David Ellison, and Hollywood super agent Ari Emanuel (yes, Rahm’s brother). Zucker posits two alternative theories for this carelessness—a desire to seem casual, “approachable,” and friendly; or a ‘dismissive arrogance” toward rules and norms. You choose.

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Have a great week!

Anne Kim, Senior Editor