“They’ll Get Over It.”

The Republican Budget That Trades Hospitals for Hedge Funds

If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when a political party completely gives up pretending to care whether you live or die—when they stop drafting policy and start writing eulogies—congratulations. You’re living it.

Welcome to the GOP’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill”—which, spoiler, is only big and beautiful if your idea of luxury is trust funds and no-bid defense contracts. For the rest of us, it’s not a plan; it’s a legislative meat grinder in a flag pin. This isn’t policy—it’s patriotic-scented snake oil. The only thing truly “big and beautiful” here is the mountain of bullshit they’re piling up.

And while the chaos-industrial complex hums along—Trump rage-posting about war from the ninth hole and Fox News’s resident cosplay autocrats polishing their jackboots on prime time—this budget quietly gets down to business. The real carnage. The silent guillotine of Republican governance: subtler than a mob, deadlier than a hashtag.

At its core: a brutal, targeted assault on Medicaid and SNAP—the two lifelines standing between tens of millions of Americans and catastrophic collapse.

This isn’t fiscal responsibility.

It’s a kill list stapled to a spreadsheet.

It’s eugenics in a blazer.

And at the top of the carnage cheer squad? Mitch McConnell and Joni Ernst. Two wax figurines of moral rot who didn’t just whisper the quiet part out loud—they bellowed it through a megaphone in a graveyard. (In Ernst’s case, quite literally).

Mitch McConnell, who looks like a haunted tortoise doing an impression of rigor mortis, doesn’t flinch when told his budget might kill tens of thousands. Probably because he’s been budgeting funerals since Reconstruction and still thinks Tylenol is a liberal hoax.

And Joni Ernst? She’s the kind of legislator who’d vote to outlaw oxygen if it meant a tax break for Boeing. If Lifetime ever runs a special called Moms Who Kill Medicaid, she’s getting top billing and a cow-themed promotional mug.

Trump couldn’t find Medicaid on a map unless someone deep-fried it, taped it to a cheeseburger, and wrote “YOU WIN” in gold Sharpie. He treats budgets the way he treats everything else: like a prop in his game show of failure—break it, lie about it, and call it genius while everyone else foots the bill.

These are not serious people.

They are clowns in crisis cosplay.

They don’t govern. They perform funerals for funding.

“We’re all gonna die anyway,” said Ernst, with a shrug so casual it could’ve come with a cocktail.

“They’ll get over it,” McConnell added, brushing off warnings about mass Medicaid cuts like he was talking about a stubbed toe—not a canceled chemotherapy cycle.

This isn’t austerity.

This is extermination by bureaucracy.

This is the GOP in its final form: greedy, hollowed-out, and indifferent to life unless it’s wrapped in a trust fund or shielding a 200-foot yacht that pisses tax loopholes.

But of course, it’s not puppies they’re coming for. It’s Medicaid.

Over 71 million Americans rely on it. It covers kids, seniors in nursing homes, pregnant women, and people with disabilities. It keeps rural hospitals from shuttering. It keeps cancer patients in treatment and babies in NICUs alive. And Republicans are trying—again—to slash it to the bone, so they can hand out more tax breaks to hedge fund vampires and yacht-hoarding oil barons too rich to remember what a gallon of milk costs.

It’s not just cruel. It’s stupid.

Even Republicans know it. Mike Johnson—human beige flag and proud armrest of Trumpism—has warned colleagues this might lose them the House in 2026. Not because they care about the poor. Just the polling.

Senator Thom Tillis literally passed out a flyer explaining how badly his own state will get screwed by these cuts. Imagine being so morally atrophied you need a PowerPoint to remember your constituents are people.

And what’s their solution? A “stabilization fund.” Translation: slash hospital budgets, let people die in parking lots, then toss a few billion in hush money at whoever’s still upright when election season rolls around.

That’s not healthcare. That’s hostage-taking.

And that’s just half the horror.

While they slash care, they’re also coming for your food.

This budget includes the largest cut to SNAP in U.S. history—gutting benefits for more than 18 million households, including 1 in 3 families living near or below the poverty line.

Food banks are screaming. They can’t absorb the fallout. As Feeding America puts it:

“For every meal we provide, SNAP provides nine.”

Cut SNAP, and the country starves. Period.

These are the same people who want to means-test your child’s lunch while demanding tax write-offs for private jets the size of apartment complexes. They think hunger builds character—just not at Mar-a-Lago, where the only thing starving is Trump’s impulse control.

But we can’t afford to feed people, right?

We can afford $800 billion in defense.

We can afford $86 million destination weddings in Venice.

We can afford to give trillionaires tax-free inheritances.

We can afford to blow up cities on the narcissistic whim of a diapered demagogue who plays real-life Risk from a golf cart.

But we can’t afford lunch for a hungry child in Ohio?

Just in case you thought this was about “balancing the budget”?

It’s not. This plan would worsen the deficit—by slashing programs that prevent poverty, support long-term health, and reduce costs down the line. The GOP’s math is so bad it should be reclassified as a weapon of mass destruction.

This isn’t policy. It’s looting. The largest reverse-redistribution of wealth in modern American history.

Not from the rich to the poor—but the other way around.

From people who need care, food, housing, and help—to people who already own everything.

Let me show you what that feels like:

There’s an 11-year-old boy in Louisiana who sleeps with a nebulizer and a list on the fridge showing the fastest ER route. His asthma’s so bad, his family holds their breath every time he coughs. The local hospital that stabilizes him? On life support itself. If provider taxes are capped, that hospital shuts down. The next attack could be his last.

But don’t worry.

He’ll get over it.

There’s a young woman in Arkansas who had her first seizure during story hour at the public library. Medicaid got her diagnosed and treated. Her meds keep her brain from going dark mid-sentence. Her doctor warned her: miss one dose, and next time could be the end.

But don’t worry.

She’ll get over it.

There’s a 6-year-old in Nebraska with Down syndrome and a heart defect. He just learned to say “Mommy.” He only started walking this year thanks to Medicaid-covered physical therapy. But his mother got a letter saying those services are being “reevaluated.” That’s code for: you’re on your own now.

But don’t worry.

He’ll get over it.

There’s a cancer patient in Mississippi who takes the bus 90 minutes each way to chemo. Medicaid is the only reason she’s still fighting. If this budget passes, her treatment stops. Her tumor doesn’t.

But don’t worry.

She’ll get over it.

There’s a 73-year-old widow in West Virginia whose SNAP benefits are the only reason she gets anything fresh in her diet. She already skips lunch some days. This bill would make sure she skips more.

But don’t worry.

She’ll get over it.

There’s a 64-year-old veteran in Pennsylvania who served two tours in Iraq, came home with PTSD and a spinal injury, and now lives alone in a mobile home outside Pittsburgh. Medicaid covers his pain management, therapy, and rent support. His VA clinic’s underfunded. If this bill passes, he loses everything—except his DD-214 and a flag folded in a box.

But don’t worry.

He’ll get over it.

And there’s a pregnant woman in Georgia, seven months along, who just got diagnosed with preeclampsia. Medicaid is covering the weekly monitoring that keeps her and her baby alive. But if the GOP gets their cuts, she loses that care. One complication, one spike in blood pressure, and the baby dies. Maybe she does too.

But don’t worry.

They’ll get over it.

Cruelty isn’t a bug in the Republican Party. This is the whole damn operating system.

And just to salt the wound with a smile, Republicans are lying straight to your face—claiming this budget won’t “touch” Medicaid and will somehow lower the deficit. That’s like saying you didn’t touch the cake after hurling it into a woodchipper. They’re gutting coverage for millions, slashing provider funding, capping reimbursements, and booting entire families off the rolls—but don’t worry, it’s “just reform.” And that deficit reduction they’re bragging about? Bullshit on stilts. The tax cuts alone would explode the national debt by trillions—because nothing says “fiscal responsibility” like stealing lunch from a five-year-old to fund another exploding car deduction for Elon Musk.

This bill isn’t just cruel—it’s a blueprint for collapse.

It slashes Medicaid.

It guts SNAP.

It imposes harsh work requirements, raises costs on seniors, devastates clean energy progress, and turns the Pentagon into a bloated buffet for military contractors. It even blocks AI regulation, kills gender-affirming care for kids on CHIP, and greenlights the sale of public lands like some kind of colonial flash sale.

And Senate Republicans want it passed by July 4th.

But here’s what they’re not counting on:

That when Americans know what’s in this bill—they fight back.

So we have to raise hell.

Flood Congress with calls.

Demand a no vote from every last rep.

And if they vote yes—if they sign their name to a budget that trades medicine for missiles and bread for billionaires—we will tie them to it forever with a cord of steel.

We’ll drag that vote into every campaign. Every headline. Every ballot.

Tell everyone you know.

Ask them to tell everyone they know.

And then ask them to pick up the damn phone and fight like hell.

Because we still have power.

And the power of the people is stronger than the people in power.

They want us distracted.

Divided.

Desensitized.

Too broken to rise, too tired to care, too overwhelmed to act.

But we remember who we are.

We are the ones who run toward the fire.

Who bury our dead with dignity when the government won’t.

Who fundraise for strangers.

Who share what little we have.

Who stay, and build, and love, and fight.

We are not the cruelty they count on.

We are not the apathy they need.

We are louder.

We are fiercer.

We are legion.

And we are not getting over it.

Not now.

Not ever.

Not while they legislate hunger and call it policy.

Not while they trade our grief for tax write-offs and weapons stock.

Not while a single child goes hungry so a billionaire can write off a goddamn mega-yacht.

We are the people.

And we will not forget.

And we will not forgive.

And we sure as shit will not “get over it.”

To see what is really in this bill, go to:

5 Calls.Org

Search here for your members of Congress:

Find and contact elected officials | USAGov

I spoke with Senator Chris Murphy (on my birthday) and you can have a listen here on my Sane(ish) podcast. (Please rate and review if you can, it means the world).

And with that, today’s song:

I love you guys!

Stay strong, stay loud, and make those calls!

💙 Jo