Health care, food cuts won’t only hurt Ohio’s poor, but the entire economy, study says

President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is being sold on promises that it will save Ohioans money. But its safety-net cuts will cost Ohio and other states far more than it will save, according to a report published last week.

The deep cuts to health care under Medicaid, and to food support under the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, wouldn’t only harm the most vulnerable, the report by the Commonwealth Fund and George Washington University says. It also would wipe out jobs, stifle state economies and diminish the tax revenue that state and local governments need to operate. 

The bill, which faces a Republican self-imposed July 4 deadline for passage, stands to destroy 1.2 million jobs in the United States by 2029 and shrink state economies by $154 billion, the analysis says. 

Proposed SNAP changes could swamp Ohio’s overburdened system

Some Ohio leaders have said that the changes proposed for SNAP would overwhelm an already overburdened system and increase hunger among children, the elderly, the disabled and the working poor. They say the Medicaid cuts would cost 770,000 mostly working Ohioans their health coverage.

The Commonwealth Foundation-George Washington University report says the bill’s blast radius is far wider than that.

Ohio would lose $4.5 billion in federal funding, it says. The state’s GDP, or economic output, would drop by $5.2 billion. State and local tax revenues would drop by $3.66 billion by 2029 as well, it said.

Ohio job losses, roughly half of them in the health sector, would be 44,700, or 0.8% of the workforce, it added.

Trump and congressional Republicans are justifying the cuts because they would shrink federal spending on Medicaid and SNAP by $1.2 trillion over 10 years. But that doesn’t take into account the direct and indirect harm that would be done to the broader economy.

“Our study reveals another, less discussed consequence of the budget cutbacks: the damage to state economies and loss of hundreds of billions of dollars, amounts that greatly exceed any federal savings,” the Commonwealth Fund-George Washington University report says. “More than a million people will lose their jobs, particularly in the health care sector. Hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes will close, many of them in rural and low-income communities. The need to compensate for the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding will mean that state and local governments will have to consider cuts in other public services, such as education or infrastructure, just as they lose billions of dollars in state and local tax revenue because of the economic dislocation these policies cause.”

Meanwhile, the economic justification for Trump’s proposed tax cuts is dubious. 

They’re titled heavily in favor of the richest Americans. Of the $4.6 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School estimated that 70% of the benefit would go to the “top 10% of the income distribution.” 

The Commonwealth Fund-George Washington University analysis said that the cuts under the Republican bill would suck money out of the pockets of poor families while it stuffs it into those of the rich — and as it plunges all of us deeper into debt.

“By cutting safety-net programs, the House budget bill reduces resources for low-income households (the lowest 10% of earners) by an average of $1,600,” it said. “At the same time, the bill’s tax cuts increase resources for high-income households (the highest 10% of earners) by $12,000. Despite the spending cuts, the bill would increase the federal deficit by $3 trillion, including about $500 billion in higher interest costs.”

Tax cuts for the wealthy have long been sold on promises that they’ll juice the economy and everybody will benefit. But there’s little evidence to support that. 

For example, the Trump tax cuts of 2017 weren’t even half the size of those contemplated under The One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Even so, they added $1 trillion to $2 trillion to the deficit, the Tax Policy Center estimates.

Trump claimed the corporate tax cuts that were part of the package would add $4,000 to median household income. But it was found to add nothing at all for families making $114,000 a year or less, while it led to vast increases in executive salaries, the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities reported.