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Trump voters really feel the financial blow of his insurance policies
Veterans are getting laid off from federal jobs. Midwest Farmers cannot faucet promised authorities funding. Medicaid enrollees in pink states are worrying about dropping well being protection. The looming risk of tariffs would additionally hit GOP-voting districts onerous if President Donald Trump follows by on these.
That’s the factor about massive, across-the-board coverage swipes: They spare nobody.
To make sure, what the GOP and Trump are doing isn’t any secret, and plenty of of those efforts have damage Democratic voters too. However it’s important to marvel if Trump supporters are shocked to seek out themselves within the president’s crosshairs.
Trump campaigned on the tariffs now threatening the nation’s economic system. He additionally needed to intestine the federal workforce, usually referring to it because the “deep state.” And the GOP has longed to chop down the dimensions of the US authorities. Now it is joined by billionaire Elon Musk, who earlier than the election vowed to slash $2 trillion from the federal price range and admitted these efforts would trigger “momentary hardship.”
“The president’s insurance policies are extremely in style, and the American folks applaud his success in slicing the waste, fraud, and abuse of their hard-earned taxpayer {dollars},” Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser on the Republican Nationwide Committee, instructed NBC this week.
Perhaps not for lengthy. Shopper sentiment has dropped since Trump’s inauguration, with a key confidence index plunging in February by the most important quantity in virtually 4 years.
From Alabama and Iowa to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, farmers are scrambling after the Trump administration’s abrupt federal funding freeze value billions of {dollars} left them on the hook for labor, supplies, and enchancment prices.
Government directives signed by Trump have halted 23 US Division of Agriculture applications that present funding to American farmers, in accordance with a factsheet distributed by two Democratic lawmakers.
On high of that, farmers will undergo from the termination of USAID by the hands of Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity initiative, in accordance with a current notice from Financial institution of America.
Final yr, USAID purchased $2 billion in US-grown corn, soybeans, wheat, vegetable oil, and peas from farmers, about 1%-2% of annual exports. Moreover, USAID helped to fund a program “that helps US farmers with improved manufacturing practices and to offer superior warning of pests,” in accordance with the BofA notice.
That is fairly a snub from the Trump administration for a voting bloc that overwhelmingly backed the president.
In accordance with nonprofit information outlet Examine Midwest, essentially the most farming-dependent counties within the US supported Trump by a median of 77.7%, bigger shares than the president acquired in each the 2016 and 2020 elections.
A “vote Trump”-decorated cargo transport container is displayed throughout the World Ag Expo on the Worldwide Agri-Heart in Tulare, Calif., on Feb. 11. (Picture by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP through Getty Photos) ·PATRICK T. FALLON through Getty Photos
On Tuesday, the Home GOP superior its price range decision to the Senate after narrowly passing it 217-215. The decision requires $880 billion in spending cuts over the subsequent decade.
Whereas the price range itself would not state these cuts should come from Medicaid, the reductions have to be made by the Home Power and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, Medicare, and Kids’s Well being Insurance coverage Program.
Fifteen of the 28 states the place Medicaid enrollment makes up a minimum of 20% of the inhabitants’s healthcare protection voted for Trump in 2024, in accordance with an evaluation of information from KFF. That features Louisiana (32.2%), Kentucky (27.9%), West Virginia (26.2%), and Arkansas (25.3%).
In actual fact, most voters, no matter presidential desire, are nervous that Medicaid spending cuts might damage this system, cut back entry to healthcare, and enhance out-of-pocket prices, in accordance with focus teams of Medicaid enrollees carried out by KFF in January.
“I might oppose [cutting Medicaid] simply because there’s lots of people who want it, who could be affected by it negatively,” a 29-year-old white male Trump voter from Pennsylvania instructed the main target group.
And none of these Trump voters within the focus teams had any concept that the GOP-led Congress needed to scale back federal spending on Medicaid.
“I believe Trump is aware of that individuals are struggling proper now, and I don’t suppose he’s gonna do, a minimum of not proper now, reduce something Medicaid as a result of he simply is aware of folks’s monetary issues proper now,” a 45-year-old Hispanic male Trump voter from Arizona instructed the main target group.
U.S. Speaker of the Home Mike Johnson (R-LA) leaves after the Home handed the Republican’s price range decision on the spending invoice on Feb. 25 on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Picture by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Photos) ·Kayla Bartkowski through Getty Photos
As DOGE seems to shrink the federal workforce by as much as 10%, veterans might discover themselves getting pink slips.
In 2021, the newest knowledge obtainable, the federal workforce employed 636,937 veterans, comprising about 30% of the federal government’s civilian workforce. Over half of these veterans — 53% — have been additionally disabled, the very best illustration of disabled veterans since 2009.
Veterans make up the most important employment blocs within the Division of Protection, representing virtually 46% of all staff, and the Transportation Division, comprising 36.3% of all employees there.
However in addition they account for a minimum of a fifth to 1 / 4 of staff on the Power Division (26.5%), Division of Homeland Safety (25.8%), Justice Division (22.8%), Labor Division (23.1%), State Division (20.3%), Veterans Affairs (28.7%), Common Companies Administration (24.9%), and the Nuclear Regulatory Fee (20.2%).
Firing them might additionally damage areas whose native economies are buoyed by army installations, equivalent to Colorado Springs, traditionally one of many reddest districts in Colorado.
“One other essential side of this domestically is that this space has a really excessive share of veterans in our inhabitants, and a disproportionate share of veterans work for the federal authorities,” Invoice Craighead, program director on the College of Colorado, Colorado Springs Financial Discussion board, wrote beforehand to Yahoo Finance. “So something that affects federal employment can have a very giant influence on veterans.”
Veterans are additionally largely Trump supporters. A survey earlier than the election from Pew Analysis Heart discovered that 61% of veterans backed Trump versus 37% who supported former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Tariffs pose one other financial headwind to pink states.
An earlier evaluation earlier than the election discovered that Trump’s proposed tariffs of 60% on Chinese language imports and 10% on imports from the remainder of the world would hit the economies of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan essentially the most. 5 of these states voted for Trump.
Whereas the White Home has held again on the 60% tariff on China to this point, it is upped the speed for import duties on Mexican and Canadian items — together with aluminum imports — to 25%.
This week, aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. mentioned these levies might value the US 100,000 jobs, with 20,000 losses coming from the US aluminum trade, or about 35% of employees employed within the trade. Downstream manufacturing makes up the majority of the US aluminum trade, and people amenities “are largely concentrated within the Midwest and Southeast,” in accordance with a 2022 Congressional Analysis Service report.
“That is dangerous for the aluminum trade within the US,” Alcoa CEO Invoice Oplinger mentioned on Tuesday concerning the tariffs. “It is dangerous for American employees.”
Particularly these in pink states.
Janna Herron is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. Comply with her on X @JannaHerron.
