Tax Cuts, Migration Crackdowns, and Medicaid Rollbacks: Arkansas Backs Trump’s Bill

After weeks of disputes, the Senate passed one of President Trump’s major legislative priorities on July 1. Dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” by Trump, the sweeping spending package had narrowly passed the House in May by a single vote. The Senate followed with a similarly tight 51 to 50 vote, as three Republicans opposed the measure and Vice President JD Vance cast the tie breaking vote. The bill now returns to the Republican controlled House for final approval.

Arkansas Delegation Stands United

All six members of Arkansas’s congressional delegation, including four House representatives and two senators, all Republicans, voted in favor of the bill, aligning firmly with their party. The legislation reflects several of Trump’s campaign promises, including deep cuts to federal programs often labeled part of a "socialist agenda".

The bill calls for slashing hundreds of billions of dollars from initiatives like SNAP, Medicaid, student loan forgiveness, and green energy programs. It also reduces benefits for undocumented immigrants. At the same time, the measure increases funding for immigration enforcement and projects such as expanded border fencing.

Medicaid Controversy and Exemptions

The version passed by the Senate omitted a controversial provision that could have stripped Medicaid coverage from hundreds of thousands of Arkansans. Over the weekend, a group of Republican senators attempted to reintroduce a proposal to lower the federal government’s 90 percent funding match for Medicaid expansion. This program, created under President Obama, provides health coverage for low income, working age adults.

Arkansas is one of nine states with a trigger law that would automatically end Medicaid expansion if the federal match rate drops below 90 percent. While some Republicans supported the change, others considered it too extreme, and the amendment was ultimately excluded from the final bill.

Impact on Health Coverage

Despite the omission, the Senate bill still proposes unprecedented cuts to Medicaid and is projected to leave millions of Americans without health insurance. The legislation includes a national work requirement modeled after Arkansas’s 2018 policy. That policy, short lived but impactful, caused 18,000 people to lose coverage within months due to bureaucratic hurdles.

According to the nonprofit Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, an estimated 140,000 Arkansans would lose health coverage because of Medicaid cuts and provisions that would make marketplace insurance plans more expensive for low income families.

Fiscal Implications

Overall, the Senate version makes even deeper cuts to Medicaid than the House version, nearly one trillion dollars over ten years. The scale of these reductions is staggering. While Republicans justify the cuts as necessary to rein in spending, the bill simultaneously adds more than three trillion dollars to the national debt by extending tax cuts that primarily benefit higher income individuals.

In essence, the legislation shifts national priorities toward security and tax benefits for the wealthy while deeply reducing funding for social welfare programs.