Who wins and loses with Trump's tax bill?

Summary

Post Reports: Who Wins and Loses with Trump's Tax Bill?

Released June 30, 2025

Hosts: Martine Powers and Elahe Izadi
Guest: Jacob Bogage, Congressional Economics Correspondent, The Washington Post

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1. Introduction to the Tax Calculator

The episode opens with Colby Ikowitz and Jacob Bogage exploring a newly developed tax calculator designed to assess the impact of President Donald Trump’s signature tax bill on various household scenarios. The tool allows users to input personal details such as income, location, and family size to determine potential savings or losses.

• Colby Ikowitz [00:03]: "So let's say you're a married couple with two kids living in Pennsylvania and you make $50,000. I'm going to put that into this calculator that this is $50,000 combined household income."

• Jacob Bogage [00:21]: "Household income, yeah."

The initial example demonstrates that a household earning $50,000 with two children might experience a reduction in benefits, highlighting the bill's mixed effects on lower-income families.

2. Overview of Trump's Tax Bill

Jacob Bogage provides a comprehensive breakdown of the tax bill, officially referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which aims to extend and modify the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

• Jacob Bogage [05:25]: "The Bill Act. What you just saw if you were in the studio was my eyes roll out of their sockets and across the floor."

The bill includes:

• Extension of the 2017 tax cuts.
• Increase in the standard deduction and child tax credit.
• Elimination of taxes on tips and overtime.
• Introduction of work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP benefits.
• A $25 billion rural hospital bailout fund.
• An overall borrowing of $3.3 trillion over ten years, increasing the national debt by approximately 10%.

3. Impact on Households: Winners and Losers

Using the tax calculator, the hosts illustrate how different income groups are affected by the bill.

Lower-Income Families:

• A household earning $50,000 with two children would see a net loss of $655 due to reduced SNAP and Medicaid benefits.

  • Jacob Bogage [00:54]: "With two kids are going to be on SNAP, and actually they probably are on Medicaid at 50,000 with two dependents."

Higher-Income Families:

• A wealthier couple earning $250,000 would benefit, receiving an additional $11,226.

  • Colby Ikowitz [03:23]: "So this couple, this married couple in Pennsylvania that makes $250,000 a year are going to see they're going to receive $11,226 in additional, I guess, is that they're going to have. That money's going to come back to them."

The calculator underscores that the wealthier individuals stand to gain significantly more compared to lower-income households who may lose essential benefits.

4. Broader Economic Implications

The discussion shifts to the macroeconomic effects of the tax bill.

• Jacob Bogage [13:04]: "It doesn't do a whole lot."

Key Points:

• National Debt: The bill’s $3.3 trillion borrowing contributes to the national debt, which stands at $36.2 trillion, potentially leading to rising interest rates and reduced federal investment capacity.

• Health Insurance: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that approximately 11.8 million people could lose health insurance over ten years due to the bill’s work requirements for Medicaid, pushing some back into the workforce without adequate health coverage.

  • Jacob Bogage [14:42]: "If you're telling someone who's really struggling to hold down a job, maybe because of a family situation, maybe because of a health situation, you need to go back into the workforce, are they going to go into a factory that offers benefits?"

5. Political Landscape and Challenges

Despite Republicans holding both Congress and the White House, the bill faces significant hurdles.

• Jacob Bogage [16:23]: "Explain the dysfunction of Congress. I mean, some of it is just like, you know, encoded into the DNA of Congress that, like, this is difficult."

Challenges include:

• House of Representatives: With a slim majority, the House could lose the bill if even a few members dissent. Republicans face pressure to secure unanimous support, but internal disagreements, especially over Medicaid cuts, pose a threat.

• Senate: Currently, the bill has finished debate but requires further amendment and approval from the House. Key senators like Rand Paul and Tom Tillis have voiced strong opposition, particularly concerning Medicaid reductions.

  • Tom Tillis [18:08]: "It is inescapable that this bill in its current form will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made..."

• Public Opinion: Polls indicate substantial public disapproval, primarily due to benefit cuts and increased national debt concerns.

  • Jacob Bogage [19:27]: "Americans hate it. So that's number one. Number two is the national debt concerns."

The White House remains cautiously optimistic but acknowledges the tight margins and significant opposition within the House, making the bill’s passage uncertain.

6. Development and Purpose of the Tax Calculator

Jacob Bogage elaborates on the creation of the tax calculator, emphasizing its role in educating the public about the bill's varied impacts.

• Jacob Bogage [09:52]: "We created this tool and really excited to see it out in the world. And the response that we've gotten from readers who have engaged with it, who've played around with it, who have learned something, has been incredibly meaningful and rewarding."

The tool was developed in collaboration with the Penn Wharton Budget Model and aims to provide personalized insights into how the tax legislation affects different households.

7. Conclusion

The episode wraps up with an acknowledgment of the bill’s complexities and the ongoing political battles surrounding its passage. The hosts encourage listeners to utilize the tax calculator to better understand the personal implications of the legislation.

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Notable Quotes:

• Tom Tillis [18:08]: "It is inescapable that this bill in its current form will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made..."
• Jacob Bogage [14:42]: "Are you putting them in jobs that offer health insurance? If you're telling someone who's really struggling to hold down a job... are they going to go into a factory that offers benefits?"

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Additional Resources:

For a deeper understanding of how the tax bill affects you personally, visit The Washington Post’s Tax Calculator (link provided in the show notes).

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This summary provides an in-depth overview of the "Who Wins and Loses with Trump's Tax Bill?" episode of Post Reports, encapsulating the key discussions, insights, and analyses presented by Colby Ikowitz and Jacob Bogage.

Transcript

[Colby Ikowitz]

So let's say you're a married couple with two kids living in Pennsylvania and you make $50,000. I'm going to put that into this, this calculator that this is $50,000 combined household income.

[Jacob Bogage]

Household income, yeah.

[Colby Ikowitz]

Jacob Bogage is a Congressional economics correspondent for the Post. On Monday, I had him with me in the studio to run some numbers on this tax calculator that Jacob in the Post built. The calculator, it shows you how much you could save or lose with President Donald Trump's signature tax bill. You can input your personal situation, your salary, where you live, how many kids you have. If you get government benefits at $50,000.

[Jacob Bogage]

With two kids are going to be on SNAP, and actually they probably are on Medicaid at 50,000 with two dependents.

[Colby Ikowitz]

So the effects of the tax bill for people with Medicaid, they receive SNAP benefits, they have some tip income, overtime income.

[Jacob Bogage]

This is gonna be interesting. Will the tip income, overtime income and the child tax credit outweigh the loss of income from SNAP and Medicaid?

[Colby Ikowitz]

Hmm. Well, let's find out. They are down $655.

[Jacob Bogage]

Yeah, they really rely on that. Medicaid.

[Colby Ikowitz]

Taxes, they might not be the most glamorous topic, but I found the tax calculator that Jacob and I have been playing with incredibly helpful. To understand this big debate that's happening in Congress right now, Republicans on Capitol Hill are furiously scrambling to put together a massive tax bill with major economic implications for all Americans. President Donald Trump calls it his big beautiful bill, a tax cut for almost all income brackets. And if it's signed into law, it's very likely to be officially known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

[Jacob Bogage]

Donald Trump and Republicans have put this bill into Congress and said, this is going to deliver on a lot of our campaign promises. And the campaign promises were these really populous flourishes, the no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security.

[Colby Ikowitz]

But not all Republicans are on the same page. In addition to cutting taxes, it makes major cuts to programs like Medicaid and snap, what used to be called food stamps.

[Jacob Bogage]

These are heavy hitting social benefits that make your way of life possible.

[Colby Ikowitz]

From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Colby ekowitz. It's Monday, June 30th. Today we dig into Trump's big beautiful bill. It's on the verge of passing in the Senate and then we'll be up for a vote in the House. Jacob will explain how this could affect you and your household budget. So, Jacob, before We get into the nitty gritty of this bill, I want to continue playing with this calculator. So let's look at a wealthier couple now. Someone who's maybe making $250,000 a year. Yeah, they're married. Same other, you know, they live in Pennsylvania. They're married, they have two kids. In this instance, obviously they're not on Medicaid. They don't receive snap. Do you want, do we input anything else for them?

[Jacob Bogage]

Let's do a little bit of qualified business income. So maybe let's do $30,000 qualified business income.

[Colby Ikowitz]

I think it's gonna. It's not. It's making me choose between 50 and 100.

[Jacob Bogage]

Put 50.

[Colby Ikowitz]

50, 50. Okay. And then obviously no tip income and no overtime income. All right, let's calculate.

[Jacob Bogage]

Also, does Pennsylvania have anything to do with the fact that you are from Pennsylvania?

[Colby Ikowitz]

100%. Yes. Yes. I'm very curious what my family and friends are going to be paying in their taxes. So. Wow. So this couple, this married couple in Pennsylvania that makes $250,000 a year are going to see they're going to receive $11,226 in additional, I guess, is that they're going to have. That money's going to come back to them.

[Jacob Bogage]

Yeah, they're better off by that amount.

[Colby Ikowitz]

So, Jacob, let's step back and talk about this tax bill that we've been referring to. You've been following it all weekend as it's been kind of moving its way through the Senate. So now it's, you know, almost 10 o' clock on Monday. As of right now, where does it stand?

[Jacob Bogage]

So where are we now? This bill has finished debate in the Senate. It's gotta go through this long amendment process and then it's gotta go back to the House because the House already passed a version of it. And the House has to decide, are we willing to put up with everything we don't like in this bill just to notch a win, or do we need to start over? And then after that it goes to the President's desk. And President Trump has told Republicans he wants this bill done by July 4th.

[Colby Ikowitz]

And we talked a little bit, Jacob, about what's actually in this bill. But let's just do a brief overview about the specific provisions in this bill.

[Jacob Bogage]

So this is the one big beautiful bill Act. Yes, the Bill Act.

[Colby Ikowitz]

The Bill Act.

[Jacob Bogage]

The Bill Act. What you just saw if you were in the studio was my eyes roll out of their sockets and across the floor.

[Colby Ikowitz]

I can attest to that. That is exactly what just happened.

[Jacob Bogage]

This is the one big beautiful bill Act. This is what Republicans hope will be the centerpiece of President Trump's second term legislative agenda. It extends the 2017 tax cuts and Jobs Act. It makes some changes to make the standard deduction bigger, to make the child tax credit a little bit bigger. It adds no tax on tips, no tax on overtime instead of no tax on Social Security, a bonus for seniors in the standard deduction, no tax on auto loan interest. All of these kind of like what I call the goody bag of taxes, give people candy through the tax code. And then to pay for all of that, it cuts more than $1.1 trillion in Medicaid, which is the federal health insurance program for low income folks and disabled people. And cuts snap, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program we used to call food stamps. Basically keeps people from going hungry. And then it borrows a ton of money. It borrows $3.3 trillion over 10 years. The real sticking point right now is and always will be Medicaid, especially what this means for rural hospitals and rural healthcare providers that are over indexed on Medicaid patients. They are so affected in this bill that Republicans created a $25 billion rural hospital bailout fund. And a lot of lawmakers say the very notion that we have to do this is indicative of the fact that we need to be less sweeping when it comes to the way we're reforming Medicaid and the way we're trying to reduce costs there.

[Colby Ikowitz]

And Jacob, how do Republicans defend the cuts to the low income programs?

[Jacob Bogage]

How do they defend the cuts to the low income programs? According to polling, not very effectively. But I don't think that was the question you were asking. I think the question you're asking is like, how do they rationalize it? And they look at Medicaid and they look at SNAP and say there are people on this program who shouldn't be on it. There are folks who should be working who choose not to work. That is a very small population. And there are many reasons why people who are are not working either choose not to work or cannot. They say that these programs benefit undocumented immigrants. That is an incredibly minuscule number of recipients. And it's not like undocumented immigrants are encoded into this program. They qualify in certain states under certain scenarios because these programs are run state by state. And they try to point out waste, fraud and abuse in these programs. There is waste, fraud and abuse in these programs. It is very small. So they rationalize it using kind of those three buckets some of these programs are wasteful. There's undocumented immigrants who shouldn't be on them, and there's people who should be working that we need to help restore the dignity of work. So they if they want to be on these programs, they should go get a job. And then once they're on the job, that will stabilize their lifestyle and give them the money to go buy health insurance, which is really expensive, and help them buy groceries. It's a very paternalistic attitude toward how Americans should be behaving and how states ought to administer these programs.

[Colby Ikowitz]

So, Jacob, at the top of the show, we were playing around with this tax calculator that you helped develop here at the Post, and it's a pretty interesting tool because you can take into account all of these different changes in the tax bill and see whether or not you're going to benefit or not. Can you just give us a little bit of background about this project and how it was developed? It seems like a lot had to go into it in order to make it.

[Jacob Bogage]

A lot went into this, and it was a really exciting thing to build and see come to life piece by piece. When the House started putting its reconciliation bill together, I spend every day talking to lawmakers. I spend every day talking to budget experts. And one of them was Kent Smedders from the Penn Wharton Budget Model, and they do all kinds of interactive tools. And one day he said, what if we built you a calculator? And I said, great, let's do that. And it took months to engineer this, to figure out how to best present it, and then to work with Kent and his team of incredible economists and data scientists and engineers to make sure we got the numbers right and to give people the usability so they'll know what this means for their lives. They'll know what it means for their friends and family. And then they're also able to put in folks who maybe are very unlike them and encounter people who rely on SNAP or rely on Medicaid. And we created this tool and really excited to see it out in the world. And the response that we've gotten from readers who have engaged with it, who've played around with it, who have learned something, has been incredibly meaningful and rewarding.

[Colby Ikowitz]

Well, it's so eye opening, right? Even the examples that we played around with at the top of the show to show that, you know, maybe the seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that the wealthier you are, the more you're going to benefit from this.

[Jacob Bogage]

Bill, the wealthier you are, the Better off you're going to be. Absolutely.

[Colby Ikowitz]

After the break, Jacob and I discuss the politics of this bill and why some Republicans refuse to support it. We'll be right back.

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[Colby Ikowitz]

I want to zoom out a little bit, Jacob, on the economy for a second. We've been talking about individual households and how this is going to affect them. But what's been the analysis of the broader economic impact of this tax bill?

[Jacob Bogage]

It doesn't do a whole lot.

[Colby Ikowitz]

Okay.

[Jacob Bogage]

Which is really important in and of itself. The rationale behind why we need to do this tax bill is major portions of the 2017 tax cuts and Jobs act expire at the end of 2025. That law from President Trump's first term reduced tax rates for every income level. So that means by the end of this year, those rates will expire. So your taxes will go up if Congress doesn't do anything. So Congress wants to take up new tax legislation. President Trump ran on extending all of that legislation. This bill borrows $3.3 trillion over 10 years. It's a ton of money. Our national debt right now is $36.2 trillion. So it's adding 10% to the national debt over 10 years. So you have interest rates rising on the federal government because the federal government's borrowed. You have the federal government not having as many resources to do its basic job. That crowds out investment. That's the technical term, crowd out. And that has effects on consumers and then spiraling effects on businesses and then spiraling effects on kind of the rest of the the global economy.

[Colby Ikowitz]

And, Jacob, how does it affect the economy? That I think the Congressional Budget Office analysis was that something like 10 million more people are going to be uninsured. They are not going to have health insurance because of this bill. What kind of economic impact does that have?

[Jacob Bogage]

It's 11.8 million people over 10 years would lose health insurance under this bill. According to the cbo, which is kind of the nonpartisan bookkeeper in Congress, some Of that is true. And some of that is people who are going to lose the insurance they're on now, but will pick up insurance through their employer because this bill has work requirements in it that are going to force people back onto the job market. The catch to that is when you force people back onto the job market, are you putting them in jobs that offer health insurance? If you're telling someone who's really struggling to hold down a job, maybe because of a family situation, maybe because of a health situation, you need to go back into the workforce, are they going to go into a factory that offers benefits? Are they going to go into an office job? That's not to say Medicaid is some gold standard. It's not. But there's people who are on it have a pretty solid expectation of the kind of services they can get and that there is a safety net there if, God forbid, something should happen to them or their family. And that safety net under this legislation gets smaller.

[Colby Ikowitz]

I want to talk a little bit about the politics of this bill. Obviously, the Democrats are against it, but it's also been, you know, the Republicans hold Congress, they hold the White House. It seems like this should be an easy win for them. Why has it been so hard to get this passed?

[Jacob Bogage]

Oh, Colby, I feel like every time I come into the studio, you ask that question and it's either like a very.

[Colby Ikowitz]

Explain why Congress is dysfunctional.

[Jacob Bogage]

Yes, explain the dysfunction of Congress. I mean, some of it is just like, you know, encoded into the DNA of Congress that, like, this is difficult. God, there's so many reasons for that. Let's start with, like, the raw politics. Republicans numbers in Congress are limited. In the House, they can lose depending on who shows up three votes out of a chamber of 435 members that can lose three votes. One of them, there's already one definite no. And then there are a bunch of people who hate this bill and everything it stands for who kind of want to go along to get along and just need to hate it a little bit less to get to yes. So that creates a ton of problems in the House. In the Senate, they have another three vote margin, but it's only 100 members. So it's a little bit easier to get folks on board. In the Senate, they have one definite no. That's Rand Paul from Kentucky who has debt concerns. They picked up another definite no in Tom Tillis from North Carolina who went on the floor twice yesterday and just torched this thing and called it a betrayal and said it lacked due diligence. Thom Tillis has the problem with the Medicaid cuts and what it would do to the more than 660,000 people in North Carolina who rely on Medicaid.

[Tom Tillis]

It is inescapable that this bill in its current form will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office or in the Cabinet Room when I was there with finance, where he said, we can go after waste, fraud and abuse on any programs.

[Jacob Bogage]

So the numbers are getting really, really tight.

[Colby Ikowitz]

So what you're saying is that the Republicans can afford to lose one more.

[Jacob Bogage]

They can lose one more. If they lose one more, then J.D. vance, the vice President, has to come in and break the tie, which would be incredibly embarrassing. Republicans wanted to pass this bill within President Trump's first hundred days. They did not do that. They didn't get close to doing that. Now we're outside the first hundred days and they would have to bring in the Vice President of the United States to break a tie when they have a three seat margin in the Senate. The other thing is this polls really poorly for two main reasons. One of them is the benefit cuts, cuts to Medicaid cuts to snap. Americans hate it. So that's number one. Number two is the national debt concerns. And Americans have also been very well conditioned over the years by Republicans that the national debt is a problem. So you put together kind of, you're cutting my benefits or you're cutting benefits that I might need one day, or you're cutting benefits that people I know rely on and you're still gonna increase the debt, Americans by a 2 to 1 margin. In a Washington Post Ipsos poll said they, they didn't like this legislation. And other polls by, by our colleagues in the press and in well respected polling outlets have found similar results.

[Colby Ikowitz]

So looking forward, how confident is the White House and Republicans in Congress that this thing is actually gonna pass this week?

[Jacob Bogage]

The hardest part was putting this bill on the floor, which Republicans were able to do over the weekend. Once the bill's on the floor, the pressure really mounts on folks who are holding out. You know, we are hours away from notching this win. Do you really want to be the stick in the mud? And that's kind of where we are here. This is really on a glide path in the Senate. The pressure is on on these holdouts and they seem like they have the votes. So it's gotta go back to the House. The House has significant problems with it. The House was not as punitive on Medicaid. The House wrote a far less expensive bill to begin with. And the House's debt limit number was $4 trillion compared to 5 trillion. That's where the big struggle is gonna be for the White House. Can they arm wrestle some of these holdouts in the House into voting for it and not changing it? Yeah, if the House changes this, we gotta start all over.

[Colby Ikowitz]

Well, Jacob, thank you so much. I imagine that we'll have you back on the podcast again if and when this thing passes.

[Jacob Bogage]

If and when.

[Colby Ikowitz]

If and when. Always a pleasure to have you.

[Jacob Bogage]

Always great to be here.

[Colby Ikowitz]

Jacob Bogate is a Congressional economics correspondent for the Post. And we'll put a link in our show notes if you if you want to check out that tax calculator that we were talking about earlier. That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. Now is a great time to subscribe to the post. Our 4th of July sale is underway. That means you can get a core subscription for just $29 for the first year. This is a limited time offer. Again, only $29 for your entire first year. It renews then at $120 annually. And as always, you can cancel at any time. To get that $29 deal, go to washingtonpost.com subscribe. You can also look for a subscription link in our show Notes. Today's show was produced by Arjun Singh with help from TODAY over wee's Sandoval. It was mixed by Shawn Carter and edited by Rena Flores. I'm Colby Ikowicz. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from the Washington Post.

[Arjun Singh]

There's an efficient way to get caught up on a lot of news. It's called the seven from the Washington Post. It's a newsletter and podcast. Whether you're reading or hit play, you get seven stories you need to know and you can consume it all in just a few minutes. The 7 is out every weekday morning by 7:00am Eastern. I'm Hannah Jewell. I'm one of the writers and I host the show. Find the seven Podcast wherever you're listening. The newsletter link is waiting for you in the Show Notes.