State and federal leaders on Thursday responded with harsh criticism for Congress after the passage on a razor-thin margin of a budget bill expected to strip millions of people of health care and food benefits, and leave rural hospitals in danger of closing.

H.R. 1 passed on Thursday with a straight party line vote — 2018 to 2014, with every House Democrat voting no.

Republicans call the bill the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” while Democrats and other opponents called names such as the “big, ugly bill.”

Lake County’s member of the House, Congressman Mike Thompson, who also is a ranking member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, was on the floor early Friday morning to speak against the bill.

In his remarks, given shortly after 4:15 a.m. Eastern time, Thompson said the bill “shamelessly hurts our constituents.”

He pointed to its impacts on those who need food assistance and health care, the potential for rural hospitals to close and how that it cedes leadership in the green energy economy to China.

Thompson said the bill pushes the American Dream out of reach for millions of people, and is bad for constituents, America and the future.

In a followup statement on Thursday, Thompson said, “Congressional Republicans’ big, ugly bill is a bad deal for the American people.”

He continued, “In one bill, my Republican colleagues have managed to rip health care away from 17 million people, take food away from 11 million people, gut my green energy investments responsible for our manufacturing boom, and drive up our national debt by a whopping $5 trillion dollars. All of this just to give tax breaks to their billionaire donors who don’t need the help.”

In the Fourth Congressional District, which includes Lake County, Thompson said that “22,000 of our friends, family members, and neighbors stand to lose health care coverage. Another 14,000 could go hungry. Twenty-eight rural hospitals in California and one in four nursing homes across our state will close. This isn’t just bad policy — it’s cruelty.”

He added, “We have a responsibility as members of Congress to work for everyone, not just the well-off and well connected. This bill will saddle our future generations with debilitating debt in order to give handouts to people who don’t need the help. Every hardworking American, regardless of party stripe, ought to be outraged. And my colleagues on the other side of the aisle ought to be ashamed.” 

Another North Coast member of Congress, Jared Huffman, called the bill “one of the most shameless betrayals in recent memory,” adding that “ Trump’s Big, Ugly Bill is a full-blown catastrophe for the American people. President Trump promised affordability, and now Americans will pay higher energy bills. Republicans campaigned on energy independence, but they’re giving China the deal of the century. They promised a stronger economy, yet they just kneecapped hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs. They promised to protect our public lands, and now they’ve auctioned our resources off to polluters and developers.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom also offered fierce criticism of the bill.

“This bill is a tragedy for the American people, and a complete moral failure,” Newsom said. “The president and his MAGA enablers are ripping care from cancer patients, meals from children, and money from working families — just to give tax breaks to the ultra-rich. With this measure, Donald J. Trump's legacy is now forever cemented: he has created a more unequal, more indebted, and more dangerous America. Shame on him.”

“These federal cuts are more than just language in a bill — they are direct and real threats to the health, stability, and dignity of millions of Californians,” said Kim Johnson, secretary of the California Health & Human Services Agency. “Stripping food and health care access from families will deepen poverty, widen health disparities, and push people into crisis. CalFresh and Medi-Cal are not only lifelines for individuals and families; they are foundational pillars of local economies and health care infrastructure. Weakening them weakens all of us. These federal cuts are taking food and health care away from those who need it most. California has made real progress toward a healthier, more equitable future. These federal cuts are moving us backward, and will be devastating to families in California and across the nation.”

Anticipated impacts for California

The Governor’s Office released the following information about potential impacts of the bill on California.

Eliminates jobs: Puts 686,000 California jobs at risk, through the elimination of the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits. North America's Building Trades Unions says that if enacted, “this stands to be the biggest job-killing bill in the history of this country.”

Significantly cuts critical family support programs: More than $28.4 billion slashed in federal Medicaid funding to California — increasing medical debt and jeopardizing health care providers’ ability to keep their doors open. Roughly 17 million people would lose coverage and become uninsured by 2034 due to various Medicaid reductions and the exclusion of enhanced premium subsidies. Cuts necessary food assistance for people for 3 million people nationwide in need of quality nutrition and food.

Establishes a tax hike for parents who pay for child care: Rural hospitals across the state are likely to see care offered cut or doors closed entirely.

Defunds public safety: $646 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, for violence and terrorism prevention; $545 million from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, cutting its workforce by more than 2,000 personnel and reducing its capacity to keep criminals off the street; $491 million from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, making our cyber and physical infrastructure more vulnerable to attack; $468 million from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, greatly reducing its ability to crack down on firearm trafficking and reduce gun violence; $212 million from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), greatly reducing its capacity to help state and local law enforcement and weakening efforts to fight international drug smuggling impacting the United States; $107 million from Bureau of Indian Affairs Public Safety and Justice, exacerbating current understaffing and making tribal communities less safe.

Endangers wildfire-prone communities: Cuts wildfire prevention programs like — raking the forests, forest management services — and eliminates personnel hired to fight wildfires.

Defunds Planned Parenthood: Defunds Planned Parenthood — essentially creating a backdoor abortion ban — that could put health care for 1.1 million patients at risk and force nearly 200 health centers to close, mostly in states where abortion care is legal.

Unfairly targets green vehicles: Creates penalties for families who own a hybrid or electric vehicle – increasing the cost of taking personal responsibility even more.

Unjustly targets American students: Takes away college access from millions of children by limiting families’ ability to access financial aid for college, including Pell Grants. Betrays student loan borrowers by ending student loan deferment for borrowers who experience job loss or other financial hardships, and forbids any future student loan forgiveness programs. 

Raises costs and separates American families: Pours billions of dollars into supercharging the cruel and reckless raids like we have seen in Southern California and across agricultural areas, expanding the targeting of families, workers and businesses and harassment of U.S. citizens nationwide. Americans overwhelmingly agree we should have a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who have been here for years, pay their taxes, and are good members of their communities, such as farmworkers, Dreamers and mixed-status families. 

National impacts on food and farming

House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (MN-02) said the bill’s passage “marks a grave turning point for our country, one which leaves rural communities and farmers behind, and places us on the road toward increased hunger, less prosperity and fewer opportunities for working families. This bill takes food away from millions of children, seniors, veterans and people with disabilities.”

Craig said the bill decimates the farm bill’s Nutrition Title and abandons the historically bipartisan farm bill coalition.  

Impacts Craig outlined include the following.

Slashing SNAP benefits: The bill puts in jeopardy SNAP benefits for 42 million Americans depending on SNAP to help put food on their tables, including: 16 million children, 8 million seniors (aged 60+), 4 million people with disabilities (below 60), and 1.2 million veterans. It also slashes $1 billion from Summer EBT, which provides food assistance to children in low-income families over the summer and $1 billion from Puerto Rico’s Nutrition Assistance Program.

Taking food away from millions of Americans: The bill’s expanded SNAP paperwork requirements puts five million people, including about 800,000 children and more than 500,000 adults aged 65 or older and adults with disabilities, at risk of losing some or all of their SNAP benefits. 

Taking benefits away from veterans, homeless people and former foster youth: CBO estimates that due to the budget bill, roughly 270,000 veterans, homeless people and former foster youth (up to age 24), will lose their food assistance each month. 

Forcing states or counties to raise local taxes or cut services: In nine states — including California — that use counties to administer SNAP, counties’ costs are projected to jump by more than $850 million per year. In some states, counties could see their expenses rise by $250 million per year. 

Pushing states to eliminate SNAP entirely: The reconciliation bill shifts $65 billion in benefit and administrative costs to states and counties, which could result in states being forced to pull out of the program altogether due to increased costs. Governors, county commissioners, SNAP administrators, and Congressional Budget Office have all warned that there is no alternative if states and counties cannot meet the amount demanded.

Rewarding states with high error rates: For months, it’s been said that the bill is meant to “root out” waste, fraud and abuse. SNAP payment error rates have been called the problem and mischaracterized as a measurement of “fraud,” when it is actually a measurement of states’ payment calculation accuracy. Republicans said they wanted to “crack down on the worst offenders.” Yet, in the final bill they did a 180-degree turn and decided to give only states with the highest error rates the ability to avoid the new SNAP benefit cost shift. Now, Craign said Republicans are punishing states that are making more progress, while rewarding those making the least. “Clearly, this was never about waste, fraud and abuse,” she said. “This is about using any means possible to cut food assistance programs to give tax breaks to the richest Americans and the largest corporations.”

Breaking up the long-standing farm bill coalition: With costs up, prices down, and the threat of a trade war that has already cost farmers’ markets, now more than ever, family farmers, ranchers and producers need the certainty that a five-year, 12-title farm bill provides. If SNAP, a farm bill program, is decimated, the coalition that has been essential to the successful passage of bipartisan farm bills will be forever undermined, making it tougher to pass not just a full farm bill this year but all future farm bills, Craig said.

Reducing farm revenue: The massive SNAP cuts will also result in a $25 billion drop in farm revenue at a time when every dollar counts. 

Hurting rural communities: SNAP cuts will hit rural America hardest. SNAP’s economic impact is particularly strong in rural communities (16 percent) and small towns (15 percent), where people participate at higher rates than in urban areas (13 percent),and where SNAP dollars provide even higher returns to the local economy.

Harming rural grocers: 27,000 retailers in largely rural counties have the highest risk of being harmed by SNAP cuts, due to the program’s significant economic impact in rural communities. SNAP is responsible for 249,700 grocery industry jobs annually, with direct wages totaling $10.3 billion.

Damaging the food economy: Cuts to SNAP have significant negative impacts on the farmers who grow the food, manufacturers that package it, truckers who distribute it and stores and small businesses in our communities that sell it. In 2024, SNAP created nearly 139,000 new jobs in supporting industries, including agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and municipal services, with direct wages totaling $9.8 billion. More than $20 billion in direct wages derived from the 388,700 grocery and supporting industry jobs supported by SNAP result in over $4.5 billion in state and federal tax revenue per year.