By Linda Stamato
What counts as “local” may depend on your perspective. But consider the federal budget proposal being debated in the Senate, with President Trump insisting it be on his desk by July 4. Given the bill’s significant Medicaid cuts, the local impact is clear—even if not immediately obvious.
In affluent communities, these cuts deserve more scrutiny, especially when attention is being diverted elsewhere—such as to restoring the property tax deduction, the priority touted by Rep. Tom Kean (R-7th Dist.).
That deduction, of great interest to residents of New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District—which includes parts of Morris, Sussex, Somerset and Union counties, and all of Hunterdon and Warren—would allow up to $40,000 in deductions for households earning up to $500,000.
And yes, there are many such households in the 7th District—and in the 11th, too.
IRS data from 2022 shows that lifting the deduction cap would benefit high-income earners far more than low- and middle-income taxpayers.
No surprise there.
Yet we can’t in good faith push for that provision while ignoring or misrepresenting the Medicaid cuts, which the GOP frames as efforts to eliminate “fraud, waste, and abuse”—claims that remain unsubstantiated.
And the cuts to SNAP– the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as Food Stamps — will have significant local impact here in Morristown at the Table of Hope, a soup kitchen that feeds hundreds of people weekly.
The Rev. Sidney Williams Jr., whose Bethel A.M.E. Church hosts Table of Hope, estimates up to $300 billion in SNAP benefits could be slashed over the next decade.
“This bill will widen the gap between those with enough and those without. It will push more people to our doors while starving the very system designed to prevent hunger in the first place,” Williams said, in a plea to supporters to call their congressional representatives to oppose Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill.
“For a community like Morristown, where many families already struggle to afford groceries, this would be devastating. It will directly increase demand for our food pantry, mobile distributions, and family support services—at a time when our margins are already razor thin,” said Williams.
“Food is not a luxury—it’s the foundation of health and opportunity. Without proper nutrition, children struggle in school, adults miss work, and families fall further behind. Our community—especially immigrant families, working parents, and the elderly—will bear the brunt of this legislation,” the pastor said.
And the proposed work requirements?
Most people on Medicaid already work, except for those who face job loss, unstable schedules, health conditions, or caregiving duties. Imposing these requirements is not just unfair—it’s a betrayal of social trust.
This bill would devastate the vulnerable—people who are our moral and social responsibility.
One key point that Kean omits: These Medicaid and social support cuts help finance tax breaks first passed under Trump and expanded further in this bill. In effect, those who need help are footing the bill for those who don’t.
The Representative for the 11th District, Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, had this to say about the bill on X:
“While (Trump) cuts taxes for billionaires, our teachers and first responders are stuck footing the bill.” And on the cuts to social programs, Sherrill distanced herself from the bill with these words:
“It’s no surprise that kicking hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans off of their health care, raising utility bills, and cutting food assistance from families is deeply unpopular.”
New Jersey’s senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both Democrats, have not minced words about the bill. Booker called it “a disaster for working families.” On Facebook, Kim said Republicans are cutting vital programs “to give tax breaks to people in this country who are wealthy enough to have their own space programs.”
MEDICAID IN A WEALTHY DISTRICT
The 7th District is affluent. Consider Bernardsville—ranked the 16th wealthiest community in New Jersey— in Somerset County, where the median household income is $200,375, and more than half earn over $200,000.
Roughly 73,000 people in the district—including children and people with disabilities—are enrolled in Medicaid.
They stand to lose coverage for various reasons if the bill passes unchanged.
As Gina Hijjawi, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, puts it: “The bill is punitive, denying healthcare coverage to people for reasons that are simply inaccurate and more often than not, out of their control.”
We know who in our communities will be affected. Let’s not look away.
Meanwhile, no evidence has surfaced to support claims of rampant fraud in Medicaid, despite repeated GOP assertions. Some Department of Justice staffers report finding none. Still, the “fraud and abuse” narrative persists—detached from fact.
For the record: Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid or Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage. That’s the law.
WHO BENEFITS? WHO GETS HURT?
The math is stark. Ezra Klein sums it up: “The bill has $1.1 trillion in tax cuts for people who make more than $500,000 a year. And it has $1.1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and food stamps…It is a straight transfer from people who cannot afford food and medical care to people who can afford to fly first class.”
At a time when the wealthy are more powerful than ever, this bill shifts money from those at the bottom to those at the top.
Local impact? No question about it.
WATCH LINDA STAMATO ON NJ PBS ‘STATE OF AFFAIRS’
Linda Stamato is a member of the nonprofit Corporation for New Jersey Local Media. At Rutgers, where she is a Faculty Fellow, she is co-director of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. She also is a trustee of the Morristown and Morris Township Library Foundation, and a former commissioner on the Morristown Parking Authority.
Opinions expressed in commentaries are the authors’. They do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.
“…buying a home, the traditional gateway to accumulating wealth.”
False. An owner-occupied house is not an investment. It’s where you live.
“I would ask WHY that segment of the population is increasingly needy…. The problem is that more and more people are failing to take personal responsibility and engage in self-reliance and are instead making stupid lifestyle choices and expecting to be bailed out by responsible people.”
Funny to pin this on individual choice, when we see that:
–The average house price to average income ratio was 3.5 in 1985. Now it’s 5.89. So the average worker has a vastly diminished chance of buying a home, the traditional gateway to accumulating wealth. Know what the median age of a homebuyer was in 2024? 58 years old!
–Even if you do have the money for a down payment, you’ll have to compete with private equity firms buying up real estate. They don’t exactly price their properties with charity & affordability in mind. Did you know that BlackRock is the largest landlord in the country? Private Equity Real Estate estimates that within five years, private equity may oversee up to 40% of the housing market! Lovely!
–Since 1980, middle-class wages have stagnated while lower-class wages have actually dropped. We can pin this to anti-union policies and jobs getting outsourced overseas.
–Get a better job, you say? That used to mean a college degree– and the cost of college has more than doubled since the 1960s.
–Health costs have increased. Per KFF: Out-of-pocket health care spending per person was $115 in 1970 (or, adjusted for inflation, $677). By 2022, out-of-pocket spending had reached $1,425 per person.
–Planning to raise a kid? Magnifi found a 63% rise in costs for goods and services essential to raising a child since 1998. Cost increases are especially egregious for early childhood care and education.
The data is clear: since Reagan, income inequality has increased and the middle class has seen its social mobility erased by powerful interests interested in accumulating private wealth, at the expense of everyone and everything else. In a body, we’d call that cancer.
Individual choices can matter. But how much does my chess move matter when the game is rigged?
anyway, this is a fine op-ed, Linda. I’d take issue with only one of your points: the idea that the regime actually believes there is any fraudwasteandabuse (they say the words together so often, it might as well be one word).
Their definition of waste is not the same as ours. We believe that waste means someone is deliberately using a program to which they’re not entitled. They believe that doing anything that does not directly contribute to wealth and/or productivity is a waste. This includes sheltering the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and anything else a certain religious figure mentioned. Whatever JC said, you can trust the current GOP regime to do the opposite.
Medicaid spending cuts are designed to reduce spending to pre-Covid levels. 2019 Medicaid spending was $615B. It has ballooned to $838B for 2023/2024, an increase of 36%. Has the need increased that significantly over 5 years? Highly unlikely. A work requirement should absolutely be a requirement for the abled-bodied and those who are ineligible for benefits should be removed. Just today, the DOJ announced charges against 324 people for various healthcare fraud schemes, so the assertion that waste, fraud and abuse is unsubstantiated rings very hollow.
PS – All of those wealthy people who got rich on tips and overtime are going to be raking it in with these tax cuts.
”Truth Provider,” I am not talking about slashing taxes, but challenging cutting them and financing the cuts by reducing social support programs and hurting the nation by vastly increasing the national debt. No voodoo economics there. Try reading the bill and you’ll get the gist of it.
Unquestionably, the U.S. needs to take a serious, serious look at the tax system and design it to make sense, cease giving loopholes to the special interests that can afford to lobby for them, and so much more…. Bill Bradley tried and came close but no dice. I doubt we’ll ever do it. Same thing with a sensible immigration plan…. We came close but, as you know, when Trump needed a solid campaign issue he wanted a problem to run on, not one that was solved…. Politics, no matter what ‘side’ you’re on, is not for the faint-hearted….
Linda, the economics you refer to were called “voodoo economics” by George Bush Sr. Even he knew it was BS economics. Trickle down economics, slashing taxes for wealthy individuals and companies believing that this will result in more jobs and ultimately more revenue going into the Treasury, has been proven to be nonsense. No issue for you with that?
Point well-taken. I don’t know how much is clawed back. But there is a cost for that recovery process, of course. I am willing to bet that there has always been this waste/recovery cycle.
I would ask WHY that segment of the population is increasingly needy. Just because someone needs something doesn’t mean they deserve it. If I inherit a million bucks and spend most of it on women, drinking, wild trips, and I waste the rest and I’m now broke, I need money. But do I deserve it? Nope.
The more we reward people for making poor choices the more it will happen.
The problem is that more and more people are failing to take personal responsibility and engage in self-reliance and are instead making stupid lifestyle choices and expecting to be bailed out by responsible people. I see this happening firsthand.
I have not heard of CEOs getting this benefit, but I believe you. But, as you know, Linda, companies don’t really pay taxes. Their owners do. When shareholders profit they pay taxes on that. I know that firsthand.
I’m not sure what you mean by “issue,” but I have no problem with what you described. I am not a tax expert but I do know that the more you make, the more you pay.
Governments waste money by the boatload. If they were to significantly reduce waste they wouldn’t need to much money. We’re pretty heavily taxed as it is.
Your points could be well-taken but you make assumptions that imply that overpayments or wrong payments, etc. remain unaddressed. Look for the statistics on how much is clawed back when errors are made, and, while you’re doing that, consider that the increase in SNAP benefits may align with an increasingly needy population. People who deserve the benefits, in your view, are the minority. How do you arrive at that conclusion?
And, Jeff, the huge tax cuts (likely received my many who head companies, by the way, that avoid paying taxes through loopholes their lobbyists design for them, thus benefiting their companies/stockholders) and then, given their individual status, i.e., their high ‘earned income’ will generate more if/when the tax cuts are extended, their benefits multiply. No issue for you with that?
The whole SNAP thing has gotten WAY out of control. From 1970 to the end of 2023, food stamp spending has soared to $114 billion. In 1970 it was less than $1B. The rate of poverty is about the same. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.
In 2023, USDA estimated 11.7% (or about $10.5 billion) of SNAP benefits that it paid were improper—meaning that payments were the wrong amount or otherwise should not have been made. This was an increase from the prior year’s estimate of 11.5%. Source: GAO/USDA.
Importantly, 6.1% of the eligible population collected food stamps in 2000. Now it’s around 12.5%.
People who need these benefits through no fault of their own deserve them. But they are the minority. WAY too many use them because they have made a lifetime of terrible life choices. I am glad that they are making these cuts.