President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Oct. 9, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday he’s prepared to cancel funding approved by Congress that he believes is going toward programs supported by Democrats, though he didn’t share any additional details during a Cabinet meeting. 

“We’ll be cutting some very popular Democratic programs that aren’t popular with Republicans,” he said. “They wanted to do this, so we’ll give them a little taste of their own medicine.” 

Meanwhile, on day nine of the government shutdown, members of the U.S. Senate for the seventh time failed to advance either a Democratic or Republican stopgap spending bill, and House Speaker Mike Johnson said partisan tensions in his chamber are so intense he is reluctant to bring members back until a resolution is found. 

“This gets personal. Emotions are high. People are upset. I’m upset,” Johnson told reporters at a morning press conference.

Layoffs, denial of back pay also threatened

Trump has signaled throughout the shutdown he wants to unilaterally cancel funding approved by Congress, lay off federal workers by the thousands and may try to reinterpret a 2019 law that requires back pay for furloughed federal employees after the funding lapse ends. 

He has yet to give any real details on those plans or say exactly when he’ll try to take those steps, which would likely result in additional lawsuits. 

Trump said during the hour-long public portion of the Cabinet meeting that Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought would be able to share more details, but Vought never spoke and Trump didn’t call on him. 

“The shutdown has been, you know, pretty damaging. I mean, not yet, because it’s early. But it gets a little bit worse as it goes along,” Trump said. “And we’ll be making cuts that will be permanent and we’re only going to cut Democrat programs. I hate to tell you. I guess that makes sense, but we’re only cutting Democratic programs. But we’re going to start that and we have Russell, who can talk to you about it if he wants to.”

The president is generally required to faithfully execute the laws that Congress approves, including the government funding bills. 

The White House budget office has frozen or canceled funding several times this year without going to lawmakers for approval, which is required under a 1970s law. 

That has led to a slew of lawsuits and the Government Accountability Office repeatedly citing the administration for illegally impounding funds. 

No progress on votes

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers remained deadlocked over how to advance a stopgap bill to fund the government for a few weeks. 

The Senate voted 54-45 on the House-passed bill that would fund federal programs through Nov. 21 and 47-50 on Democrats’ counterproposal that would provide spending authority through Oct. 31 and make substantial changes to health care policy. 

The tally for the seventh vote to advance those two proposals wasn’t much different from the previous ones. Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, as well as Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance their bill. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.

Legislation needs the support of at least 60 senators to advance under that chamber’s legislative filibuster rule. 

The vote came shortly after Speaker Johnson, R-La., made disparaging remarks about Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer during his press conference, with the two increasingly blaming each other for the funding impasse.  

“There is one thing that Chuck Schumer cares about more than anything else and that is his Senate seat,” Johnson said. “The guy has been in Congress for 44 years. He doesn’t know how to live life outside this building and so he will do anything to make sure that he keeps that seat.”

Johnson, asked about the increasing tensions between Republicans and Democrats over the funding lapse and health care policy, said it is likely better to keep lawmakers in that chamber separated until a resolution is reached. 

“I’m a very patient man, but I am very angry right now because this is dangerous stuff,” Johnson said. “And so, is it better for them, probably, to be physically separated right now? Yeah, it probably is, frankly. 

“I wish that weren’t the case. But we do have to turn the volume down. The best way to turn the volume down is to turn the lights back on and get the government open for the people.”

Shutdown pay for members of the military 

Johnson reiterated that he does not intend to bring the House back from an extended recess to vote on a stand-alone bill to provide on-time paychecks to military members during the shutdown. 

Johnson stuck to his position that the best way to ensure pay for U.S. troops is for Democrats to pass the GOP stopgap spending bill, despite Trump breaking with Johnson on that particular issue. 

Trump, asked Wednesday about the upcoming Oct. 15 payday for military members, said “that probably will happen” and that the “military is always going to be taken care of.”

But, Johnson said during his Thursday press conference the only way out is through the Republican stopgap bill that remains stalled in the Senate. 

“We have already voted to pay the troops. We did it three weeks ago. We put that bill on the floor, and the Republicans voted to pay the troops, TSA agents, border patrol, air traffic control and everybody else,” Johnson said. “So coming back here and doing it and having a duplicative vote to do the same thing they already did would accomplish nothing.”

Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a floor speech the shutdown will not end until after Republicans and Democrats find a way to extend tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace past the end of the year. 

Schumer also rebuked Johnson for the House schedule, which has only had members in Washington, D.C., for 12 days since the end of July. 

“If you’re someone who works two jobs or weekends or overtime to make ends meet, what on Earth are you supposed to think when House Republicans can’t even be bothered to show up to reopen the government?” Schumer said. 

New England senators initiate talks

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she has been speaking with New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen about possible solutions to the impasse. 

“I have been in very close contact with Sen. Shaheen, who is very constructive, and is trying to find a path forward,” Collins said.  

“The ACA issue is important to a lot of us, not just to Democrats,” she added. “The tax subsidies were enhanced during COVID. They do need to be reformed, but they do need to be extended as well. They expire at the end of the year. We need to open up government today before more harm is done, before people in the military don’t have their paychecks.”

 Ariana Figueroa and Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report. 

An Afghan refugee caresses her 9-day-old infant inside the pediatric ward of a medical treatment facility in 2021 at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. Refugees are among the lawfully present noncitizens facing the loss of federally funded health care coverage. (Photo by Barbara Davidson/Pool/Getty Images)

An estimated 1.4 million immigrants who are in the country legally but are not citizens stand to lose their government-subsidized health care coverage under the sweeping tax and spending bill President Donald Trump signed into law this summer, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act cuts federal spending on Medicaid, the joint federal-state health insurance program for low-income people. It also places new eligibility restrictions on lawfully present immigrants, including refugees and asylees, who are enrolled in a variety of government-subsidized health programs: Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicare and Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

Immigrants who are in the country illegally have long been ineligible for federally funded health coverage.

But seven states — California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon and Washington — plus the District of Columbia have extended state-funded coverage to some income-eligible noncitizen adults regardless of their immigration status. Fourteen states plus the district provide state-funded coverage to noncitizen children whether they are here legally or not.

The new restrictions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, combined with other Trump policies limiting public benefits for immigrants, put those states in a financial bind. With less federal money to provide health benefits to immigrants who are here legally, states will be hard-pressed to maintain their programs that offer coverage to all immigrants, regardless of their legal status.

“We’re taking a giant step backwards from that public health and preventive health measure by excluding more people and draining federal resources from states that need it,” said Tanya Broder, a senior counsel specializing in immigrant health policy at the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group.

“And the result will be that our health — individually, as families and as communities — will be in jeopardy, and the health care infrastructure that serves all of us will also be compromised,” Broder said.

Already, some states that had offered health coverage aid to all immigrants — regardless of status — have been pulling back.

To help close a $12 billion deficit, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in June signed a state budget that bars immigrants who are here illegally from enrolling in the state’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal. Current enrollees between the ages of 19 and 59 will have to pay a new $30 monthly premium beginning in 2027. In July 2026, the state will eliminate dental care for noncitizens.

Illinois in July ended its state-funded health coverage program for all immigrants ages 42 to 64. The state still operates a state-funded plan for residents 65 and older regardless of immigration status, but enrollment has been paused. And Minnesota also plans to exclude adult immigrants who are here illegally from a program that used to provide coverage regardless of immigration status.

New York is in an especially tough spot, since its state constitution prohibits discrimination against lawfully present immigrants in providing public benefits.

“States have had some type of leeway to fund resources for migrant communities if they want to,” said Medha Makhlouf, a law professor and the founding director of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic at Penn State Dickinson Law who studies immigrants’ access to health care. “But now this [federal] law makes it difficult for them to do that.”

Making it less attractive to stay

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit group that backs stricter immigration policies, said these efforts are part of both Trump’s larger anti-immigration stance and “Congress’ interest in getting rid of any incentive or benefit for people who are in the country illegally.”

“It’s a way of making it less attractive for people to stay here illegally, right?” Vaughan said. “They’re trying to give people reasons to leave rather than reasons to stay.”

As noncitizens who are here legally lose access to federally funded benefits, the demand for state-funded coverage is “likely to increase,” Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at KFF, a health policy research group, told Stateline.

“However, at the same time, states are facing increasing budget pressures, especially with the Medicaid cuts,” Pillai said. “So it’s almost a double whammy, where there will likely be increased demand for state-funded coverage programs, but also states will have fewer resources to cover people.”

Makhlouf said the Trump administration’s policy changes reflect a broader strategy of stripping public benefits from marginalized and poor communities.

“Everyone who cares about access to health care needs to pay attention to what’s happening to immigrants,” she said. “When it becomes normalized to be able to sacrifice certain people’s humanity or their vulnerability, or to minimize their contributions to society, and say, ‘You don’t deserve access to health care,’ then that can be turned on to any group.”

Under Trump’s domestic policy law, California expects to lose at least $28.4 billion in federal Medicaid funding, according to Newsom’s office.

On the California Senate floor June 27, Democratic state Sen. María Elena Durazo expressed her sorrow at the state’s decision to deny coverage to immigrants.

“I can’t express how much joy I felt when we expanded basic health care,” Durazo said. “Today, that joy that I was so happy about, that joy has turned into pain, that joy has turned into shame.”

Democratic Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire, however, said the state had little choice.

“We are a state of immigrants, 10.6 million strong. And we will never turn our backs on those who are part of the heart of the largest economy in the United States of America,” McGuire said during the debate. “So we’ve had to make some tough decisions. I know we’re not going to please everyone.”

Obligated in New York

One state, New York, is particularly in a bind, because its constitution requires it to provide coverage to lawfully present noncitizens.

Roxana, 27, has been living in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, since she was 8 years old and is using her first name only out of fear she will be targeted. At the end of 2019, she experienced a range of debilitating symptoms, including pelvic pain and chronic fatigue, and discovered a noncancerous lump on her breast.

“Chronic illness has impacted my career trajectory with a lot of fatigue and chronic pain,” said Roxana, who lives in the Bronx, New York.

Roxana cannot get federally funded Medicaid. But she qualified for state-funded public health coverage in New York. A 2001 court case, Aliessa v. Novello, requires the state to offer publicly funded health coverage to all lawfully present residents under the state constitution. So, she could afford to go to the doctor, where she learned that she had a hormonal condition called polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, and she was able to get the lump removed.

New York mostly picked up the tab for immigrants and other lawfully residing immigrants until 2016, when it launched coverage it called the Essential Plan under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Under the ACA, the plan has no deductibles or monthly premiums for patients, and the federal government has picked up almost the entire cost — 90% — of the plan, a huge economic relief for the state.

Now, New York faces an annual loss of $13.5 billion in federal Medicaid and Affordable Care Act funds. Additionally, the phasing out of premium tax credits for noncitizens under Trump’s law would lead to a loss of $7.5 billion in annual funding to the state’s Essential Plan, which covers 1.7 million New Yorkers.

“These are billions of dollars that are being taken away and out of New York’s delivery system,” Amir Bassiri, director of Medicaid at the New York State Department of Health, said at a United Hospital Fund conference on July 30.

It’s unclear whether and how the state will afford to cover people like Roxana, even though it’s required under the state’s constitution. Like other immigrants, she is terrified that in the face of cuts and shrinking safety net access for noncitizens, she will lose continuous health care coverage and that her condition will get worse.

“My PCOS symptoms have just been getting worse over the years. I really want to try my best with the health access that I have to get it under control.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

Main Street in the Wisconsin community of Cambridge. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

As we begin our seventh year as a carwash marketing agency in Wisconsin, we’re daily confronted with challenges like scaling, taking on investors and staying competitive in a saturated market. Yet consistently the toughest issue to navigate has been how to approach health care for our employees amid national uncertainty.

Since health care is largely tied to employment, one of our earliest priorities was to make sure that we could be in a position to offer affordable, comprehensive coverage to our employees. And here we are, a few years later, still unable to swing it.

With the current federal administration and the recent passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA, as we go forward, for brevity and so I don’t need to use those words together), our lofty goal of offering the most basic benefits to our employees seems more of a pipe dream than ever. While we wait for the tax breaks that are promised to trickle down from the top earners who benefit most,  we’re facing a very near-term future of funding cuts and even higher daily costs — and in the realm of health care, an uncertain few months of even higher premiums and more difficult access to basic care. Our Republican representatives are still parading the passage of the OBBBA as a win, but when it comes to the reality of the tax breaks and subsidies that are set to expire within the next few months, the silence from our Republican reps is deafening.

The OBBBA does offer tax breaks and incentives, but outside of a few breaks on  large equipment purchases in our industry, neither our customers, who are mostly small, mom and pop operators, nor we will see any benefit. We’re not in a position to fully depreciate the purchase of a private jet. In fact, because of the OBBBA and  the economic instability associated with tariff threats, we’re now facing the potential of our first year of non-growth.

As small business owners in Wisconsin, we’re watching the numbers come out on the OBBBA and realizing just how uneven this deal really is. More than 70% of the tax breaks will go to the wealthiest one-fifth of households, while the middle class gets just 10%. Here in Wisconsin, the top 1% of earners will walk away with average breaks close to $70,000. For families making under $80,000 a year, the break is less than $1,600.

When we weigh the minimal tax breaks we may see against the drastic losses in support, it’s clear this law shifts the burden onto families, state budgets and small businesses already at their limit. Medicaid cuts, in particular, threaten jobs, health care access and community well-being. The OBBBA is hailed as a win, but truly, it undermines our efforts to provide for our employees and community.

On health care, we’re coming up to a harsh deadline — the lapse of premium tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, an action propagated entirely by Republican lawmakers. With 90% of Americans relying on these subsidies to make coverage affordable, we’re looking at sharp increases in premiums. As a family, we’re already paying nearly $900 per month for non-substantial coverage. This is nearly the cost of our mortgage for coverage that does nothing of the sort — our out-of-pocket payments are ridiculous.

Already, insurance providers are pulling out of key markets in Wisconsin as it is no longer profitable to serve certain areas of the state. How are Wisconsinites supposed to counter this? How do people survive when premiums rise so high, it’s more cost-effective to gamble with one’s health rather than pay rates for coverage that only really serve to prevent complete financial catastrophe after one gets sick?

Ultimately, as small business owners, we can easily see the ripples from the OBBBA and the lapsing of ACA tax credits.

• Premiums will continue to rise to untenable levels.
• Businesses and individuals will have less money to spend.
• Entrepreneurship will stall due to more hesitation to give up benefits in corporate environments.

This legislation does not help small business owners, Wisconsinites, or working families — nor does it promote a healthy local economy. Instead, it burdens those already struggling while directing gains to the top. The damaging effects of these policies will only become more obvious as the new law  unfolds.

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