Deirdre Walsh
speaker
394 appearances
48 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 11 Dec
Deirdre Walsh’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 22 in all, peaking in Nov 2025 with 9.
Appearances
In a statement, Tillis said too many elected officials are motivated by raw politics and quote, don't give a damn about the people they promise to represent.
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Democrats are hoping to recruit former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper to run.
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He did sway some who praised his sales job, but the president failed to convince a significant block of Republican holdouts. There are moderates who represent districts with high state and local taxes who want a bigger tax break for their constituents. There are conservatives worried about ballooning deficits and say this bill does not go far enough to slash spending and deal with the deficit.
The Speaker spent the day and overnight hours trying to negotiate with these factions. And remember, he can only lose three votes, so we already know one member, Tom Massey of Kentucky, is a hard no.
Potentially, overnight a key committee met to set the parameters to start debate on the House floor, and that panel is still meeting. The Speaker said when they started around 1 a.m. they were close to a deal, but we haven't seen any details yet. Leaders are expected to increase the amount of that state and local tax deduction. to address the concerns of some moderates they need.
Conservatives say there's been some progress on more savings. But Layla, it's like whack-a-mole. You agree to one change from one group and it could mean losing support from another group.
So the tax cuts are really the central plank in the bill. The bill permanently extends the 2017 tax cuts that are going to expire at the end of December. It adds new tax breaks like no tax on overtime, no tax on tips, things that Trump campaigned on. Those tax breaks expire in four years after Trump leaves office.
The bill has roughly $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, and a big chunk of those come from changes to Medicaid. That's the health care program for elderly, low-income, and disabled. It adds work requirements for adults without dependents on Medicaid. It changes eligibility rules that can mean people end up getting removed from the roles.
Trump said during his visit to the Capitol there wouldn't be any cuts. And the measure is focused on cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. But the Congressional Budget Office found that at least 8.6 million people could lose health care coverage due to these changes. And CBO analysis that came out late last night found out that the poorest, the bottom 10 percent of Americans...
would see their household resources drop due to the policy and tax changes in this package, while the top 10% would get a bump in income. And we should also note that the bill makes cuts to food assistance programs, and that could impact millions of children who rely on that program for school lunches. So if this bill gets through the House, what are the prospects in the Senate?
I mean, there are going to be changes in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Senate Republicans want to see further spending cuts to reduce the deficit. Other Republicans in the Senate are critical of the Medicaid changes in this House package. But there's big pressure for both chambers to get to a final deal because those tax cuts expire at the end of December.
And the Treasury Department is going to run out of money to pay its bills this summer. So lawmakers included a $4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling to avoid a default. But for right now, House Republican leaders are still negotiating to try to get the votes to get it through the House. That's NPR's Deirdre Walsh. Thank you, Deirdre. Thanks, Layla.
Up First from NPR · Tariff Fears, Trump Budget Plan Passes House, Deportation Ruling · 11 Apr 2025
podcast
How do you manage it? Well, he and Senate Majority Leader John Thune met separately with a group of about 20 conservatives who were adamant that the budget package had to include a minimum amount of spending cuts. They're talking $1.5 trillion. There's a range in this resolution, but these hardliners weren't convinced the Senate would actually meet the higher number, and now they say they are.
So what's in this blueprint? It's really a big package that wraps the president's legislative agenda into one set of instructions for committees to follow. The resolution says the House and Senate agrees on these goals. Now they have to work out all the details. They've agreed they want more money for border security, domestic energy production.
But most importantly, this budget extends the president's tax cuts. Those are going to expire at the end of 2025. That extension of those tax breaks is going to cost around $5.5 trillion over 10 years. Republicans are also planning to use this budget package to avoid a default on the nation's debt. They're going to raise the debt ceiling by about $5 trillion.
By doing it in this budget package, they don't have to negotiate any concessions with Democrats. They're using a process to get around a Democratic filibuster. Democrats have been blasting this package. They're saying it's going to add trillions to the deficit. Some were calling it yesterday a heist with tax breaks for the wealthy as programs for the working class are expected to be slashed.
Is that still the plan? There is no doubt Medicaid is going to be a big source of savings in this budget. You cannot cut $1.5 trillion from the federal budget without getting some from the biggest side of the federal ledger. That's mandatory spending on programs like Medicaid. The process Republicans are using walls off any changes to Social Security.
After the vote, the speaker was careful to say Medicaid beneficiaries aren't going to lose their coverage. He's arguing there's over $50 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid program and other programs. The speaker emphasized they're going to make changes to Medicaid to add work requirements.
This is going to be a huge lift for Republicans. And as you know, they have a really skinny majority in the House. Lawmakers in swing districts are really concerned about Medicaid. And conservatives want more than $1.5 trillion in cuts. They want closer to $2 trillion.
But even some Republicans, like Missouri Republican Josh Hawley, are warning they're not going to vote for Medicaid cuts, and many working-class Trump voters rely on these programs, and they would be the ones hurt. That is NPR's Deirdre Walsh. Deirdre, thank you. Thank you.
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