Federal Budgets and Shell Games Op-Ed by Bill Gaventa Waco Herald Tribune, May 20, 2025

Federal Budgets and Shell Games

Op-Ed by Bill Gaventa

Waco Herald Tribune, May 20, 2025

Most of us at some point get drawn in to a shell game. There are three cups turned upside down and a small ball, or other object, is under one of them. Your job is to stay focused on the cup with the ball under it while the game master slides the cups around at dizzying speeds, arms flying.

When he stops, we try to pick the cup with the ball inside.

It is not easy to do. Good tricksters like this can almost always fool you. If you had placed a bet on which cup hid the ball, you were usually wrong. They are masters at getting you to take your eyes off the ball.

Behold the 2026 federal budget being drawn up by the House of Representatives. Envision three cups as “keep the tax cuts,” “lower the deficit/debt” and “sacrifice.” They are being moved around with almost frantic speed, in a huge and so-called “beautiful bill,” trying to make a deadline. We get to see the first two, but never what is under “sacrifice” cup.

We are being told by the president and others that there will be no cuts to Medicaid or to food stamps (SNAP) and other programs that support the working poor of this country. We can extend the 2017 tax cuts and lower the deficit and/or debt at the same time, and no one really has to give up anything. The “sacrifice” ball remains hidden by the glamour and appeal of the other two.

But the truth is that the current drafts make significant cuts to Medicaid and to SNAP in the range of $900 billion dollars. This, to hear them talk, is supposedly OK. The increase in the national debt will only be in the order of $3 trillion over ten years. However, the 2017 tax cuts, which primarily benefited those who make the most money and were supposed to be temporary, will stay on, or maybe just until 2028, when the next president and Congress have to take the blame for taking them away. In other words, the sacrifice is in the future. We have been putting it there for years by not raising the money for a balanced budget and to lower the debt.

The other huge sleight of hand in the current bill, is that the Medicaid cuts would not take place until 2029, avoiding any political blowback in either 2026 or 2028. That is simply cowardice.

But the sacrifice will be real. Ten million people are projected to lose Medicaid coverage. Remember, that money does not go to them personally, but to the health care services and hospitals supporting them. That means a huge number of people in red states will be without coverage, and that many areas will continue to lose hospitals and other medical services, along with the jobs for health and human service caregivers. Witness, for example, the cuts that Waco Family Medicine recently made, even before the real Medicaid cuts begin.

Besides basic health care services, Medicaid also enables many families with children with severe disabilities to keep their children at home, where they should be, so parents can both work and raise their child. There are families in Waco who depend on this. It also helps older people to stay at home, rather than a nursing home, which also helps adult children or friends who may provide some support. Take those services away, and both the support professionals and parents may lose jobs. Put a child or aging person in a residential facility of whatever kind, and it usually costs at least twice as much, along with much lower quality of life.

Cut the SNAP program significantly, as well as resources for food banks, and the families of both recipients and farmers will struggle. We then lose the kinds of jobs that enable caring and committed people to support and serve those with the most need, thereby weakening the heart and compassion of a community.

These may not be people you know, but these supports enable them to be productive and contributing parts of our communities. Take those supports away, and their needs may become even more visible and dependent on strained local resources.

What if we changed the shell game, so that the “sacrifice” is not on the most vulnerable, but those for whom it is easiest? The costs are then borne by a broader majority, rather than minorities. This majority is also the predominant beneficiary of a healthier workforce, as well as innumerable tax breaks and loopholes already built into the tax code by and for those who have more.

I have great sympathy for Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, and others who are trying to draw our attention to the perils of a growing deficit. I might even vote for them, except for the fact that they also want to keep the tax cuts. We cannot advocate for fiscal responsibility and sanity while also refusing to let tax cuts expire, closing loopholes, or even taking the option of tax increases out of the closet of dogmatic heresy. We are still racking up debt for the 2001 and 2003 Bush cuts which lowered taxes and, at the same time, started a war without a plan to pay for it.

As Americans, we have worked and sacrificed together in the past to meet national challenges. We can do it again but will not be inspired or led to do so by a president playing Russian roulette with tariffs or by political shell game entertainers trying to make the powerless bear the burden. We need leaders being honest with facts and figures, and willing to use all the tools they have at their disposal.

We need to decide if empathy is indeed a part of our bloodstream and character.

Keep your eye on the ball, and don’t gamble on the shell game.