Last week, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act by narrow partisan majorities, and U.S. President Donald Trump used a bombastic July 4 signing ceremony to make the bill the law of the land. The bill has been framed as a signature second-term achievement for Trump as he pushes forward with a broad reshaping of the government to reflect his policy desires for mass deportations, economic deregulation, and political “retribution.”
Pittsburgh-area lawmakers and advocates were quick to condemn the bill for its tax cuts for the wealthy and massive infusion of funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The bill also makes steep cuts to federal aid programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), depriving Pennsylvania of at least $125 million in SNAP funding.
“My heart is broken and full of rage as I try to make sense of how fifty US Senators and the Vice President of the United States could bring themselves to rip care and food away from the people who entrusted them to fight for their best interests,” Pa. Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) stated in a release.
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (Pa.-12), who voted against the bill alongside every Democratic House member and two Republicans, including Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.-8), blasted the bill in a virtual townhall and press release as a “slap in the face.”
“This bill wasn’t crafted with care for our communities. It was written by people who aren’t worried about whether they can afford a doctor’s visit, never once worried if their social security check would cover rent and medicine, and never once worried about how they’re going to pay their electric bill during a brutal heat wave,” Lee stated.
Lee said the “devastating” bill could see some 17 million Medicaid recipients lose insurance coverage while adding $3.4 trillion to the U.S. budget deficit.
National and local responses highlighted the One Big Beautiful Bill’s deep cuts to federal healthcare funding. Fitzpatrick cited Senate amendments affecting Medicaid as the reason for his “no” vote. Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey called the bill “awful,” echoing a New York Times opinion piece by former White House Council of Economic Advisers chairman Jason Furman, and said Trump had broken a promise not to touch Medicaid.
Area healthcare leaders, including president of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania Matt Yarnell, praised the Pa. delegates, including Fitzpatrick, who voted against the bill while issuing a broadside against those who voted for it, saying the bill would increase healthcare costs and boot more than 300,000 Pa. recipients off of Pennie, the commonwealth’s health insurance exchange.
“Far too many Pennsylvania Congress members chose to side with the rich rather than stand with working families,” Yarnell wrote in a piece for the Pike County Courier. “Working people across our Commonwealth and our country are facing painful struggles because those in power are continuing to hollow out the middle class and hoard more and more wealth at the top.”
Yarnell pledged an “unprecedented” voter mobilization effort in response to the bill.
Pittsburgh advocacy group 1Hood Power, via legislative director Miracle Jones, also described Trump’s bill in bleak terms, while pledging grassroots pushback.
“Now is the time for our people-powered movement to push for policies which sustain our communities and move us forward as a nation without cutting services, terrorizing communities, and increasing hunger,” reads a post on the 1Hood Power Instagram account.
U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio (Pa.-17), who voted with Lee and Fitzpatrick against the OBBB, called Trump’s spending bill “class warfare.”
“They just voted to kill construction jobs, kick people off their healthcare, raise the cost of energy and health insurance, cut food assistance for hungry families, and saddle all of us with trillions in debt to pay for reckless tax handouts to the rich and powerful,” Deluzio stated. “This is terrible policy.”
This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2025.
