Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Is Hitting Republican States Hard
President Donald Trump’s behemoth spending bill is forcing Republican lawmakers to consider dramatic budget cuts in many states.Lost tax revenue from Trump’s tax cuts and added costs for new requirements for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are costing Republican-led states as much as $450 million per year, Politico reported Wednesday.Many Republican-led states were already working with budgets that were stretched thin. But H.R. 1, Trump’s signature “Big Beautiful Bill,” required states to pay a larger share of SNAP and expand resources to handle new Medicaid work requirements, costing states as much as $50 million per year, according to Politico.In Idaho, Trump’s federal tax cuts will cost the state an estimated $155 million in 2026, and $175 million in 2027, according to the governor’s office.“We’re stealing from Peter to pay Paul,” Idaho State Representative Jordan Redman said. “It’s put us in a predicament where now we’re trying to figure out, ‘Ok, what programs do we keep? What programs do we cut?’”Idaho State Senator Jim Guthrie told Politico that his constituents weren’t convinced that the short-term benefits of Trump’s tax cuts outweighed the cost of services stripped by shrinking budgets.“The feedback I’m hearing from citizens is that extra few bucks on their [return] at the end of the year, because of the taxes they didn’t have to pay, comes secondary to wanting us to take care of the things that government needs to be invested in,” Guthrie said. “Which is your infrastructure and your roads and bridges and schools and also your Medicaid population.”In Iowa, Trump’s tax cuts have gutted an additional $350 million from a state that was already facing a $1 billion hole in its budget, the Iowa Legislative Services Agency told Politico.In Indiana, federal tax cuts on tips and overtime will cost the state an estimated $251 million in tax revenue in 2026. In Arizona, taking on the full federal tax code could cost an estimated $381 million in 2026. In Missouri, Republican House Budget Committee Chair Dirk Deaton proposed an approximately $51.5 million reduction to childcare subsidies. “We’re faced with hard decisions,” he said during a hearing earlier this month. “It is what it is.”Trump’s federal spending bill is sapping state services’ budgets at the same time as the president’s disastrous, and increasingly expensive, war in Iran has driven prices up where they will likely stay.