At 6:54 a.m. this morning – after several days of political wrangling and an all-nighter House voting session – House Republicans successfully pushed through their enormous “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which would make sweeping changes to Medicaid, tax policies, food stamps, the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap, and much more.
New Jersey’s three Republicans all voted in support.
In the months and weeks leading up to the bill, the House’s razor-thin Republican majority had wrestled with what to include in the bill, beyond some baseline priorities like increasing border security funding and enshrining many of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Those negotiations continued right up to the last minute, with the final bill text only being released a few hours before it was passed this morning.
Among those who drew red lines on what they would and wouldn’t support were two New Jersey congressmen, Reps. Tom Kean Jr (R-Westfield) and Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis). Kean was part of a small group of Republicans from wealthy blue-state districts who insisted on a higher SALT cap, while Van Drew said repeatedly that he wouldn’t support any bill that made overly deep cuts to Medicaid. (Kean and Rep. Chris Smith also said they wanted to protect Medicaid, but they weren’t nearly as vocal about it.)
In the end, they both got enough of what they wanted to support the bill. Under the bill, the SALT cap is raised from $10,000 to $40,000, allowing higher-income residents of blue states to deduct far more on their taxes; Medicaid, meanwhile, will be subject to a wide array of new restrictions, but Van Drew said last week that he felt they didn’t go too far. (The amended version of the bill makes some of those cuts steeper, including by moving their enactment date forward, though not steep enough to lose Van Drew’s support.)
“This is a strong bill,” Kean said last week in the midst of a marathon Energy & Commerce Committee hearing on the bill’s Medicaid provisions, which include strict new work requirements, firmer bans on ineligible recipients like undocumented immigrants, and other shifts in funding that could force many states to make cuts. “It roots out waste, fraud, and abuse, and preserves Medicaid for its intended beneficiaries.”
In a statement released after the bill passed, Kean credited Republicans with writing a bill that delivers “important wins” for his constituents.
”I stood up for New Jersey every step of the way, even when it meant standing alone or standing against my own party’s leadership,” Kean said, likely referring to the prolonged fight over the SALT cap. “This bill lays the foundation for a stronger, more affordable America for middle-class families in the Seventh District, but the fight doesn’t stop here. I will continue advocating for the hardworking taxpayers in New Jersey until this bill reaches the President’s desk.”
The bill’s support from New Jersey’s GOP delegation marks a notable departure from 2017, when House Republicans passed an Affordable Care Act overhaul and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act over substantial objections from Garden State Republicans. Four of the state’s then-five Republican congressmen voted against the tax bill, which put the SALT cap in place, and three of the five voted against the Obamacare bill; Smith was among the “no” votes both times.
New Jersey Democrats, meanwhile, were unanimously and stridently opposed to the One Big Beautiful Bill. Every House Democrat, including the caucus’s nine New Jerseyans, voted against it – even Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden), who’s still in recovery following a serious gallbladder infection but came down so he could cast his “no” vote. (The bill passed 215-214, with two Republican no votes.)
“This Trump-Republican scam was rushed through in the dead of night for a reason: they know they’ve betrayed the American people,” Norcross said in a statement. “Their cuts to home and long-term care put lives at risk, especially for our seniors. How dare they try to rip away basic rights from the people who we were elected to serve – we will fight back.”
Nonpartisan (and partisan) analysts will no doubt be working in the coming days to evaluate what, exactly, the effects of the bill, including the provisions added or changed at the last minute, will be on New Jersey and on the rest of the country.
One of its core effects, according to analyses by the Congressional Budget Office and others: fewer Americans will have health care coverage. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), the top Democrat on the committee responsible for Medicaid, said that the GOP’s initial version of the bill would cut $3.6 billion in Medicaid funding for New Jersey and result in more than 800,000 New Jerseyans likely losing health coverage thanks to new Medicaid requirements and the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies.
“For months, President Trump and congressional Republicans have been promising that they would not cut Medicaid or Medicare,” Pallone said in remarks on the House floor this morning. “The reality is that Republicans are cutting both Medicaid and Medicare in this bill. They’re essentially repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act. This bill will destroy the health care system in this country, and it keeps getting worse with each GOP amendment.”
The bill also contains a diverse mix of tax policies, many of which, like its “no taxes on tips” provision, are aimed at providing tax relief for the working and middle classes. But one outside economic analysis found that, after including the effects of Medicaid and food stamp cuts, poorer Americans would see their after-tax incomes fall under the bill while wealthier Americans would see their incomes rise.
There’s still a long way to go until the One Big Beautiful Bill is signed into law, including a protracted Senate negotiation practice, after which the House will have to approve whatever changes Republican senators make. (Because the bill is being passed under reconciliation rules, it only needs a simple majority in the Senate, and thus Democrats have no filibuster powers to block it.)
And if it does eventually reach Trump’s desk, expect many more years of debates over the bill’s political and policy implications – especially during the 2026 midterms, when Republicans will be trying to defend their congressional majorities.
Democrats clearly view the bill as politically toxic; a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson said that this morning’s votes taken by Kean, who represents a highly competitive district, and other vulnerable Republicans are a “betrayal of the American people [that] will cost them their jobs.” But Republicans, too, see some political upside to the bill, with a National Republican Campaign Committee spokesperson saying that swing-district Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon)’s vote against the bill is a vote to “raise [her constituents’] taxes, take away their jobs, and undermine our national security.”
This story was updated at 12:09 p.m. with comment from the NRCC, and again at 1:22 p.m. with additional comment from Kean.
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May 13, 2025