WASHINGTON — Republicans on Capitol Hill are drafting legislation that would cut federal funding for critical health and food safety programs, essentially asking the nation’s 50 states to do more for the poor or show them the door. 

For a surprising number of GOP lawmakers, it could end up as their problem. Several House and Senate Republicans are running or considering running for governor, meaning they could wind up having to implement their own legislation. In awkward interviews on Capitol Hill, they said they would be up to the task. 

“If I run, and if I get to do that, that’d be the best, most fun I can ever — the changes that were made would benefit South Carolina,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a potential gubernatorial candidate, told HuffPost. “It’d be an honor to do it.” 

Norman is a member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of Republicans that pushed for the deepest possible cuts. Other potential candidates for governor also sounded optimistic, but at the same time more realistic about the bill’s fiscal impact on states. 

“You can do more with less. You can accomplish more with less. And we need to,” Rep. Dan Mueser (R-Pa.), who is mulling a run, said this month. He lamented that Pennsylvania has placed poorly in rankings of states. “Once the Pennsylvanian people realize that, like, ‘Wow, we got nowhere to go but up.’ That, to me, is an opportunity.”

The legislation, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is still under construction, with President Donald Trump demanding it on his desk by July 4. The bill would cut Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to offset part of the cost of trillions in tax cuts that especially benefit rich households. States would have less flexibility in how they finance their portion of Medicaid costs, and for the first time ever they might have to pick up part of the cost of SNAP benefits. The proposals were designed to encourage governors to kick people off the programs.

U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) (left), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and others while celebrating the 2025 NCAA men’s basketball Champion Florida Gators in the East Room of the White House on May 21 in Washington, D.C. Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who announced his governor bid in February, said the states, which typically balance their budgets every year, need to help Congress shore up the federal government’s finances. 

“Look, the truth is, every state is going to have to come to grips with this, just like my colleagues here on the Hill. Washington cannot borrow this money at this pace. We simply can’t,” Donalds told HuffPost. “If we’re going to continue these programs the way they are, states are going to have to pick up more and more of the dollars. It’s that simple.”

(Despite their rhetoric about fiscal responsibility, the spending cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill are dwarfed by the tax cuts, meaning the legislation would cause the federal government to borrow even more money, expanding the federal deficit and national debt.) 

The legislation is unpopular in recent polls, with majorities of voters either indifferent or hostile, and only 10% of voters favoring Medicaid cuts in a survey by Quinnipiac University. 

Sam Newton, the communications director of the Democratic Governors Association, said the legislation will be a huge vulnerability for Republican governor candidates. The DGA warned Republicans last month it would be “impossible” for states to backfill the federal cuts. 

“The fact that Republicans in Congress are pushing these huge cuts to Medicaid, is not only an issue for the Republicans voting for it, but it’s going to be a vulnerability for every Republican candidate across the country who supports it,” Newton said. 

Republican governors, for their part, said in May they’re united behind the bill in a letter to President Trump that entirely focused on the bill’s extra funding for immigration enforcement. 

In the early days of the legislative process, state and local governments warned the potential changes would create a major challenge. 

“Policy changes that mandate specific eligibility requirements and alter the fiscal makeup of the program threaten Medicaid’s effectiveness and reduce state flexibility in program design,” the Council of State Governments, National Conference of State Legislatures and local organizations said in a February letter to top members of Congress. “Such changes have costly implications, leading to significant coverage losses for beneficiaries and increased medical debt, with unclear long-term savings.” 

Republicans shied away from the most drastic changes to Medicaid’s funding formula that they first considered, but both the version of the bill that passed the House and the one now taking shape in the Senate would still have a big impact. Both would require states to check some Medicaid enrollees’ eligibility twice as often. The House bill would disallow states from increasing taxes on Medicaid providers, such as hospitals and nursing homes, that they use to finance a significant share of their Medicaid spending; the Senate version would force most states to cut their provider taxes. 

But the biggest savings come from new “work requirements,” or limits on benefits for able-bodied adults who are either unemployed or unable to document their employment with a state Medicaid agency. When Medicaid work requirements have been tried in the past, in Arkansas, the paperwork itself proved to be the biggest obstacle to people remaining enrolled, though Republicans insist they won’t replicate the Arkansas experience. 

While the broader bill is unpopular, surveys show people support the idea of work requirements, and it’s typically the first thing Republicans mention about their Medicaid changes. 

“It’s something that you look at polls, 75% of people agree with. And it’s not harsh, and it’s gonna be all kinds of waivers — disabilities, mental anguish, children, grandparents, whatever,” Mueser said, describing reasons certain groups would be exempt from the work requirements. 

Another major hit to state budgets would come from changes to SNAP food benefits. The House bill would require states to pick up at least 5% of the $100 billion annual cost of SNAP food benefits, with higher percentages required of states that have higher rates of erroneous payments. The Senate bill would only impose cost-sharing on states with high error rates.

House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) told HuffPost earlier this year the cost-sharing proposal would be a big change: “That’s pretty difficult to do because most states have balanced budget amendments.”

Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa), an agriculture committee member who is running for governor, said it was simply a matter of making states improve their error rates. The CBO has estimated the House proposal would reduce enrollment by about 3 million over a decade. 

“I just look at anything that we can do to correct the error rates on SNAP and then also, get rid of, obviously, some of the abuse that’s occurring,” he said. “So I think this is a fair way of doing it and, you know, I look forward to seeing how this plays out in the rest of the states.”

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