House Republican leadership unveiled some last minute changes on Wednesday to a massive bill that encompasses Donald Trump’s domestic legislative agenda, including changing the name of a pilot program to honor the MAGA leader.
Among the changes made in the legislation is a proposal to rename ‘MAGA accounts,’ a pilot savings account program for children that would get an automatic $1,000 boost for every baby born from 2025 to 2028, to ‘Trump accounts,’ according to The Hill.
Democrats on the Rules Committee asked their Republican colleagues about the bizarre rule change during a meeting later Wednesday and received no substantive response.
“The reason was to change that to ‘Trump Trust,’” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) said in response to repeated questions from Democrats about the reason behind the change.
Democratic Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (NM) pointed out that the original idea was from Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J).
Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) said that changing the name from ‘MAGA accounts’ to ‘Trump accounts’ appears to be Republicans biggest accomplishment after 24 hours of negotiations amongst themselves and the White House.
Republicans “have spent the better part of the last 24 hours negotiating at the White House. Apparently the president got his way and these new saving accounts will be named in his honor,” Neguse said. “For all the talk of my colleagues, you know, not treating him like a king, it sure seems like you are attempting to do so.”
The last minute changes on Wednesday night came after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revealed the day before that the bill will increase the debt by $2.3 trillion over 10 years. That will trigger as much as $500 billion in Medicare cuts starting as soon as 2026. The bill will also slash nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and food stamps.
Wednesday night’s last minute changes also included a provision to move up the implementation of new Medicaid work requirements from January 2029 to “no later than December 31, 2026″.
