Senator Whitehouse warns of $500 billion in mandatory Medicare cuts hidden in Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill

"Republicans took a bank shot at Medicare"

Steve Ahlquist

United States Senator Sheldon Whitehouse joined Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien, Rhode Island Office of Healthy Aging Director Maria Cimini, and dozens of seniors at Pawtucket’s Leon Mathieu Senior Center to highlight the hidden Medicare cuts resulting from the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“I’m here to talk about what I consider to be the three pillars of economic security for most Americans: Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security,” said Senator Whitehouse. “The Trump administration is making a move against each of them. 

We know about the Medicaid cuts because Republicans passed what I call the Big, Beautiful for Billionaires Bill, which cuts hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicaid. Republicans were tricky about it, so they moved the cuts for people until after the next election, so you’re not going to see the cuts until then. 

Who will see the cuts? Hospitals, nursing homes, health centers, and everybody who has to plan for next year’s funding. Women & Infants Hospital is already anxious about what will happen to its finances, and it’s not like our hospitals and healthcare providers are doing great already. There’s already talk about a healthcare crisis in Rhode Island, and these looming Medicaid cuts will make it worse.

“What they’re doing to Social Security is trying to bolex up its operations. They sent in DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] to damage the operation of Social Security, and drive out the people who work there, make the trains run on time, and make the systems work. They’ve messed around in the computer systems, and they're continuing to put pressure on people to leave.

To me, their plan is to so disable the administration of Social Security that at some point, they don’t make payments, even if it’s briefly. Then they say, ‘Aha, there’s been a foul-up in Social Security. We need to take it over,’ and in will come the private equity folks and tech bros. It’s a backdoor way to privatize Social Security - by creating an emergency that you can then send in your private sector billionaire friends to solve. They then get access to all that data about people. They get access to all that money in the Social Security accounts.

“The third one we’re here to talk about today is Medicare. I suspect everybody here depends on Medicare. Now, there’s no mention of Medicare in the Big, Beautiful for Billionaires Bill, but if you know how a pool table works, there’s something called a bank shot. You don’t go directly at it, you bounce it off the bumper. Republicans took a bank shot at Medicare because they know there’s an existing law that says if you run up the debt so much, mandatory cuts to all sorts of things across the board are triggered, one of which is Medicare.

“Republicans added over $4 trillion to the debt in the Big, Beautiful Bill. That number is so big that it triggers the rule that requires cuts to Medicare. They don’t mention Medicare in the bill, but they also don’t prevent these cuts. It is on automatic pilot, which we want to prevent. That’s why people like me are going around the country pointing this out - so Republicans will realize they made a bad mistake and will back off so we can get them to protect Medicare instead of taking this bank shot to hit Medicare.

If Democrats got off their asses, here’s what they’d be doing now

Nine critical steps NOW

Robert Reich

We have endured more than six months of the most despotic regime in American history.

Republican members of Congress have disgraced themselves and the nation by enabling it. They are traitors to the Constitution, the rule of law, and American democracy.

What of the Democrats? Individually, some have shown real heroism. But as a party they are disunited, ineffective, seemingly afraid of their shadows. “Epsteingate” offers a chance for Dems to derail Trump for a time, but it is not a strategy.

What would that strategy look like if the Democrats were bold and united? Here are nine critical steps (adding to those from someone named Pru Lee):

1. Don’t let Trump get away with his lies.

Have a truth squad that responds immediately with the facts and cites sources.

When Trump claims that Washington, D.C., is rife with crime, for example, get the truth out: that its crime rate is actually the lowest it’s been in 30 years. That Republicans have literally defunded the police in D.C. by stealing more than a billion dollars from the city. That Trump is dismantling the FBI and putting corrupt, unqualified jerks at the top of our federal law enforcement.

Point out that red states have higher murder rates than blue ones.

Make sure the truth gets out by repeating it over and over. If it’s not reported in the media, find out why.

2. Plan and announce ways to catch up with what we’ve lost on the environment, human rights, voting rights, labor rights, and safety nets.

Even when the orange Caligula on the Potomac is history and his lackeys are out of power, America will have a huge amount to repair, rebuild, and catch up on.

Tell the nation how you’d make up for the time and momentum we’ve lost. What sacrifices will be entailed. Explain what we must do to get back on track toward a just society, a strong democracy, and an environment that isn’t collapsing around us.

Tell us how you’ll rebuild the government that Trump and his Republican sycophants have decimated. How we’ll get back the talent we’ve lost — in science, health, the environment, worker safety, the foreign service. How we’ll build back morale.

3. Lay out a vision for the future.

Don’t stop there. Give us a vision of the future. Tell us where we could and should be, and how we can get there.

Medicare for all. Affordable child care and elder care. Affordable homes. Universal Basic Income. Paid for by higher taxes on the wealthy (including wealth tax), a tax on polluters, and a smaller military.

Also: All fossil fuels replaced by wind, solar, nuclear, conservation. Profit-sharing with employees. Living wage. Strict regulation of Wall Street including crypto, so we never again have to suffer a financial crisis and bail out the Street.

Challenge us. Tell us the truth. Demand much from us.

4. Tell us what you’d do to prevent this catastrophe from ever happening again.

Publicly lay out the laws and amendments you’ll pass to ensure this never happens again, the systems you’ll tear down, the safeguards you’ll enshrine, the plan to hold perpetrators of human atrocities accountable, the urgent commitment to immediately bring home those “disappeared” into prisons in El Salvador and other countries.

Set out the electoral reforms you’ll fight for to prevent a dictatorship from ever again forming under our very noses. Voting rights. Civil rights. Tell us how you’ll get big money out of our politics, even if it takes a constitutional amendment.

5. Mount an independent investigation.

Hold public hearings based on an independent, civilian-powered investigative coalition. Build a real-time archive of corruption, overreach, and executive abuse. Use experts, veterans, whistleblowers, journalists, watchdog organizations.

When the people now hurling us into fascist hell are held accountable, we’ll need every name, every signature, every illegal order, every act of silence — documented.

You’re not just preserving truth. You’re preparing evidence for prosecution. The more they disappear people and weaponize data, the more we need truth in the sunlight.

Investigate every author of Project 2025, every aide who defies court orders, every communications director repeating lies, every policy writer enabling cruelty.

6. Join the International Criminal Court.

You cannot control what the other side does, but you can control your own integrity. So call their bluff. Prove that the Democratic Party is still grounded in law, human rights, and ethical leadership. Join the International Criminal Court. If you’ve got nothing to hide — join.

Show the world who’s hiding bodies, bribes, and buried bank accounts. Force the GOP to explain why they’d rather protect a war criminal than sign a treaty, why they’re setting up detention facilities in an alligator-infested swamp.

And while you’re at it, publicly invite ICC observers into the United States. Make this administration explain — on camera — why they’re terrified of international law and oversight.

7. Create a digital safe haven for whistleblowers and defectors.

Not everyone inside this regime is a traitor to America. Some are scared. Some want out. Build channels for them to defect — encrypted, anonymous, and protected. Make it easy for the cracks in the system to become gaping holes.

Stop ostracizing MAGA defectors. Don’t push them back into the crowd. We don’t need purity. We need numbers. We need people willing to burn their red hats and testify against the machine they helped build.

8. Aim at the real culprits.

Don’t let Trump Republicans blame stagnant incomes and insecure jobs on immigrants, the “deep state,” transgender people, socialists, or communists.

Tell Americans the real reason why they’re working harder and getting nowhere: because big corporations are monopolizing the economy and they, and the super-rich, have amassed enough political power to rig the game for their own benefit.

Your corporate, Wall Street, and fat-cat donors won’t like you saying this, but you know something? You’ll do far better in elections by telling Americans the truth and stressing the importance of getting big money out of politics. You’ll get more small-donor support, too. And you’ll help stop Trump Republican fear-mongering and scapegoating.

9. Take back Congress in 2026.

Don’t just talk about it. Have a plan, a strategy. Mobilize us to focus our attention and resources on districts and states we have a chance of taking back. Set out measurable goals. Give us progress reports.

Stop Trump and his Republican stooge governors from super-gerrymandering their states to squeeze out even more Republican votes: have Democratic governors credibly counter-balance whatever they do — matching seat for seat, as California is attempting to do.

Recruit people to run who aren’t corporate Democrats or Wall Street Democrats but who know the economic stresses most Americans are facing, who respect working people, who speak their language, who know how to connect with voters. Tell us who you’re considering and why. Ask us for names.

Stop AIPAC and the crypto crowd from spending money on Democratic primaries. They have no business there. Put resources where they’re most needed.

Then win!

**

Unless Democrats begin to take steps like these now, the nation’s peril will only deepen.

Despite assurances, Trump chips away at Americans’ earned Social Security benefits.

Trump’s Continuing War on Social Security

Martin Burns and Mary Liz Burns for Common Dreams

Despite Donald Trump’s assurances that he will not touch Social Security (or Medicare or Medicaid for that matter), his war against Social Security marches on step by step. 

Politico reported last week that “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday framed the president’s new ‘Trump accounts’ as a transformative tool for long-term wealth building and a ‘backdoor for privatizing Social Security.’” 

Not surprisingly, Bessent walked back his comments and Trump defenders put out statements pointing to Trump’s promises to defend Social Security.

While many are quite understandably focused on the macro level, the Trump administration is making it harder for Social Security beneficiaries to access their benefits. 

Last week, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced that beneficiaries will not be able to perform simple tasks on the phone, such as change their address or check the status of their benefits. Instead, people are forced to go online to verify their identity or visit an already-overburdened Social Security field office.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

All of this might seem familiar to you. Earlier this year, SSA announced similar rules only to have to back off after an uproar from Congress and advocacy groups. Guessing that this fleeting retreat offered them an opportunity, SSA put forth these similar rules in midsummer hoping that people were not paying attention. 

Trump’s Dangerous Health Cabal Threatens Patients, Providers, and the Programs They Rely On

Trump and Bobby Junior fill the US Health and Human Services Dept. with quack, loonies and con artists

By Eagan Kemp

 Download the full report 457.3 KB

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is Unfit to Serve as HHS Secretary

Kennedy’s promotion of conspiracy theories and dangerous anti-science views should have disqualified him from ever being nominated for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). 

Even prior to his confirmation as HHS Secretary, his misleading anti-vaccine positions contributed to the dangerous rise of vaccine skepticism, which have had deadly results in some cases.^[1] He perpetuated skepticism about established scientific facts, for example that the HIV virus causes AIDS.^[2] He has touted racist pseudoscience about vaccines and COVID.^[3] His claims that environmental chemical exposures can cause children to become gay or transgender are as absurd as they are false.^[4] 

These dangerous views are just the tip of the iceberg for a man whose understanding of science is completely divorced from reality.^[5] Such anti-science views are dangerous on their own but could be catastrophic when spouted by someone serving as the top public health official in the nation.

Kennedy made clear prior to confirmation that he planned to dismantle the very public health institutions he was being nominated to lead. He publicly stated that he would de-emphasize research on drug development and infectious disease, giving them “a break for about eight years, and instead primarily focus on chronic diseases.”^[6] This would be a dangerous dereliction of duty, given the important role HHS plays in ensuring the American people are safe from infectious disease and have access to safe and effective medicines. Prior to his confirmation, Kennedy also pledged to fire hundreds of employees of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told Food and Drug Administration (FDA) employees to “pack [their] bags,” and said he would like to clear out entire departments of the federal government, including the nutrition department of the FDA.^[7]

Even when Kennedy appears to be critiquing aspects of our broken health care system, like Big Pharma, there is reason to be skeptical of his intentions. Instead of strengthening scientific standards at the FDA to crack down on Pharma abuses, Kennedy has lowered standards and disregarded science in order to tout unproven medications and treatments.[8]

Successful health initiatives rely on public confidence. With Kennedy taking command of the HHS, Americans are presented lies and disinformation at an unprecedented scale that are capable of unwinding a century of progress on fighting disease and promoting public health.

Mehmet Oz is Working to Further Privatize Medicare, Threatening Care for Millions

Oz’s dangerous views on privatization and his massive conflicts of interest should have precluded him from ever being nominated for Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Even before his nomination, Oz already endorsed expanding privatized Medicare Advantage, which would leave more Americans at the whim of greedy health insurance corporations.^[9] This is particularly dangerous at a time when insurance companies and their political allies are trying to further privatize Medicare and seniors and people with disabilities are suffering as a result.[10]

Companies offering privatized Medicare Advantage plans are doing a worse job serving seniors and people with disabilities than traditional Medicare.^[11] Privatized Medicare Advantage plans make it difficult for patients to get the care they need and for doctors to provide necessary care. For example, a report from the HHS Office of the Inspector General found that privatized Medicare insurers were denying large numbers of Medicare Advantage enrollees medically necessary care.^[12] The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that patients with significant care needs, including those in the last year of their life, were more likely to drop their privatized Medicare Advantage plan and return to traditional Medicare.^[13] This indicates that these patients were unable to receive necessary care and wanted to return to traditional Medicare where their choice of provider and access to services are guaranteed.

In addition to providing inferior service, privatized Medicare is also a waste of taxpayer dollars. Just last year, these companies cost Medicare an excess of around $82 billion.^[14] One study found that, since 2007, overpayments to private Medicare companies have added up to more than $600 billion.^[15] If this trend continues, the U.S. could be overpaying insurance companies by more than $1 trillion over the next decade.^[16] Taxpayer dollars are better spent serving patients, instead of lining the coffers of greedy insurance corporations.

Medicare Advantage plans regularly deny needed care, making it difficult for low-resource hospitals to remain open to serve the public. If Oz gets his wish of further expanding Medicare Advantage, it will threaten the solvency of many hospitals, particularly rural hospitals currently at risk of closure, as they would struggle to keep their doors open because they wouldn’t have the consistent funding they need to continue serving their communities.^[17]

At the time of his nomination, Oz had massive conflicts of interest, including investments in privatized Medicare Advantage insurers. Based on disclosures from 2022, Dr. Oz owned between $280,000 and $600,000 in shares in UnitedHealth Group, a major Medicare Advantage insurer, and between $50,000 and $100,000 in shares of CVS Health.^[18] Oz also raised ethical concerns when he appeared to have violated marketing disclosure requirements in promoting the supplement company, iHerb, on social media.^[19] In addition, he previously publicly promoted supplements without sufficient evidence of their effectiveness.^[20] While Oz pledged during the confirmation process to divest some of his assets, questions remain about the extent to which his divestments will be sufficient to prevent ongoing conflicts of interest.^[21]

Oz is now helping enact the Trump Administration’s dangerous agenda, including legislation that would strip crucial health care services through Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act from millions of Americans and use that money to give tax breaks to billionaires.[22] Oz is even planning to make traditional Medicare worse by adding AI-powered prior authorization, threatening access to certain types of services for seniors and people with disabilities.[23] Dr. Oz threatens to take us backward and make health care even more difficult for Americans to access and afford.

Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” Is Speeding Up Social Security Insolvency

The cuts could be as deep as $18,000 per year for a typical married couple, the report found.

By Chris Walker , Truthout

A new report examining the effects of Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) shows that it will cause Social Security funds to be depleted more quickly, resulting in significant benefit cuts for new retirees starting in the next decade.

The analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan watchdog group that provides insight and advice on federal spending measures, finds that there is “only a little more than seven years” until the Social Security trust fund reaches insolvency.

Concerns over the solvency of Social Security have been discussed for quite some time. However, OBBBA accelerates the rate at which insolvency will be reached, the report pointed out, stating:

The law dictates that when the trust funds deplete their reserves, payments are limited to incoming revenues. For the Social Security retirement program, we estimate that means a 24 percent benefit cut in late 2032, after the enactment of OBBBA.

For the average dual-income couple retiring in 2033, those cuts would amount to more than $18,000 in fewer benefits annually.

The bill will accelerate depletion of Social Security and Medicare’s trust funds by a year, according to an analysis.

Trump frequently promised during the 2024 presidential campaign that he wouldn’t touch Social Security. Yet this outcome is exactly what the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget predicted in October 2024, with the organization stating that Trump’s tax and economic proposals would lead to benefit cuts within six years.

New Pell Center poll shows little overlap between RI Republicans and Democrats on the health of U.S. democracy, the economy, and immigration policy.

Dan McKee's approval rating continues to tank

Pell Center, Salve Regina University 

Download full report here. 

Well over half of registered voters in Rhode Island believe the United States democracy is not healthy, though the level of concern varies by political party, according to a new survey from Salve Regina University’s Pell Center. 

The survey was directed by Pell Center Associate Director and Fellow Katie Sonder and fielded by Embold Research between June 16-22, 2025.  It gathered responses from 804 registered voters in Rhode Island, with a modeled margin of error of 3.6 percent. 

Survey respondents are those registered to vote in Rhode Island who voted in the 2024 presidential election. The survey results show large divides between the major political parties, highlighting two very different lived realties between Democrats and Republicans.

Over half of registered Democrats agree that the United States is operating as a democracy, but 80% say it is not healthy and 94% believe we are facing a constitutional crisis. Democrats perceive a decline in the strength of the checks and balance system, which likely bolsters their sense of democratic backsliding. Only one-third (32%) agree the system is strong while 64% agree that country has fallen into dictatorship. 

Republicans, on the other hand, are seven times more likely to agree that our democracy is healthy than they were in the June 2024 Voices of Value survey. Well over three-quarters of Republicans (83%) say policies from the Trump administration have helped them personally and the percent who agree that polarization has increased dropped by 15 percentage points between June 2024 (86%) and June 2025 (71%).

While all respondents tapped disinformation and fake news as a leading contributor to political polarization, just as they did in the June 2024 survey, the percent who believe political leaders add to the schism has increased. 

10 nasty little surprises in Trump's Big Beautiful Boondoggle

Zeros out Planned Parenthood, boosts Medicaid AND Medicare costs, squeezes student loan holders, gives venture capitalists a new tax break and more

By Colin Seeberger, Andrea Ducas and Natasha Murphy

Congressional Republicans passed a radical budget and tax bill—the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—on a party-line vote. Many of the plan’s key elements will increase families’ costs for health care, food, and utilities—such as historic cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as well as terminating tax credits to produce more American-made energy—and are deeply unpopular according to recent survey data. Several provisions, however, remain less understood because they’ve received less media attention or were added during rushed negotiations that took place overnight and behind closed doors.

This article details several lesser-known provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that will increase costs and limit Americans’ ability to meet their basic needs; create a slush fund for Trump administration overreach; and waste taxpayer money.

Defunding Planned Parenthood clinics

The OBBBA includes a provision that would effectively defund Planned Parenthood clinics for one year. The bill would do this by prohibiting any health clinic that provides abortion care (even if that care is paid for privately) from accepting Medicaid funds for any other service they provide.

The Hyde Amendment already prohibits federal funds—including Medicaid dollars—from being used to cover abortion. This bill would go even further and prevent women on Medicaid from accessing any Planned Parenthood services, including sexually transmitted infection (STI) screening, Pap smears, breast cancer screenings, and prenatal care. 

This would be exceptionally harmful to Medicaid enrollees, as the majority of people with Medicaid receive contraceptives (85 percent) and STI services (57 percent) from Planned Parenthood clinics. Losing Medicaid funding would put 1 in 3 Planned Parenthood centers at risk of closure and would take away a vital source of health care for more than 1 million people.

Increasing health care costs for more than a million Medicare enrollees

While President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised not to cut Medicare benefits, the OBBBA blocks implementation of an existing regulation that makes it easier for eligible low-income Medicare beneficiaries to enroll in Medicare Savings Programs (MSPs) that lower Medicare premiums and out-of-pocket costs. 

MSPs make health care accessible for Medicare enrollees, who often live on very limited incomes and few assets. Without enrolling in the programs, even modest medical bills can be unaffordable and basic access to care can slip out of reach. Blocking the regulation would prevent states from streamlining and automating enrollment into MSPs.

As a result, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the earlier House-passed bill (with similar provisions also in the Senate-passed bill) would cause 1.3 million Medicare enrollees eligible for these programs to lose or forgo their Medicaid coverage and, therefore, be unable to access the assistance. 

The Center for American Progress previously estimated that Medicare enrollees eligible for two MSP programs—the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary (QMB) Program and the Specified Low-Income Medicare Beneficiary (SLMB) Program—would be hit especially hard. These programs benefit Medicare enrollees living at or just above the federal poverty level (FPL). 

A couple on Medicare who are eligible for but no longer able to enroll in the QMB, making a combined $21,000 per year, could see their out of pocket costs skyrocket by $8,340. A single Medicare enrollee making only $19,000 per year and eligible for SLMB could see their out of pocket costs jump by $3,300 per year if they are unable to enroll in the program as a result of the bill.

Rhode Island Democratic Leaders blast Trump’s Big, Beautiful Boondoggle

Trump and His Mean-Spirited Republican Congress Destroy Sixty Years of Progress

Statement from U.S. Senator Jack Reed

“Republicans knew this bill is a bad deal for their constituents and passed it anyway.  This bill goes against the self-interest of average Americans in favor of the ultra-wealthy and corporations.  It slashes the safety net out from under hardworking families – taking away health care from millions -- in order to give special interests bigger tax benefits.  Republicans structured the bill so the ultra-wealthy can cash out right away while the little guy and average taxpayers will get stuck paying the bill for years to come.

“During this unprecedented time of chaos and dysfunction, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and miss the latest developments. But the negative impacts of this bill must cut through the noise. Americans must be informed about the consequences of this legislation and they deserve to hear plainly from their elected representatives about how this bill is going to impact their families.

“Republicans are shifting a heavier financial burden onto families, communities, hospitals, and states.  Taking away people’s health coverage doesn’t mean they stop getting sick or can’t see a doctor.  Health costs for everyone will rise.  And it takes away over one trillion dollars in federal funding that states and localities rely on to provide vital services like schools, transit, nutrition assistance and aid to families in crisis.

“This fiscally irresponsible giveaway to the wealthy and well-connected is a debt-busting disaster.  It will cost U.S. taxpayers trillions of dollars in interest payments and Republicans unilaterally approved a record-breaking $5 trillion dollar debt limit increase.  But that’s just debt already incurred – this bill will add trillions of dollars in future debt when it’s all said and done, with little to no long-term benefit for middle- and working-class families. 

“Whatever short-term economic benefits this bill may offer, it will do lasting destructive damage to U.S. finances and young Americans will be forced to pay for it long after Donald Trump is gone.”

Statement from U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

“Trump’s Big, Beautiful-for-Billionaires Bill is one massively destructive piece of legislation.  Cooked in back rooms, dropped at midnight, and fraudulently scored, it increases costs for everyone by walloping the health care system, making families go hungry, and sending utility bills through the roof.  It saddles our children and grandchildren with trillions and trillions of dollars in debt – all to serve giant corporations, fossil fuel polluters, and billionaire Republican megadonors who are already among the richest people on the planet.”

Statement from Congressman Seth Magaziner

“Republicans in Congress have jammed through a bill that guts programs working people rely on to hand out tax breaks to the wealthiest people on the planet.

“The final version will cause millions of people to lose their health insurance, and will increase costs for millions more by slashing Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. It also cuts over $100 billion from SNAP, which helps 40 million Americans put food on the table, and will eliminate good-paying clean energy jobs in Rhode Island and across the country.

“This bill represents the largest transfer of wealth from working people to the ultra-wealthy in U.S. history, and is a shameful betrayal of the basic promise that the government should work for everyone, not just those at the top.

“Today, I voted ‘no’ and I will keep fighting back against cruel attacks on working Rhode Islanders. Despite today’s setback, our fight to lower costs and improve quality of life for working people will continue.”

Cats among five major wins from Rhode Island’s 2025 legislative session

Rhode Island cats celebrate new ban on de-clawing

By Nancy Lavin and Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Photo by Will Collette

The race to the legislative finish line this year was every bit as drama-filled and frenzied as expected. Restrictions on assault weapons got top billing, including on the eight-and-a-half hour marathon that marked the final day of the session, but there was plenty more to crow about and criticize during the jam-packed final weeks.

Here are five wins you might have missed from the 2025 Rhode Island General Assembly. Stay tuned for the losses, coming Friday.

1. Shekarchi zones in on housing

House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi succeeded in his push to boost housing production in Rhode Island for a third consecutive year, with 10 of the 12 bills of his legislative package clearing the Senate in the final days of the session. (All 12 had already secured approval in the lower chamber.)

That includes two bills sponsored by Shekarchi: one to expand electronic permitting and another to amend the state’s building code by centralizing the responsibilities of various officials, commissions, and boards involved in building and fire code permitting.

Other bills passed include measures to allow townhouses wherever duplexes are permitted, require mixed-use zoning in every community, and promote the conversion of vacant or underused commercial buildings into housing.

“Rhode Island’s housing crisis was decades in the making and is taking a sustained effort, over the course of years, to address,” Shekarchi said in a statement Monday.  “I am so appreciative of all of the partners who work with me to address our housing shortage, and this progress is the result of our collaborative efforts.”

Legislation that would have allowed development of vacant state-owned land did not make it across the finish line. Shekarchi described the bill as in need of some “fine-tuning,” pledging to work with the Senate on it again next year.  

Also left hanging by the Senate was legislation that would have eased local restrictions on subdividing large parcels of land, despite having passed in the House on May 15. However, Shekarchi noted that elements of the stalled bill were addressed in one of the successful 10 bills, which sought to eliminate unnecessary red tape and delays in local land subdivision more broadly.

Senate President Valarie Lawson said while there were concerns with the bill, she intends to continue to work with Shekarchi and other lawmakers to encourage further housing development.

2. All rise for AG Neronha

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha’s skilled litigation style persuaded lawmakers to his side on a host of policy changes and added funding for his office for new hires.

Neronha initially sought 13 more staffers for his office, asking for $1.7 million to fund the hires in his fiscal 2026 budget request to Gov. Dan McKee. McKee’s proposed spending plan did not offer any of the money, or additional employees.

Neronha subsequently revised his request, asking lawmakers in the House Committee on Finance for four, rather than 13, hires, funded by settlements his office had won for the states. Lawmakers included an $848,000 allocation of state settlement money for the extra AG staffers in the final fiscal 2026 budget.

Neronha thanked lawmakers for funding the hires in a statement Tuesday.

“The people of my Office show up to work every day with one goal: improve the lives of Rhode Islanders,” Neronha said. “These four additional attorneys will share in that goal, and deliver for the residents of our state.”

Neronha scored wins on several policy changes, too, including a change to state procurement to ban “bid-rigging” by public officials. The Neronha-backed legislation taking aim at McKee’s involvement in “steering” a state education contract to the ILO Group in 2021, passed unanimously in the Senate on the final night of the session, having already secured approval by a strong majority of the House. 

Lawmakers also signed on to versions of some of Neronha’s proposed remedies for the health care crisis, such as using Medicare reimbursement rates as the standard by which to hike corresponding Medicaid payments to primary care providers, and doing away with cumbersome and time-consuming pre-authorization requirements for primary care providers.

Finally, the AG’s office staved off an eleventh hour challenge by House Republicans to his authority over state settlements. GOP lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted during the House budget vote on June 17 to siphon $11 million from the AG’s fiscal 2026 funding as a quid pro quo for what they argued was an unconstitutional overstep of his authority. Neronha had already set in motion a plan to spend the $11 million state settlement from the Route 6/10 contamination lawsuit on pediatric dental care in Providence. 

Speaking to reporters after the June 17 House budget vote, Shekarchi affirmed Neronha’s authority over the state settlement funds.

“If this particular settlement was unfair, the solution is to appeal that,” Shekarchi said. “What we’re doing with the money is helping underprivileged children with health care and dental care is a good thing and I will never be against that.”

3. Republicans at the ready for 2026

RI Republicans outraged at infringement
of this guy's 2nd Amendment rights

The most high-profile victory of the session belongs to those who supported a state ban on assault-style weapons — even if the final legislation did not go as far as some had hoped. 

But state Republicans wasted little time turning “L” on what they say is a matter of Constitutional rights into a potential win for the party and its candidates in the 2026 election cycle.

GOP Chairman Joe Powers initiated the call to action Friday night, declaring it was actively recruiting candidates to challenge the “anti-Constitution, anti-liberty legislators” who voted to limit assault-style weapons in the state.

“We now have a clear, targeted list of every legislator who voted to betray their oath — and their time is running out,” Powers said in a statement. “To every Rhode Islander who still believes in the Constitution — we’re not going to fix this by posting memes or yelling at the TV. We fix it by running for office, knocking doors, and taking back this state seat by seat.”

His call to action has already been met with a flurry of responses — a few dozen potential candidates have reached out to the Republican Party in just the last four days, Powers said Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Jessica de la Cruz of North Smithfield debuted a new “Keeping the Spirit of 1776 Alive” fundraising campaign Tuesday morning, seeking support and donations to retain and boost the Republican’s 14-person presence on Smith Hill.

It’s no secret that state and local Republican party committees have struggled to recruit candidates for state and local office, diminishing their voice in a solidly blue state. Could the contested ban on assault weapons sales change the tides in their favor?

A felon in the White House is making crime legal

Who could have foreseen putting a convicted felon in the White House would turn out like this?

David R. Lurie

After the Supreme Court declared Donald Trump largely immune from prosecution for turning the office of the presidency into a criminal enterprise, and the nation’s voters then chose to reinstall the freshly convicted felon in the White House, who could have predicted he would use his office to punish the law abiding and protect the corrupt?

In fact, both the scale and audaciousness of Trump’s corruption, and of his regime’s assault on the criminal justice system, was eminently predictable.

As House Speaker Mike Johnson recently pointed out, Trump’s corruption is “out in the open.” The same is true of his use of criminal justice system and other levers of government as weapons against his ever-growing list of enemies.

But even the most cynical have been surprised by the Trumpist effort to portray the provision of healthcare to children, veterans, and the elderly as “waste” and “fraud,” as well as Trump’s effort to render those who follow the laws into criminals.

The most vulnerable among us, including immigrants and the sick, are currently among Trump’s primary victims. But the entire nation will soon pay a heavy price for his systematic assault on the rule of law in service of his bottomless desire for corrupt wealth and self-aggrandizement.

Retroactive criminalization

During the campaign, Trump and his cronies declared they would deport the allegedly massive numbers of “criminal aliens.” When Trump came into office, however, he faced a problem: The vast majority of undocumented immigrants are law abiding.

Trumpists, however, came up with an answer: Create fake crimes and thereby turn the law abiding into criminals.

Trump announced the US is “under invasion” by a foreign power in order to invoke the rarely used Alien Enemies Act and justify the summary deportation of supposed gang members to foreign prisons, this despite a US intelligence report concluding there is no such invasion. Then, when courts caught the administration deporting migrants who are not gang members, or in violation of existing immigration laws, Trumpists have prevaricated and outright lied, transforming their purported law enforcement initiative into a fraud.

The administration has also attacked judges and elected officials who have the temerity to question their illegal conduct.

Alina Habba (the parking garage lawyer Trump installed as New Jersey’s acting US attorney) ordered the arrest of Ras Baraka, the Mayor of Newark, on bogus charges arising from his participation in a protest at a private DHS jail, leading to what a federal magistrate judge called an “embarrassing retraction.” After that gambit failed, Habba brought equally flimsy charges against a member of Congress who accompanied Baraka at the protest, asserting that she “assaulted” armed ICE thugs.

Similarly, last month in New York City, an ICE gangster terrorized and handcuffed a crying staffer of Rep. Jerry Nadler after armed agents invaded his office without a warrant.

Trumpists have resorted to inventing new offenses so as to transform law-abiding immigrants into criminals. For example, Trump has declared slivers of land along the border to be “military zones” for the sole purpose of charging migrants with trespassing. The administration has also declared that undocumented immigrants have an obligation to “register” with the government so they can be indicted for failing to do so. They’re jailing immigrants who legally entered the United States under a Biden-era asylum law by retroactively declaring the program to be “illegal.”

Most tellingly, and insidiously, ICE agents desperate to meet the increasing quotas the White House has set for deporting “illegals” have taken to targeting the most vulnerable immigrants: Those intent on following the law and engaging in productive work.

Immigrants are no threat to Social Security - in fact, we need them in the system

Immigration Can Help Save Social Security

By Mitchell Zimmerman

Two-thirds of seniors would lose most of their income if Social Security payments ceased. One in seven have essentially no other income — and if their already modest Social Security checks are reduced, they’ll go hungry.

But Social Security is in trouble.

The number of people reaching retirement age has been growing faster than the number of workers contributing, and Social Security has been running in the red for the last 15 years. The shortfall is projected to drain the Social Security trust fund entirely in just eight years, which could lead to massive benefit cuts.

How can this calamity be avoided? One answer is to lift the cap on income taxed for Social Security. That would ensure wealthier Americans pay into Social Security at the same rate that working and middle class Americans have to.

Another is simply to welcome more immigrants — and stop deporting the law-abiding people who’ve already settled here. Since a growing shortage of workers is a major problem for Social Security, immigrants can be part of the solution.

Sheldon Whitehouse spearheads Dem effort to save Social Security and Medicare

Democrats' bill would extend Social Security and Medicare solvency 'as far as the eye can see'

Julia Conley for Common Dreams

Social Security and Medicare protect tens of millions of American senior citizens from poverty and medical bankruptcy each year, but economic justice advocates have long said the programs would be strengthened and remain fully solvent for as long as possible if the richest Americans contributed more to them—and  two Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to ensure they do.

The bicameral bill, the Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act, was reintroduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), with the aim of requiring people with yearly incomes of more than $400,000 to contribute a fairer share of their wealth to the two programs.

Currently the maximum amount of earnings for which American workers must pay Social Security taxes is just over $176,000.

The bill would lift the Social Security tax cap "to ensure that no matter the source of their income, high-income taxpayers would pay the same tax rate on their income exceeding that threshold," said the lawmakers in a press statement.

No one wants to see how sausage is made

AARP reports that Trump may have backed down on crazy Social Security plan

Social Security Drops Most Restrictions on Benefit Claims by Phone

We'll see if it lasts

Also: why the hell is Social Security using Musk's "X" (a.k.a. Twitter) to make the announcement?

By Andy Markowitz, AARP 

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is walking back a plan to implement burdensome new in-person measures for identity verification that could have prevented millions of older Americans from applying for benefits by phone.

“Beginning on April 14, #SocialSecurity will perform an anti-fraud check on all claims filed over the telephone and flag claims that have fraud risk indicators,” the SSA announced April 8 in a series of posts on X. 

While those callers flagged for fraud risk will be required to confirm their identity in person at a Social Security field office, the agency said that claiming by phone “remains a viable option” for the vast majority of people.

An SSA spokesperson confirmed in an email statement on April 9 that the agency “will allow all claim types to be completed over the telephone.”

“This is great news for older Americans,” said Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s chief advocacy and engagement officer, in an April 9 statement. “We appreciate SSA listening to AARP and millions of Americans about the impact on their lives and providing better access to customer service for Social Security benefits.”

AARP and other advocates for older Americans and people with disabilities opposed the plan to restrict phone service for benefit applications since the SSA announced it in mid-March.

Senate GOP Fuels Medicare Privatization Fears by Confirming 'Quack Grifter' Dr. Oz

Dr. Oz will run Medicare and Medicaid, probably right off a cliff

Jessica Corbett for Common Dreams

Russell Brand, RFK Jr & Dr. Oz posing with a lizard six months ago.

Echoing a party-line vote by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee last week, the chamber's Republicans on Thursday confirmed Donald Trump's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, former television host Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Since Trump nominated Oz—who previously ran as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania—a wide range of critics have argued that the celebrity cardiothoracic surgeon "is profoundly unqualified to lead any part of our healthcare system, let alone an agency as important as CMS," in the words of Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

After Thursday's 53-45 vote to confirm Oz, Weissman declared that "Republicans in the Senate continued to just be a rubber stamp for a dangerous agenda that threatens to turn back the clock on healthcare in America."

Weissman warned that "in addition to having significant conflicts of interest, Oz is now poised to help enact the Trump administration's dangerous agenda, which seeks to strip crucial healthcare services through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act from hundreds of millions of Americans and to use that money to give tax breaks to billionaires."