Fairfax County Democrats are going on the offensive over the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” calling the legislation a “betrayal” that will hurt Virginians.
Speaking last Thursday (July 10) at a virtual roundtable, three local lawmakers took aim at the nearly 1,000-page budget reconciliation bill, which was signed into law on July 4.
“This is not a beautiful bill at all,” state Sen. Saddam Salim (D-37) said. “This is a bill that’s going to cripple a lot of us, especially in Virginia.”
The sweeping bill, which narrowly passed both chambers of the U.S. Congress, stands to reduce tax revenues by more than $4 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
Among other items, funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will increase tenfold to nearly $100 billion by 2029. An additional $150 billion was also allocated to defense funding.
But that spending is going to be offset by cuts to a variety of other government programs. More than $1.2 trillion is being reallocated, primarily from current Medicaid and SNAP funding.
Among all the forthcoming cuts, the subject drawing the most concern is health care, and whether or not drastic changes will come for Northern Virginians.
“This is a life-and-death issue for many, many Americans. It is not abstract,” Braddock District Supervisor James Walkinshaw said. “So, it is incumbent on us as Democrats to go to the American people and explain just how much of a betrayal this bill is.”
Walkinshaw, who is campaigning to replace his longtime mentor, the late Rep. Gerry Connolly, in Congress, said the bill “increases red tape” and implements “arbitrary requirements,” ultimately making it harder for Americans to access Medicaid and other programs.
Among other changes, the adopted bill will require adults to work at least 80 hours per month to receive coverage through Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act marketplace, and states must reevaluate the eligibility of all adults every six months, starting at the latest in 2027.
Though an analysis on the final legislation has yet to be released, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in late June that a version passed by the Senate Budget Committee would increase the number of uninsured people nationwide by 11.8 million, according to the health policy research organization KFF.
“I spent more than a decade watching Republicans in Congress, and if there is one thing that motivates them above all else, it is cutting taxes for the very wealthy and taking health care from working people,” Walkinshaw said. “Fundamentally, that’s what this bill does.”
Del. Vivian Watts (D-39), who chairs the House Finance Committee in Richmond, noted that two-thirds of the bill focuses on taxes, but some of the items really aren’t necessary.
A provision that allows tipped workers to take a $25,000 deduction on their income taxes aims to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist, Watts argued. More than a third (37%) of tipped workers earn little enough that they already don’t need to pay federal income taxes, according to one analysis.
“I spent seven years working my way through college as a waitress [and] I can assure you — and I’ve checked it with several restaurants recently — in all levels of restaurants, most don’t declare cash tips,” Watts said. “Therefore they’re already tax free, so only about 60% of those who get tips will get any break.”
Watts also noted that Virginia stands to lose quite a bit in tax revenue from immigrants, claiming that Virginia’s amount of deportations exceeds most other states.
According to the New York Times, ICE arrests in Virginia have increased this year by 350% over 2024, outpacing the growth in states like California and Texas. Most of the nearly 3,000 arrests over the first five months of 2025 occurred in Northern Virginia and the Richmond area, with Fairfax County seeing about twice as many as any other county.
“These working immigrants are paying taxes,” Watts said. “They have a social security number. They’re paying taxes, and those will go off the books.”
