{"id":14397,"date":"2025-07-16T18:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T18:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/14397\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T18:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T18:32:09","slug":"vance-touts-tax-breaks-in-pennsylvania-as-he-sells-trumps-big-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/14397\/","title":{"rendered":"Vance touts tax breaks in Pennsylvania as he sells Trump’s big bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST PITTSTON, Pa. (AP) \u2014 Vice President JD Vance<\/a> on Wednesday made the Trump administration\u2019s first big pitch to sell the public on President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping budget-and-policy package<\/a> in the swing political turf of northeastern Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

The vice president, whose tiebreaking vote<\/a> got the bill through the Senate, touted the legislation\u2019s tax breaks and cast Democrats as opponents of the cutting taxes because of their unanimous opposition to the legislation.<\/p>\n

Democrats, who\u2019ve decried the law\u2019s cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, are expected to try to use it against Republicans in closely contested congressional campaigns next year, including one expected to play out in the working class-area where Vance promoted the legislation. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe worked so hard to get this legislation passed to cut your taxes, to prevent big tax increases, to make it easier to save and invest in our own country and our own people once again,\u201d Vance said. <\/p>\n

The Republican vice president, speaking at a machine shop in West Pittston, spotlighted the bill\u2019s new tax deductions on overtime. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow, thanks to President Trump\u2019s leadership, if you work overtime, the federal government is not going to take a dime of that overtime,\u201d Vance said. \u201cYou earned that money. You ought to keep it in your pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also promoted the legislation\u2019s creation of a new children\u2019s savings program, called Trump Accounts<\/a>, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the Treasury Department. <\/p>\n

And with an eye toward the elections next year that will determine control of Congress, Vance urged the crowd, many wearing \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d hats, to \u201ctalk about what the bill does for American citizens\u201d over the next year and a half. <\/p>\n

The historic legislation, which Trump signed into law earlier this month with near unanimous Republican support, includes key campaign pledges like no tax on tips but also cuts Medicaid and food stamps by $1.2 trillion. <\/p>\n

Democrats recently held a town hall<\/a> in House Speaker Mike Johnson\u2019s home state of Louisiana to denounce the legislation as a \u201creverse Robin Hood \u2014 stealing from the poor to give to the rich.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance\u2019s office declined to elaborate on plans for other public events around the U.S. to promote the bill.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how much Trump plans to promote it himself. He told NBC News last week that he would travel \u201ca little bit\u201d to help champion the measure he dubbed the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut honestly,\u201d he said, \u201cIt\u2019s been received so well I don\u2019t think I have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The battle for control of the messaging on the bill could be critical to how well the measure is ultimately received, as some of the most divisive parts of the law, including Medicaid and food assistance cuts, are timed to take effect only after the midterm elections. The bill was generally unpopular before its passage, polls showed, although some individual provisions<\/a> are popular, like boosting the annual child tax credit and eliminating taxes on tips.<\/p>\n

West Pittston, which sits in Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan\u2019s district in northeastern Pennsylvania, is a place where Trump\u2019s populist brand of politics has found a foothold. Trump\u2019s popularity with the white working class has accelerated the political shift in nearby areas, including around Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, turning reliably Democratic areas into contested turf and contributing to Trump\u2019s 2024 win in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

There, and in a swing district around Allentown just to the south, Republicans last year knocked off two Democratic U.S. House incumbents after years of trying.<\/p>\n

Walter Volinski, a 74-year-old retiree from nearby Swoyersville, said he liked that the bill extended the tax cuts that Trump enacted in his first term. He said he hasn\u2019t read the nearly 900-page legislation but he thinks most politicians haven\u2019t either. Still, Volinski said, \u201cI trust Donald Trump and the Republican Party to make this country a great country again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steven Taylor, a 52-year-old truck driver from West Pittston, thought the new law would help people struggling to pay their bills. Taylor, a Republican who voted for Trump, said he liked that the law contained tax breaks on tips and overtime pay. \u201cEverybody\u2019s hurting out here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need a little extra help.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Taylor said he was concerned that his nephew, who has diabetes, could be affected by the legislation\u2019s cuts to Medicaid. \u201cWe don\u2019t know as of yet. But we\u2019re really hopeful that it doesn\u2019t,\u201d Taylor said. <\/p>\n

Maegan Zielinski, a 33-year-old small business owner from Wilkes-Barre who was among a group of people protesting Vance\u2019s appearance, said she worried the law will hurt vulnerable people, including those on Medicaid and Medicare. \u201cI do not like that it continues to support the billionaires instead of the working-class people of America, continuing to give them tax breaks while middle-class America suffers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Debate over the budget-and-policy package is expected to shape the 2026 midterm battle for control of the House, which Democrats see as their best opportunity to block Trump\u2019s agenda in his final two years in the Oval Office. Democrats need a net gain of three House seats to break Republican control of Washington.<\/p>\n

As Republicans see it, they\u2019ve now delivered<\/a> broad tax cuts, funding to further boost border security and restraints on costly social safety net programs.<\/p>\n

Democrats see a law that rolls back health insurance access, threatens the solvency of rural hospitals and raises costs for middle-class Americans while cutting taxes mostly for the rich and slashing green energy subsidies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bresnahan\u2019s seat is a top Democratic target. While Bresnahan hasn\u2019t drawn a challenger in the 2026 election, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has aggressively gone after the state\u2019s Republican members of Congress who voted for the bill, including Bresnahan.<\/p>\n

\u201cShame on these members of Congress who spent the last few months saying, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ll never cut Medicaid,\u2019\u201d Shapiro said during an appearance earlier this month on WILK-FM radio in Wilkes-Barre. \u201cI mean, Rep. Bresnahan told you, your listeners, your newspapers, told me to my face, this was a red line in the sand for him, he wouldn\u2019t harm people on Medicaid, he wouldn\u2019t harm our rural hospitals. \u2026 He caved and voted for this bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bresnahan has defended his vote by saying it strengthens Medicaid by cracking down on fraud, waste and abuse and requiring those who can work to do so. He also said it ensures hospitals in northeastern Pennsylvania will qualify for the funding they need to stay open.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Price reported from Washington. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST PITTSTON, Pa. (AP) \u2014 Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday made the Trump administration\u2019s first big pitch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,12,793,3138,9290,787,6009,8629,2077,13812,13410,3,5631,3234,111,13810,13813,8638,795,3438,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,13811,800,13809],"class_list":["post-14397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-donald-trump","tag-general-news","tag-government-and-politics","tag-government-budgets","tag-government-programs","tag-jd-vance","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-legislation","tag-maegan-zielinski","tag-mike-johnson","tag-news","tag-pa-state-wire","tag-pennsylvania","tag-politics","tag-rob-bresnahan","tag-steven-taylor","tag-u-s-democratic-party","tag-u-s-news","tag-u-s-republican-party","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-walter-volinski","tag-washington-news","tag-wilkes-barre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}