Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will go over the reconciliation bill that has been passed by Congress and talk about how it might affect the Virginia elections this year.
00:13.93
Sam Shirazi
But first, I just wanted to note a couple pieces of news. One is about 11th District firehouse primaries that happened last Saturday. I wanted to note the winner of the Democratic primary was James Walkinshaw.
00:48.05
Sam Shirazi
And then I also wanted to talk about an event that happened Tuesday. This was it was billed as a unity rally with the GOP ticket. So they had an event in northern Virginia. Governor Youngkin was there.
01:00.06
Sam Shirazi
They all spoke. All members of the GOP ticket spoke at the end. They were all on the stage together. frankly, they didn't you know warmly embrace it. Wasn't necessarily the most warm and cuddly event in the world, but they got enough of a shore of unity in the sense of they were on the stage together.
01:19.48
Sam Shirazi
Right after the Democratic primary, there were events with the Democratic ticket. And so it took a little bit longer for the Republicans to get there. i still don't think that they're super close to each other.
01:31.77
Sam Shirazi
and it's unclear if they'll be doing a lot of these events together. It doesn't seem like they're going on any sort of joint bus tour through Virginia or anything like that. So just something to keep you in mind that ah the event did happen. i think it was basically good enough, in other words, that people will stop asking, what when are you going to do an event together? i think you know that question has kind of been settled. I think the bigger question of how much are they actually going to work together, how much are they going coordinate together,
02:01.63
Sam Shirazi
In these types of campaigns, like you need a lot of message discipline. Typically, there are talking points that are sent around, you you want to be on message. I don't know if they're there yet. And I think there's a possibility that particularly John Reed at the lieutenant governor spot is kind of going to run his own campaign, talk about his own issues.
02:19.39
Sam Shirazi
he has a very unique style of communicating because he was a radio host. And I think he feels a little bit more willing to fly by the seat of his pants kind of communication style.
02:30.61
Sam Shirazi
And we'll see if how that fits in with the other people on the do Republican ticket. But I did want to just note that. So it seems like, you know, Republican ticket has kind of, to some extent, gotten their act together. Obviously, we have the Democratic ticket.
02:43.76
Sam Shirazi
And now, It is July, so we are in the middle of summer and the campaign is in full swing for the general election. Things are hot. Both the the Democrats recently had a bus tour, specifically Abigail Spanberger visited various parts of Virginia.
02:59.60
Sam Shirazi
i think with the July 4th holiday, there's been a little bit of a lull in the campaign, but I imagine it will pick up after the holiday. Okay. so Now, let's move on to the main topic for this podcast, which is the issue of the bill that has been passed in Congress. So I will give you a little bit of a background on the bill, and then I'll talk about how it might impact the Virginia elections this year.
03:23.19
Sam Shirazi
I mentioned, the the Congress passed a bill through a process called reconciliation. And so what that means is typically in the Senate, there's a filibuster where you will need 60 votes to break a filibuster.
03:37.15
Sam Shirazi
However, through this budget reconciliation process, the Senate only needs a bare majority in order to pass a bill. Now, there's some pros and cons to that. Obviously, the pro is a party that has a majority, it doesn't need any votes from the minority party in the Senate to pass anything.
03:53.11
Sam Shirazi
The con is you can't pass everything through this system. And typically it's more reserved for things affecting the budget. And there was a lot of talk about the Senate parliament parliamentarian. She struck down a lot of random things the Republicans were trying to put in this bill.
04:07.65
Sam Shirazi
But at the end of the day, they were able to get a budget bill essentially through the reconciliation process. So first, the Senate passed its a version of the bill by bare vote, and then the vice president broke the tie in the Senate.
04:23.40
Sam Shirazi
Then it was kicked back to the House. There was some hand-wringing in the House, but eventually the House passed the Senate version of the bill. And President Trump will obviously sign this bill because he has been the one pushing for this bill.
04:36.51
Sam Shirazi
And he called it the Big Beautiful Bill. Democrats took a while, I think, to come up with a name for it, but they called it the Big Ugly Bill. Obviously, there's a lot of time spent on trying to brand these bills.
04:48.29
Sam Shirazi
I will just generally refer to it probably as a reconciliation bill because that's what it is.
04:53.15
Sam Shirazi
i
04:54.02
Sam Shirazi
single Democrat voted against this bill in the Senate. Three Republican senators voted against it. And so I think it it shows you that there were some issues and even within the Republican caucus with this bill, and it didn't get unanimous support.
05:07.51
Sam Shirazi
And I'll just kind of big picture give you some of what's in the bill. I'm going to try to be fairly balanced in this, although obviously Republicans and Democrats have a different vision of what's in the bill.
05:19.22
Sam Shirazi
the Republican story of this bill is basically there's a bunch of tax cuts. It's going to grow the economy. And the way we pay for these tax cuts is essentially we are making it harder for people to, if for example, immigrants to to get some of these benefits such as Medicaid and SNAP. And then also we are ah cracking down on people who are not working and there's a work requirement in order to qualify for Medicaid to a certain extent. So I think that's all been added to the bill to kind of help pay for these various tax cuts.
05:55.31
Sam Shirazi
And so that's kind of the Republican version of the bill. Like we are cutting taxes and then we are paying for it by getting people who don't need these benefits off of it. And there was a quote from Governor Youngkin that I just wanted to read.
06:10.93
Sam Shirazi
He said, quote, I don't believe that there will be people who need services who will have to go without. And so I think he kind of worded it very carefully, Governor Youngkin basically saying like people who actually need the services kind of implying that the people who lose the services probably don't need them. Now, again, I don't, I'm not saying that's true or not. I'm just saying like that's the Republican version of this bill.
06:32.28
Sam Shirazi
I think a Democratic version, frankly, it took them a while to, I would say, really articulate a clear message with this bill. But at the end, they basically focused on the Medicaid cuts.
06:43.48
Sam Shirazi
So the Democratic message is this is tax cuts for rich people. And the way you're going to pay for it is through Medicaid cuts and other things such as SNAP cuts. And that's going to hurt working class people.
06:56.19
Sam Shirazi
And at the end of the day, this doesn't even balance the budget. So you're going to increase the deficit. You're to cut services. You're going to give tax cuts the rich. This doesn't make any sense. that's kind of the democratic message and i think given the two messages i mean overall i would say just purely from a political standpoint i think the democratic message is just a little bit clearer because all you're saying is people are going to lose their health care it's tax cuts for the rich it increases the deficit like not super complicated the republican message is like yeah i guess tax cuts are popular so i mean you always have the tax cut portion of it but it's like yeah some people are losing the health care but those people
07:31.67
Sam Shirazi
are lazy or they should be getting jobs. And, you know, the Republicans often use this talking point about a 35-year-old guy in his mom's basement playing video games who is on Medicaid, which, you know, I get trying to sell that version of people who are on Medicaid and that's kind of who you're cutting from the Medicaid rolls. But it's also, I don't know.
07:54.29
Sam Shirazi
I don't know how compelling that is outside the Republican base. I mean, I don't know if you're going to reach the average moderate voter by like bashing, know, 35 year old playing video games. Maybe it's popular. Maybe I'm, I'm not underestimating it. But all that's to say is like generally when you're kicking people off healthcare, care even if you think they don't need their that healthcare, care or even if you think they should be working for it, it's not going to be super popular.
08:15.66
Sam Shirazi
So I think a lot of the more moderate members were uncomfortable voting for this, even though they ended up voting, most of them ended up voting for it because of the Medicaid cuts. I think some of the more,
08:26.45
Sam Shirazi
Conservative members of the Republican caucus were uncomfortable because it did increase deficit spending. It also raised the debt limit, the debt ceiling, which the Republicans had often been railing about. And so lot of stuff going on and a lot of political stuff in D.C.
08:40.96
Sam Shirazi
a certain extent. But it does have real world consequences in the sense of people potentially could be losing their Medicaid. And that's how a lot of people in Virginia and across the country get their health care.
08:54.17
Sam Shirazi
I'm just going to go off the Congressional Budget Office estimate about how many people might lose their health care. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the version of the bill that passed through the Senate, roughly 12 million Americans eventually may lose their health care. and in terms of federal spending on healthcare, such as Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, it it might be reduced by roughly like $1 trillion dollars over 10 years.
09:17.50
Sam Shirazi
And so all that's to say is like, there are a lot of changes to federal spending. are going There's going to be less money coming in because of all these tax cuts. Now, some of the tax cuts do go to more working class Americans, but frankly, a lot of the tax cuts go to richer Americans.
09:33.89
Sam Shirazi
So overall, less money coming in into federal government and less money going out because there's going to be a reduction in spending for Medicaid. And, you know, I will say that in the 2017 Virginia elections, Medicaid was a really important issue.
09:51.08
Sam Shirazi
And because Virginia at that time was one of the states that did not expand Medicaid. And after that election, because the Democrats got a big win and I think the Republicans knew where things were going,
10:02.36
Sam Shirazi
in Virginia, Virginia did decide to expand Medicaid. And that means a lot of people in Virginia were eligible now for Medicaid. And so there are a lot of people in Virginia who are on Medicaid who potentially could be losing their Medicaid in this bill.
10:18.72
Sam Shirazi
And i think the main way there might be cuts to Medicaid is this work requirement. you know Obviously, from a Republican standpoint, that sounds good. But it also creates a lot of paperwork, a lot of red tape. People have to certify that they're working.
10:34.46
Sam Shirazi
anytime you create these sorts of additional barriers for people, there's a risk that they don't sign up they either because they aren't working or frankly, they're just forgetting to do it or they don't know how to do it. And sometimes it's not super easy to fill out this paperwork.
10:47.24
Sam Shirazi
And so I think there is a risk that people will lose their healthcare through Medicaid in Virginia. And certainly that's something that Democrats are going to be talking about this year in Virginia, and also just the fact that Virginia is going to get less money from the federal government as a result of this bill because part of the strategy is, you know, the states are going to get less money for Medicaid.
11:07.66
Sam Shirazi
That's how the bill starts saving money in order to pay for some of the tax cuts that it's going to be doing. All right, now let's talk about some of the, I would say, political fallout for this in the 2025 Virginia elections. And as I mentioned, kind of the premise of the podcast in the beginning was that we would be talking about the Virginia elections more so in terms of the cuts to the federal government and the federal jobs that have been cut.
11:35.48
Sam Shirazi
And I think certainly that's still an important issue. And obviously there's been people in Virginia affected by that. But as we all know, over the past couple of months, Elon Musk has basically left the federal government and he's not really doing a whole lot in the Trump world. And he's again, ah ah talked against this bill. And I think that put him not in a great place in terms of ah the Trump supporters. And so at the end of the day, Doge is kind of wrapping up his work. It doesn't seem like the changes are going to be as massive as maybe Elon Musk thought they might be at the beginning. And so think there's been relatively less federal fallout than we might have thought in January or February. Not to say that there hasn't been federal fallout. There certainly has.
12:18.91
Sam Shirazi
think there's certainly been a big hit to the Virginia economy because of what's happening in D.C., more so on the doge and the cutting of federal the spending and and jobs. But also realistically, like that impact is less now. It's less in the news. It's less practically than it was in, I would say, January, February time frame.
12:39.82
Sam Shirazi
So now we're talking about this issue and, you know, again, the podcast is called Federal Fallout. I mean, this is a federal fallout in terms of what's going on in D.C. I mean, this is the first major bill the Republicans have been able to pass through Congress, and it will have an impact on Virginia because of specifically the Medicaid issue.
12:59.62
Sam Shirazi
and the fact that people in Virginia could lose their health care and the fact that Virginia is almost certainly going to get less money for health care from the federal government. And so with all that going on, no doubt it's going to be a campaign talking point.
13:12.36
Sam Shirazi
One, because I think voters will have questions about it. But also, I mean, I think the Democrats are certainly going to be talking about this. I think, frankly, the Republicans, for the most part, have not been super eager to talk about this. This isn't like the thing they really want to run on, like, yay, President Trump passed this bill. Like, that's not at least the Virginia Republicans running this here statewide.
13:32.24
Sam Shirazi
This is not necessarily what they want to talk about. On the other side of things, Democrats certainly do want to talk about this. They want to talk about the impact it has on Virginia. And, you know, just kind of trying to be objective and look at the political impact of this bill.
13:46.11
Sam Shirazi
I mean, on the Republican side, there's a potential that To a certain extent, it energizes their voters because they're like, look, President Trump got this thing done. We're getting tax cuts. It's the general like Republican a message on the economy that people are going to have more money. Well, that's kind of what they typically talk about with these bills.
14:04.40
Sam Shirazi
I think the challenge there is that you know even among hardcore Trump supporters, I mean, I don't know that many people. who are kind of really love this bill and this is the number one thing that they like are really focused on. I think a lot of this bill was written more so in a way that would make traditional like Republican business interests happy. I mean, there are a few bones to maybe more of the Trump coalition thrown in there, but really this is basically the same kind of Republican bill that you know, for example, someone like Paul Ryan might pass with a little bit of changes here and there. And so to that extent, like, I don't know how much it's really motivating the hardcore Trump base who are more kind of populist, more working class voters. I mean, i don't know how much they're all, you know, loving what's going on with this bill. And frankly, the process of passing the bill, i mean, these bills always
14:54.70
Sam Shirazi
go through a crazy process and it just doesn't look great when, you know, the Senate is voting in the middle of night and all these crazy bills and people are switching votes last minute. So I think it just kind of generally is not something that, you know, typically with bills that presidents pass, it's you have a certain amount of political capital and you spend it on the bills.
15:15.42
Sam Shirazi
And so that happened, for example, with President Obama, with Obamacare, like he just really wanted to get that bill passed and he did, but he spent a lot of political capital on it. And so think it's similar here where President Trump really wanted to get this bill passed.
15:28.71
Sam Shirazi
He got passed, but he spent political capital. So all that means is like generally you're not going to be as popular after this bill passes, maybe on the long run or in the medium term, if the bill really does is really popular and it generates economic growth like people will love the bill. But I would say for the most part, i mean, these bills typically are not huge political winners, especially the reconciliation bills, which goes through this crazy process. And there's a lot of random stuff in there and it's hard to explain to voters. So it didn't really help Joe Biden. I mean,
15:59.78
Sam Shirazi
to the extent that they he was able to pass some of these bills to reconciliation, it didn't necessarily boost his popularity even though he he was able to get, for example, the and Inflation Reduction Act done.
16:10.82
Sam Shirazi
And then obviously on the Democratic side, as I mentioned, I think people are going to be generally fired up if if, for lack of a better word, if you're the Democratic base voter, you're going to be upset by this. you're going to be upset people are losing their health care. You're going to be upset that rich people are getting tax cuts.
16:25.49
Sam Shirazi
I mean, it's I will say at a time when the Democratic Party is really divided, this is the kind of bill that unites everyone. So it doesn't matter how moderate you are. It doesn't matter how left wing you are in the Democratic Party. and Basically everyone is against this bill in Congress. You saw that the most moderate member was against the bill. The most left wing member was against the bill.
16:44.99
Sam Shirazi
The current Democratic nominee, Abigail Spanberger, she is very much against the bill. So I do think it's a little bit of a political lifeline to Democrats at this moment when they're fighting each other and there's a debate about how moderate the party should be, how left wing it should be.
16:58.48
Sam Shirazi
I think This is the type of bill that unites everyone in the Democratic Party. And I think in that sense, it's a little bit of a lifeline to the Democrats. And it's certainly going to be a talking point on the campaign trail for the Democrats this year in Virginia.
17:10.42
Sam Shirazi
They will talk about all the impacts it's going to have. And as I mentioned, they are also not going to be, the Republicans are not going to necessarily really want to talk about this because this is not the type of issue that that really excites their base. And one thing I noticed at the rally that happened in Northern Virginia, I mean, there were a few different things going on. I mean, a lot of it was talking about, for example, the stuff that happened in 2021 with COVID and there was a lot of, you know, praise for Governor Youngkin and
17:40.57
Sam Shirazi
what he was able to do to lift some of the COVID restrictions. I mean, obviously that is popular among the Republican base, but I just don't know how salient that is in 2025. twenty twenty five But regardless, I mean, that's the type of issue that I think really motivates the Republican base and is something that can get them fired up. I think, you know, tax cut bill passed by Congress is not necessarily like the red meat that's going to get them to show up at the polls in November.
18:06.06
Sam Shirazi
And so, again, I think it's going to be tricky. I think it's going to be tricky for the for the Republicans are going to be asked about questions. Well, you know, do you support the bill? What about the Medicaid cuts? What about people potentially losing their healthcare? care What about Virginia getting less money?
18:19.81
Sam Shirazi
I imagine they're going to say something along the lines of, we support the bill, you know this is something that's necessary, and the people who may lose their healthcare, care you know they should just get a job kind of thing.
18:31.27
Sam Shirazi
Democrats, much clearer message. They can just say, oppose this, it's taxes for the rich, it's cutting people's healthcare, it's increasing the deficit. Just like very clear, crisp message you can, you know and Kuznicki- Three sentences explain why you're opposed the bill, I think the republican story is much more complicated.
18:45.73
Sam Shirazi
Jason Kuznicki- And i think frankly I know I don't think they're really going to want to talk about it I think they're just going to want to focus on these other issues that they tend to talk about. Jason Kuznicki- Whether it's schools or trans issues or immigration or crime, I mean I think that's really going to be the bread and butter of their campaign material this year in Virginia.
19:04.12
Sam Shirazi
and they're not gonna be campaigning, i don't think, on this bill. And so that all kind of sets up an interesting dynamic for November where we'll see how much this becomes the topic. And I think the advantage that Republicans have is by the time this gets implemented, it will not be November, 2025. I think this is a these types of bills take a little bit longer to implement.
19:27.53
Sam Shirazi
So I don't think the impacts are really gonna be felt in November 2025. You know, not to change topics too much, but I do think by November 2026, when there is the midterm elections and there are, know,
19:39.68
Sam Shirazi
competitive races in Virginia in the second district and potentially in the first district, i definitely think those races, this will be a much bigger issue. I think the practical impacts of it, I'm not sure how much will be felt by November 2025, but I do think it will be talked about in campaign trail. I think generally, you know, it gives Democrats perhaps stronger messaging for November, but obviously it also is a accomplishment that President Trump had and he can he can talk about it and the Republicans, if they want to, can talk about being able to pass this bill.
20:13.38
Sam Shirazi
But I imagine, as I mentioned, I don't think that they're going to want to be spending a whole lot of time on this bill. And so for that reason, I think this will be more of a something that Democrats talk about. And, you know, this is obviously going to dominate the news cycle for the next few days. There's also just an open question mark about whether this is going to be the thing that is going to be dominating the news in November. I think given how big of a bill it is, i do think it's going to have more of a long-term impact, and especially the Medicaid portion of it, just because that is more of a state issue and it's just something that, you know, it really does affect Virginia directly in terms of less money coming down to Virginia. So I think this will be something, a federal fallout that will be with us the rest of the campaign.
20:57.71
Sam Shirazi
And maybe now that some of the cuts with Doge and all that stuff is has quieted a little bit more, this will start to fill in the gap. And this is kind of the federal fallout that we'll be feeling in the November 2025 Virginia elections.
21:12.73
Sam Shirazi
i I talked about the name of the podcast is Federal Fallout, and it wasn't just focused on Doge. I think that that part of the reason these elections in Virginia are so impacted by what's going on in D.C. is things just keep happening, especially the first year of a president's administration. There's always things they want to get done.
21:30.74
Sam Shirazi
There's just a lot of stuff that's happening in D.C. and that always trickles down to the virginia Virginia elections because we are right across the river from the Potomac. We feel a lot of that impact. And so I think This is going to be an important example of federal fallout, and we'll just have to see how it plays out on the campaign trail. And i think it's going to be interesting to see how the candidates respond to what's going on.
21:51.69
Sam Shirazi
know i don't want to pretend like this is going to be the only issue or this is going to be the dominating issue, but I do think given that the bill passed, I think it's going to be important. It's important for us to keep track of it. And yeah I'll certainly do that along with the many other things going on this year in Virginia. so Anyways, busy busy as always on the Virginia elections. I will keep tracking it. i Hope everyone had a good July 4th, and I will join you next time for federal fallout.
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