Here’s what’s in Trump’s GOP megabill and how it will affect Texans

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

---

After months of intense back-and-forth negotiations, on-the-floor haggling and threats to tank the legislation, Republicans’ massive tax and spending bill is heading to President Donald Trump’s desk to become law.

The wide-ranging megabill is the vehicle for much of Trump’s domestic policy agenda for his second term in the White House, with major changes in health care, immigration and tax policy that are sure to touch nearly every American. Here are the major ways Texas will be affected.

ACA and Medicaid

Over 300,000 Texans could lose their health insurance once the Medicaid changes passed by Congress take effect in 2027.

Medicaid, a federal-state health insurance program for low-income and disabled people, insures over 4 million Texans. The federal government paid for nearly two-thirds of the program’s $57 billion costs in Texas during the 2023 fiscal year, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy organization. Using estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, KFF projects that Texas stands to lose 10% of its federal Medicaid funds over the next decade, or $39 billion.

The cuts could be particularly potent in the Rio Grande Valley, which has an outsized number of Medicaid recipients, and in rural areas, where hospitals rely on Medicaid payments. Texas already has the highest uninsured rate in the nation.

Beyond Medicaid, the bill makes it harder to enroll in coverage through Affordable Care Act marketplaces and allows for the expiration of Biden-era enhanced premium tax credits that lower out-of-pocket costs for people with ACA marketplace coverage. Because Texas is among the 10 states that have never expanded Medicaid under the ACA, its residents rely heavily on marketplace coverage and the soon-to-expire tax credits.

Taken together, KFF estimates that the megabill’s provisions will lead to 1.7 million Texans losing their coverage, adding to the nearly 5 million children and adults under 65 who currently lack health insurance.

The GOP megabill also imposes national work requirements on Medicaid for the first time in the program’s history — but only for enrollees in states that have expanded Medicaid, meaning they will not apply to existing Texas Medicaid recipients.

Before the Senate passed the bill this week, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in a floor speech that the work requirements would strengthen Medicaid for its intended recipients — children, the disabled and pregnant women.

“It’s not fair to the taxpayer to have them subsidize people sitting on the couch playing video games all day when they can contribute to their community and their family,” he said.

Texas Democrats have homed in on Medicaid cuts as the most devastating portion of the bill.

“You’re talking about a health care disaster that is going to take place — not just in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but in every major metropolitan area in the state,” said Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth. “When you add that on top of the rural hospitals that are going to close and the smaller areas in Texas, it’s going to create a health care nightmare scenario.”

SNAP

The Republican bill also includes deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously known as food stamps.

But the size of Texas’ SNAP cut is up in the air, dependent on how often the state errs in over- or underpaying benefit recipients.

Under the bill, states will have to cover a portion of SNAP benefits — which are currently paid for by the federal government in full — based on the percentage of erroneous payments made. States with an error rate under 6% will not have to share the cost, while states above that will be on the hook for escalating costs tied to their error rate.

Texas logged an error rate of 8.3% in fiscal 2024 — meaning that, had the law been in place, the state would have been responsible for 10% of the cost of SNAP benefits, or $716 million per year, according to the North Texas Food Bank.

The SNAP benefit cut is scheduled to kick in fiscal 2028, unless Texas’ error rate falls under 6 percent. States with the highest rates of over- or underpayments — anything above 13.3% can delay the onset of the cost sharing, a last-minute provision included to win the support of Sen. Lisa Murowski, R-Alaska

In addition, Texas will now need to pay for 75% of the administrative cost of running the SNAP program, up from the current 50% rate. Feeding Texas, the statewide network of food banks, estimates that the new arrangement will cost the state $89.5 million annually.

Republicans also tightened SNAP work requirements in the bill. Previously, recipients over age 52 and those with children under 18 in their house were exempted from having to meet such requirements. Now, able-bodied Texans between the ages of 52 and 65 and those with children over 14 must prove they are working at least 80 hours per month to qualify for benefits.

Immigration and the border

Among the top priorities for Texas members was securing money to reimburse the state for the billions it spent on immigration enforcement along the southern border under the Biden administration. That money is now poised to flow to Texas after making it into the bill’s final draft.

Gov. Greg Abbott, who spearheaded the state’s multibillion-dollar border security program known as Operation Lone Star, has been lobbying Trump and lawmakers for federal dollars since Biden left office in January.

Texas’ GOP delegation at first pushed congressional leaders to include $12 billion in reimbursements for states that spent money on border enforcement. Cornyn secured an additional $1.5 billion in the Senate version, upping the available grants to $13.5 billion. The rules for this pot of money ensure that Texas has the largest claim to the funds of any state.

Apart from these grants, GOP lawmakers gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement nearly $30 billion to revamp its workforce and equipment, with the goal of speeding the agency’s rate of deportations — a hallmark Trump campaign pledge.

The reconciliation bill also puts billions into new surveillance technology and construction of a wall along the southern border.

Clean energy

The bill rolled back several key provisions of former President Joe Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, which created tax credits for clean energy projects to spur industry investment.

Those subsidies will be phased out under a provision that reserves the tax credits only for solar and wind projects that are up and running by the end of 2027. Projects that start construction within a year of the law’s enactment — including those that become operational post-2027 — also will remain eligible.

Several Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin, wanted to see the credits abolished immediately. Roy claimed that clean energy cannot reliably power Texas’ grid, as some energy generators, such as solar panels and wind turbines, can only produce electricity in favorable weather conditions. He also said the credits subsidize foreign manufacturers whose renewable energy products dominate the American market.

Clean energy advocates say any cuts are bound to hamper the Texas labor market, as workers on renewable projects could be fired as their employers’ tax incentives disappear. With Texans’ energy demand expected to skyrocket in the next decade, supporters say clean energy could quickly and cheaply fill in the gaps.

Tax cuts

The centerpiece of the Republican megabill is the extension of an array of income tax cuts from the 2017 tax-cut package Trump signed into law during his first term.

Set to expire at the end of the year, the cuts were permanently enshrined in the bill, allowing most Americans to continue benefiting.

Republicans on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee estimate that a family of four earning the median income in Texas — $75,780 — would have seen its tax bill rise by $1,550 if the 2017 cuts had expired and tax rates had reverted to their Obama-era levels.

Independent analyses of the bill have found that its benefits will mostly flow to the wealthy, while tax savings for the lowest earners will be largely offset by benefit cuts.

A state-by-state analysis by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, found that the top 1% of Texans — or those making over $806,800 — will see the biggest share of the tax cuts. Those top earners will save 3.4%, or an average of $114,680 per year, on their federal income tax due to the passage of the bill.

The richest Texans will receive a larger average tax cut than their top one percent counterparts in all but two other states, according to the ITEP analysis.

Though the bill’s tax-cut provisions largely focused on preserving existing cuts, Republicans also created a host of new temporary tax relief programs aimed at workers and seniors. Texans who work in roles that traditionally receive tips will get to claim a deduction of up to $25,000 — a priority of Sen. Ted Cruz — through 2028. Those earning overtime can deduct up to $12,500 through the same time period, with lesser deductions for high earners.

And seniors can add $6,000 to their standard deduction, also through the 2028 tax year.

Trump accounts

Born out of a late-night poker game last year, Cruz championed the idea of “Trump accounts,” a provision included in the bill that will seed $1,000 in a tax-deferred investment account for nearly every child born in America in 2025 and beyond. As each recipient ages into adulthood, family, friends and nonprofits will be able to contribute up to $5,000 annually. Once they reach 18, the beneficiaries will be able to access half the funds for limited purposes — such as educational expenses, starting a small business or placing a down payment on a home. They can withdraw the rest once they reach age 31.

To accrue wealth, the account will be pegged to a broad stock index that has yet to be determined. Assuming an average market growth of 7% per year, the accounts will be worth anywhere from $3,500 to $170,000 after 18 years, depending on yearly contribution amounts.

Children born between 2025 and 2028 will be automatically enrolled in the program via their parents’ tax returns as part of the initiative’s pilot program. It is set to cost about $3 billion a year.

Cruz views the new accounts as a way to sell the next generation of American children on the free-market system.

“It gives every kid some skin in the game,” he said in an interview with The Texas Tribune earlier this month.

Pell Grant program

The megabill narrowly avoided cuts to the Pell Grant that would have devastated nearly half a million Texas students who depend on the aid to pay for college.

The House initially proposed stricter requirements to qualify for the Pell Grant, which helps cover costs for low-income students and is the largest source of grant aid in Texas. Students would have had to take more college credits each semester to get the full award, and students who are enrolled less than half-time would have lost access to the aid entirely.

In the end, the Senate stripped those changes after college access advocates sounded alarms about the educational barriers they would have raised.

The bill does prevent students from qualifying for the Pell Grant if their college already covers the full cost of attendance. Many schools across Texas offer so-called "promise programs" that cover tuition and fees after Pell grant kicks in.

Republicans on Capitol Hill also extended Pell Grants to short-term workforce training programs, which can last just eight to 15 weeks. Some GOP members tried to make unaccredited training programs eligible for the aid, but the proposal was quashed by the Senate parliamentarian.

Incentives for K-12 scholarships

The legislation also includes one of Cruz’s priorities: annual tax credits for people who donate to nonprofits that give scholarships to elementary and secondary school students — a framework supporters call “school choice” and that is similar to private school vouchers.

To comply with Senate parliamentary rules, Cruz’s original proposal was scaled back so it could pass the chamber with a simple majority rather than the typical 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster.

Under the provision, donors will receive a tax break equal to the amount they give to K-12 scholarship-granting organizations, including those that help students pay to attend private schools. The credit will max out at $1,700 annually, down from an earlier cap of 10% of the donor’s income, and states will get to opt in, meaning Democratic-controlled states could decline to participate.

This caveat, which was added in Senate negotiations, almost certainly sets the stage for another round of political fights in states wary of incentivizing private school attendance with public dollars.

Despite the trepidation, Cruz touted the measure repeatedly, calling school choice the “civil rights issue of the 21st century.”

Moving the Space Shuttle Discovery

Another provision secured by Cornyn requires the NASA administrator to consider moving the Space Shuttle Discovery from its current home in Virginia to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

In 2010, the NASA Authorization Act mandated the four now-retired space shuttles be gifted to cities with ties to their orbital missions. None were allocated to Houston in what Cornyn called a political stunt by the Obama administration.

Given the city’s central role in space exploration and coordinating each of the shuttle flights, Cornyn called Houston "the cornerstone of our nation’s human space exploration program” and said it would right an “egregious wrong” to move the shuttle to Texas.

The senior Texas senator also secured an additional $10 billion in funding to support programs at the Houston space center and more money for the International Space Station and NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration program, known as Artemis.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to note that the bill’s Medicaid work requirements only apply to enrollees in states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Disclosure: Feeding Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

---

🎆 During our Independence Day Sale, save $30 on your TribFest ticket.* Tribune members, students and educators save even more! Act fast — Offer ends at midnight Friday, July 4.

*Discount does not apply to Executive or VIP tickets

TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.