[music]

Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Janae Pierre. Happy Independence Day. This is our one and only episode. Most of the team is out to observe the holiday, and you may be off too, but before you hit the barbecue or head to see the fireworks, take a listen to your news headlines from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: New York City's police commissioner is clearing an officer who shot and killed an unarmed man in a traffic stop, despite a judge's recommendation to fire the officer. WNYC's Charles Lane reports.

Charles Lane: Allan Feliz was pulled over in the Bronx in 2019. When officers found open warrants tied to the ID he gave them, they tried to arrest him. Body cam footage shows Feliz climbing back into the car to drive off. Lieutenant Jonathan Rivera fired a shot, killing him. He later testified that he feared a fellow officer might be run over during the struggle. A departmental judge said that explanation wasn't enough to justify deadly force, but Commissioner Jessica Tisch disagreed, and she has the final say. Feliz's family called the decision outrageous and accused Tisch of putting police over public accountability.

Michael Hill: 4th of July festivities in Plainfield, New Jersey canceled after fierce thunderstorms whacked the area. The town's mayor, Adrian Mapp, declared a state of emergency in light of severe storms. He said in an announcement last night that thousands of residents had lost their power, and the first responders had been tied up responding to emergency calls of damage. The energy company PSE&G says some 21,000 customers lost power in the Garden State. Many of those outages concentrated in the greater Plainfield area. Whether you want to attend or avoid the festivities in New York City today, WNYC's Sean Carlson has details on 4th of July transit changes.

Sean Carlson: Subways and buses are running on a Saturday schedule, though some train lines will have increased service to accommodate people going to the fireworks show tonight. The MTA says you should expect delays on all bus routes in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights, where people will be watching the fireworks. The LIRR is running on a Saturday schedule. Metro-North is on a Sunday schedule with some additional trains to handle crowds tonight. State and local police are stepping up sobriety checkpoints through the end of the weekend. Speaking of fireworks, we got a subway series this weekend between the Yankees and Mets. The MTA says they'll run extra seven trains to and from Citi Field.

Michael Hill: More about that now. If you're still looking for 4th of July weekend plans, the Yankees and Mets, as you heard Sean say, they face off at Citi Field. It's their second Subway Series of the season. The Yankees won the first series back in May, three games out of four. Both teams have been struggling of late. Both are looking to climb from second place back into first place in their divisions. First pitch for today's game at Citi Field is 3:10.

[music]

Michael Hill: We're at 78 with sunshine. Sunny and 83 today. What a night for fireworks. Mostly clear in 67. Increasing clouds tomorrow. Mid-80s Sunday. Monday, a little bit warmer under mostly sunny skies.

Janae Pierre: Stick around. There's more after the break.

[music]

Janae Pierre: Congress has passed a major tax and spending package, handing President Trump his biggest legislative victory yet after narrowly approving the bill on Thursday. Supporters say it delivers tax relief and reins in government spending. New York officials, including Governor Kathy Hochul, warn the legislation could leave 1.5 million residents uninsured and strip $8 billion from hospitals. WNYC's Jimmy Vielkind has been following the bill closely and joins us now to break down what's at stake for New Yorkers. Hey, Jimmy, so what are the broad outlines of this bill?

Jimmy Vielkind: Well, this starts with a bill that passed in 2017, the TCJA. That was a big tax-cutting bill that President Donald Trump enacted during his first term, but this legislation actually goes further than that bill. It extends many of those provisions from 2017, but it also fulfills some of Trump's campaign promises. That includes cutting taxes on tips, reducing taxes on Social Security payments.

As it's doing that, it tries to make up for some of the money the government is losing by also cutting government spending. Two of the places where that bite is the biggest are the Medicaid program, which is a program that provides health insurance for low-income and disabled people, and also food assistance programs like SNAP. Some of it is offset by those spending cuts.

When you take it all together, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that this bill is going to add more than $4 trillion to the deficit. Now, Republicans in the Senate tried to downplay that number, but this increase has really made some fiscal conservatives balk. It's led to some bumps in the road as the legislation has moved its way through Congress.

Janae Pierre: Yes, certainly. All right, let's hone in on the healthcare aspects of all of this. What does the bill do and how does it hit New York?

Jimmy Vielkind: It actually does a bunch of different things. Let me go through some of them. First, it places work requirements on non-disabled people to receive Medicaid. Some states already do that. New York does not. New Jersey also does not. It just makes it harder for people to get Medicaid and also, supporters say, ensures that people are trying to contribute to the workforce and not just sitting at home.

Second, it ends support for non-citizens who get government-subsidized health insurance. Right now, people who are legally present in the United States get some support in tax credits to buy health insurance on the marketplace, those Obamacare marketplaces. This bill would take away those supports. Those two provisions together, New York officials say, it's going to knock one-and-a-half million people off of their health insurance.

Janae Pierre: Wow.

Jimmy Vielkind: Yes, that's a lot. When you think about it, Janae, when you have fewer people with health insurance, you have fewer payments going into the system. You just got less money going into the healthcare system.

Janae Pierre: Right.

Jimmy Vielkind: That's one of the big ways that this bill is, according to leaders of New York's healthcare system, how it's going to have a major impact. There are some other provisions that directly impact Medicaid, which is jointly funded by both the state government and the federal government. The Senate bill cracks down on something that's called "provider taxes." This is used by New York and most of the states across the country. Basically, the state taxes hospitals or nursing homes. It takes that money that it gets, and then it spends it through the Medicaid program back on the hospitals and the nursing homes.

It's a little weird. One person described it to me as a three-card money game. When it takes the money out and puts it back through Medicaid, it's able to get a federal match. Essentially, you take $1, you get another dollar, and then you can give both of those dollars back to the person you took the $1 from, or sometimes you take $0.50 for yourself, and you give $1.50 back to the person you took the money from. Anyway, health care is complicated.

Janae Pierre: Yes. Yes, for sure.

Jimmy Vielkind: The Senate bill would restrict those provider taxes, which is going to bite New York by eventually $3 billion a year, according to a state official. There's also restrictions on other pools of money that New York uses to steer funding to high-needs hospitals and rural hospitals that the Senate bill contracts. All these different things really start to add up.

Janae Pierre: Yes, and speaking of adding, how much money are we talking about here, Jimmy?

Jimmy Vielkind: It's pretty complicated, and I've heard different estimates from different people. Two associations that represent hospitals in New York say the total hit, just the hospitals, mind you, is going to be $8 billion.

Janae Pierre: Jeez.

Jimmy Vielkind: Bea Grause, who's the president of the Healthcare Association of New York State, she says that if you take that money out, it's going to lead to layoffs.

Bea Grause: If you don't have enough healthcare workers to care for the population who's coming in the door, everything stops in the emergency room, so that's an impact.

Jimmy Vielkind: It's an impact for people on Medicaid, she said, but also for anybody who uses the hospital, anybody who finds themselves in that emergency room. Grause's group estimates that a total of 65,000 people in the healthcare sector are going to lose their jobs if this bill passes.

Janae Pierre: Oh wow, that is a very, very high number. What about tax cuts? Any sense of how those break down?

Jimmy Vielkind: Well, a majority of New Yorkers did see their taxes fall in 2018 after the passage of that 2017 law, which is called TCJA. Lots of that relief is going to continue. In fact, Republicans who are supporting this bill, that's what they talk about. They talk about passage avoiding a tax hike. A group called the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy did a whole analysis of the bill.

It's a nonpartisan group. I've looked at their stuff before. It says the total aggregate tax cut for New Yorkers is going to be $30 billion. The average person is going to see almost $3,000 in tax relief, according to ITEP. Again, that includes provisions that were already in place but are now just being extended. I don't think anyone should expect to see your taxes really plummet.

The other thing, though, about this is that the way this bill is structured, the majority of that money is going to flow to people who have higher income and who actually pay the most taxes. ITEP ran the numbers. They found that the top 20% of highest income tax filers are going to actually see 70%-ish of the benefits. It's definitely skewed in its relief toward the upper end of the income spectrum.

Janae Pierre: Jimmy, we hear a lot about the fight over SALT. Talk about that a bit.

Jimmy Vielkind: Well, salt is great. I put it on my food all the time.

Janae Pierre: No, no, no, wrong one.

Jimmy Vielkind: Okay, so SALT stands for state and local taxes, S-A-L-T. This is a big deal in New York and New Jersey because we have state and local taxes. In many places, they can be quite high. Let me break this down. Let's think about olden times, which, for purposes of this discussion, is going to be 2016. In olden times, someone in New York or New Jersey would file their federal tax return.

All the taxes they paid to New York State, to New York City that they paid in property taxes if they own a house, all of that could get deducted off of their federal income. Basically, you're not getting taxed twice. Because you can deduct all those taxes you already paid, you have to pay a lower amount in taxes to the federal government. New York was really a big winner with this provision, as well as other places, including California, basically blue states.

That 2017 bill that they passed under Trump's first term, it capped those deductions at $10,000. All of a sudden, people who were writing off $100,000, they could only write off $10,000. That means that their federal taxes went up. This was a really, really big deal in places like Long Island or in the Lower Hudson Valley, Westchester and Rockland counties. Representatives in those areas, members of Congress, they have been screaming about this for the last eight years.

In this bill, they had their chance. They used this as leverage. They pushed to raise that $10,000 cap up to $40,000. They say that will provide relief to most of the taxpayers in their district. On the other hand, there are lots of people who have Medicaid, who are perhaps going to see their health care lost as a result of this bill. It's really resulted in a lot of immediate pressure. Many marginal Republicans are already in the crosshairs of Democrats. What we're hearing from Democrats is that they plan to use this bill and its provisions as a major point of attack going forward.

[music]

Janae Pierre: That's WNYC's Jimmy Vielkind. Thanks, Jimmy.

Jimmy Vielkind: Thanks, Janae.

Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening to NYC NOW from WNYC. I'm Janae Pierre. Enjoy the holiday weekend.

[music]

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.