The tax law John McGuire voted for in July 2025, after his deciding vote for the House version in May, is financed in part by $28.6 billion less federal Medicaid money for Virginia over ten years, and the Congressional Budget Office finds it gives the richest tenth of households about $13,600 a year.
Room for up to $4.5 trillion in added deficits came from the April 2025 budget resolution, which passed on McGuire's decisive yes. A year later, in April 2026, he joined the majority on H.Res. 1156, whose text promises lower earners, the bottom 40 percent, a 15 percent tax cut.
John McGuire's Votes on the 2025 Tax Law and the Deficit
- The Top Tenth Gains $13,600 a Year and the Bottom Tenth Loses $1,200 Under the Tax Law McGuire Voted For in 2025. Had John McGuire voted no on May 22, 2025, the House version of H.R. 1 would have lost; it passed 215 to 214 with one member voting present. His July 3, 2025 vote for the final law, which passed 218 to 214, followed. In the distributional estimate the Congressional Budget Office produced, as Thomson Reuters reported it, "the top decile will receive a windfall of $13,600 every year," while "the lowest-income earners will lose an average $1,200 in overall household resources," with the Medicaid and SNAP cuts doing much of the damage at the bottom.
- A Budget Plan With Room for $4.5 Trillion in Added Deficits Passed on McGuire's Deciding Vote in April 2025. With McGuire voting yes, H.Con.Res. 14 in its final form carried 216 to 214 on April 10, 2025; a lone switch by him would have produced a tie, which fails. It authorized the Ways and Means Committee to produce tax changes that "increase the deficit by not more than $4,500,000,000,000 for fiscal years 2025 through 2034". The final law McGuire voted for on July 3, 2025, the Senate's rewrite, carries a larger ten-year price tag than the House-passed version, $3.0 trillion against $2.4 trillion, the Yale Budget Lab estimated, and on a dynamic basis the Congressional Budget Office projects the law adds $4.2 trillion to the debt through fiscal 2034; it would also "boost interest rates and thus increase interest costs by $405 billion," the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget wrote of that estimate.
- The Poorest Fifth Face a Small Tax Increase From the Law McGuire Voted to Hail as a Working-Family Tax Cut in April 2026. On April 16, 2026, McGuire was one of 219 members, against 207, adopting H.Res. 1156, a resolution that gave the law the name "Working Families Tax Cuts" and claimed it "will result in a 15 percent tax cut for Americans whose income is in the bottom 40 percent." Counting the law's tax changes, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that "For the poorest fifth of Americans, the average tax change from OBBBA is a small tax increase," against a tax cut averaging upward of $70,000 this year for the top one percent.
What John McGuire's Tax Votes Cost Virginia
- Low family earnings leave 51,000 children in McGuire's district short of the credit he praised. The law's child tax credit, the provision H.Res. 1156 praised, leaves 51,000 children in Virginia's 5th District, 36%, short of the full credit because their families' earnings are too low, Columbia University poverty researchers estimate. The tax law's benefits skip the households in the district that most need the money.
- Virginia gives up $28.6 billion in Medicaid money in a law that sends the biggest gains to the top. KFF's allocation of the Congressional Budget Office's Medicaid estimate puts Virginia's ten-year loss at $28.6 billion, 18% of expected federal Medicaid funding, money that pays for care for the 169,200 Medicaid enrollees in Virginia's 5th District among others.
- Ending clean-energy tax credits could add roughly $250 a year to Virginia energy bills by 2035. The law's rollback of clean-energy tax credits could raise the average Virginia household's energy costs by about $250 a year by 2035, by Energy Innovation's projection as reported by CNBC.
Frequently Asked Questions About John McGuire on Taxes and the deficit
What is John McGuire's record on taxes and the deficit under Trump?
John McGuire's deciding votes in 2025 included the May House passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the April budget resolution that gave tax writers up to $4.5 trillion of deficit room, and he also voted for the final law in July. The Congressional Budget Office says the law gives the top tenth about $13,600 a year while the bottom tenth loses about $1,200, and in April 2026 McGuire cast a yes for H.Res. 1156, a resolution that calls it a tax cut for working families.
Does the tax law John McGuire voted for help working families in Virginia?
Mostly it helps the richest: the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy calculates that under the law John McGuire voted for, "More than 70 percent of the net tax cuts will go to the richest fifth" of Americans in 2026, and the poorest fifth face a small tax increase on average. In Virginia's 5th District, 51,000 children cannot get the full child tax credit because their parents earn too little.
How much does John McGuire's tax law add to the national debt?
Counting economic feedback, the Congressional Budget Office now estimates that the law John McGuire voted for adds $4.2 trillion to the debt through 2034, or $4.7 trillion through 2035, a Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget write-up of the estimate shows; that estimate also has the law pushing interest rates up and adding $405 billion in interest costs.
Last updated: 2026-10-27