GA’s Buddy Carter says he won’t consider restoring Medicaid money to avert shutdown

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U.S. Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter presides over Georgia’s First District.

Credit: Courtesy of buddycarter.house.gov

U.S. House Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) told The Telegraph in an exclusive interview Friday that he wouldn’t agree to Democrats’ demands to restore Medicaid funding to avoid a government shutdown.

Carter also advocated for the plan from President Donald Trump’s administration to consider cutting federal workers if there is a shutdown. He said a memo from the White House Office of Budget Management telling federal agencies to prepare to reduce their workforces in the event of a government shutdown will reduce wasteful spending.

The remarks come as Congress tries to agree on a bill to avoid a funding gap, which would kick in Tuesday if no agreement is reached. The House passed a bill Tuesday that would keep the government open through Nov. 21, but it doesn’t have the necessary votes to clear the Senate.

Democrats are demanding that whatever funding bill is passed walk back cuts to Medicaid that were made in July as part of Trump’s spending and tax bill — colloquially known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill," though Trump has attempted to rebrand it in recent weeks.

Congressional Democrats are also demanding an extension of billions of dollars of Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies, which are set to expire in December. According to reporting by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia hospitals, doctors and other health care providers could stand to lose $3.7 billion in revenue next year if the subsidies aren’t renewed.

Carter represents Georgia’s 1st Congressional District, which covers the southeastern-most portion of the state.

Carter says he won’t compromise on Medicaid cuts

Carter — who is a part of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health — said he would not consider restoring health care money to earn Senate Democrats’ votes on the stopgap funding.

“What we did is, simply, save that program, stabilize that program,” Carter said. “It is a safety net program meant for the most vulnerable in our society.”

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut Medicaid spending by about 15% and placed more stringent work requirements on recipients, asking them to present proof of employment. It also makes it easier to lose benefits, and harder to re-enroll.

Carter said that the funding cuts were necessary in order to remove undocumented immigrants from the program. Carter claimed around 1.4 million undocumented immigrants were enrolled in Medicaid at the time of the One Big Beautiful Bill’s passage, citing statistics from the Congressional Budget Office.

The Congressional Budget Office did put out a report in June on the potential impacts of the changes to Medicaid with that statistic, but did not explain how it arrived at that number.

Experts have questioned the accuracy of that report. Leonard Cuello, a professor and researcher with Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, said the statistic that 1.4 million undocumented immigrants are on Medicaid is “unequivocally false."

Cuello said the statistic is likely the number of immigrants who will lose health care due to reductions in state health care programs, which come from state budgets instead of federal Medicaid money.

Carter insisted the numbers were accurate, and said the changes to Medicaid are necessary to continue the program for those who need it most.

“What we did in the One Big Beautiful Bill is save Medicaid, it makes it better for those who truly need it,” Carter said.

Carter says cuts to federal workforce will prevent ‘Waste, fraud, and abuse’

Carter also stood behind a memo from the White House telling federal agencies to prepare plans to lay off employees if the government hits a funding lapse.

It’s a switch up from previous shutdowns, when federal workers were furloughed until Congress reached an agreement to restore funding.

Carter said the move is to reduce wasteful spending by the government, a point that has been echoed by Trump and Republicans the last several months as they push to reduce the size of the federal workforce.

“There’s a lot of excess out there, and that’s what the administration is trying to eliminate,” Carter said.

According to numbers from the Congressional Research Service, in 2024, Georgia was home to more than 81,000 federal employees. In Georgia’s 1st District, about 5% of workers were federal employees.

According to the memo, there are “ample resources to ensure that many core Trump Administration priorities will continue uninterrupted.” Programs that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities” will be subject to layoffs.

When asked what those priorities are, Carter was unable to give an answer and declined to comment further.

Carter said that he feels sure the Trump administration will consider re-hiring federal workers after a potential shutdown, but hesitated to guarantee that laid off employees’ jobs will be safe.

“We’re going to make sure that we appreciate federal workers, but at the same time, we all know there’s a lot of excess out there, and that’s what the administration is trying to eliminate,” Carter said.

Carter emphasized that there would be other work opportunities for laid off federal workers in his district.

“We need workers, and I don’t think they’ll have any trouble whatsoever finding jobs in the 1st District,” Carter said.

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Macon Telegraph.