Wisconsin will receive an estimated $1 billion more annually in federal funds for Medicaid because the state budget includes a change that pre-empts a provision in President Donald Trump’s big bill.
Trump’s bill would have prevented Wisconsin from raising its hospital tax.
But days before Trump signed it, the Republican-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers approved a 2025-27 state budget that raises Wisconsin’s hospital tax from 1.8% to 6%.
The increase will raise some $1 billion more annually in federal matching funds that the state can use to pay hospitals for care they provide Medicaid patients.
Wisconsin’s largest Medicaid program is BadgerCare Plus, which provides health insurance to about 1 million low-income people age 64 and under.
Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin, claimed that Trump’s bill “secured” the $1 billion.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Prairie du Chien) speaks at a hearing in the House of Representatives. Van Orden claims to have engineered the Wisconsin State budget deal that mitigated the Medicaid cuts he voted for. | Screenshot via Youtube
Success has many fathers, but U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden is not one of them. Contrary to Van Orden’s triumphant tweets, he did not “secure” $1 billion for rural health care in Wisconsin. He had nothing to do with the bipartisan state budget deal that was drafted and rushed to completion in order to capture those funds — which, by the way, represent just a fraction of the billions the state stands to lose in Medicaid funds under the Republican mega bill Van Orden approved.
What Van Orden did do was vote to cut Medicaid and Affordable Care Act health insurance, with the result that tens of thousands of rural Wisconsinites now face losing their health care coverage and several rural Wisconsin hospitals are in danger of closing. As he prepared to join the narrow, four-vote majority that passed the disastrous federal bill, Van Orden sent some last-minute messages to Gov. Tony Evers urging him to hurry up and sign the deal Evers had already reached with state legislators. Now Van Orden is taking credit for Wisconsin leaders’ work mitigating the harm he caused. It would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire.
For months, Evers and leaders of the Wisconsin Legislature met behind closed doors to hammer out a deal, even as massive federal cuts to Medicaid, food assistance and other programs essential to the wellbeing of Wisconsinites loomed. Among the issues Evers and legislative leaders agreed on was the importance of getting the budget done before the federal mega bill was signed, so the state could still qualify for $1 billion in soon-to-expire Medicaid matching funds.
Evers signed the budget in the nick of time last week, at 1:30 a.m. on July 3, just before the U.S. Congress granted President Donald Trump’s wish and sent him his “big beautiful bill” to sign on July 4.
Van Orden immediately began taking credit for both budgets.
“I just helped secure $1,000,000,000 a year for BadgerCare and $500,000,000 for rural healthcare infrastructure,” Van Orden boasted on X. The $500 million he claimed credit for was added to the bill by U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and other Senate Republicans worried about the bill’s devastating impact on rural hospitals. Van Orden had nothing to do with it. Nor is the money earmarked for Wisconsin — it’s a nationwide program meant to blunt the blow Van Orden and his GOP colleagues have just dealt to rural health care.
But the biggest whopper Van Orden told is that he somehow led the bipartisan budget deal between Evers and the Legislature.
You know, he poured gasoline around the house. He started throwing matches around, and then he said, ‘you better use that extinguisher.'
– U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan
It seemed weird at the time when Van Orden, on the brink of voting for the federal law that will cause so many Wisconsinites to lose their health care, started shouting at Evers on X to hurry up and sign the state budget.
Now it’s clear that he was simultaneously preparing to vote to take health care away from his constituents and planning to take credit for saving them from the effects of his own vote.
After both budgets were signed, Van Orden repeatedly shared a copy of a letter he wrote to Evers on July 2 emphasizing the “importance of signing the proposed state budget into law without delay.” According to Van Orden, the letter and a conversation he claims to have had with Evers caused the governor to sign the deal the next day.
“Not true,” Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback wrote on X in response to Van Orden’s bragging. “You never personally advocated to @GovEvers or our office to increase the hospital assessment in the bipartisan budget deal until it was already in the deal. And you had zero to do with Gov. Evers deciding to sign the budget before the reconciliation bill was signed.”
What Van Orden did do was to vote for a bill that will push an estimated 30,000 rural Wisconsinites off Medicaid and will take away food assistance from another 90,000 people in the state, 1 in 3 of whom are children.
Van Orden was one of several Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives who expressed concern about the food assistance cuts in the GOP mega-bill — and then voted for the cuts anyway.
Those cuts only got deeper after the bill moved to the U.S. Senate, and the bill’s cost in massive increases to the federal deficit also grew from $2.5 trillion in the House version to $3.4 trillion in the final deal. Still, Van Orden stayed on board, voting for the bill a second time when it came back to the House and sending it to President Donald Trump to sign into law.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan compares Van Orden to an arsonist who takes credit for recommending the residents of the house he torched take steps to put out the fire. “You know, he poured gasoline around the house. He started throwing matches around, and then he said, ‘you better use that extinguisher,’” Pocan said at a press briefing this week.
Van Orden continues to obfuscate. In between doubling down on his preposterous claims and slinging insults at his detractors on social media, the congressman who has been rebuked by Senate leaders of both parties for yelling vulgarities at high school pages claimed to have given Evers a lesson in civility and bipartisanship: “Why did Tony sign the bill at 1:30 am? Because I asked him personally to put politics aside,” he declared this week.
For all his posturing on X, Van Orden still hasn’t been willing to face his constituents in a town hall to stand behind his vote. Pocan decided to hold one for him last month, to explain the details of what he called the worst budget bill he’s seen in 30 years in politics. At a press conference Pocan said, “I think this month I may have to do another visit.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 24: New York mayoral candidate, State Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-NY) speaks to supporters during an election night gathering on June 24, 2025. Mamdani was announced as the winner of the Democratic nomination for mayor in a crowded field in the City’s mayoral primary to choose a successor to Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for re-election on an independent ticket. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
The run-away success of 33-year-old Democratic Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayor’s race shook the political establishment across the country. In Wisconsin, where Democrats are hoping to regain control of at least one legislative chamber in 2026, and where Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has not yet announced whether he’ll seek a third term, Mamdani’s overthrow of the uninspiring establishment candidate and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo should trigger some serious thinking about how Democrats win in the Donald Trump era, and who they represent.
On Wednesday, the morning after the New York City primary, the Republican Party of Wisconsin put out a press release attempting to connect Mamdani to Rebecca Cooke, the Democrat planning to run in a rematch race against U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District. The through-line between Mamdani and Cooke is that Sen. Bernie Sanders has endorsed both candidates. The Wisconsin GOP seized on what it saw as a political opportunity to defend Van Orden in a statement bashing “radical Rebecca” and asking: “Does Democrat political operative Rebecca Cooke agree with her fellow Bernie endorsed candidate on his radical positions? … Keep in mind, President Trump carried WI-03 by 8 points just last year.”
Cooke, contrary to Republican campaign propaganda, is a middle-of-the-road Democrat who earned the endorsement of the Blue Dog Coalition, the most conservative Democratic group in the U.S. House. She certainly agrees with Mamdani that the housing crisis and high prices are key issues for working class voters, but she’s unlikely to support his bolder proposals like publicly owned grocery stores. And Wisconsin Republicans are wrong to think they can easily beat Democrats by accusing them of being “radical” and tying them to Mamdani and Bernie Sanders.
The real radical in the 3rd Congressional District is Van Orden, a MAGA diehard who voted to take away medical care and nutrition assistance from his own constituents, and who likes to make a spectacle of himself, yelling at pages in the U.S. Capitol and mocking Democrats who expressed grief after the assassination of a state legislator in Minnesota.
It seems likely that by 2026, when the “big, beautiful” destruction of public goods from Medicaid to the Forest Service to infrastructure and education to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy have begun to bite, voters will have had more than enough of that brand of radicalism.
Wisconsin voters have a strong independent streak.
Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primary here by 13.5 percentage points. Sanders’ anti-establishment, progressive populist message resonated particularly strongly with voters in the 3rd District, in the same counties that ultimately went for Donald Trump that year and again in 2024.
As Democrats in our swing state try to figure out how to win again, they should take a lesson from the voters in New York City who rejected the arrogant and deeply compromised Cuomo and chose an inspiring progressive populist, catapulting him to leadership of a new generation of Democrats.
That doesn’t mean Mamdani would win in the 3rd District, or that he’s the model for Democratic candidates everywhere. But it does say something that he triumphed over his detractors from both political parties despite their money and clout, by connecting directly with voters who were worried about housing and high prices. Like both Sanders and Trump, Mamdani presented an alternative to the political establishment and listened actively to voters’ actual concerns. He bravely stood up to big money and stale conventional wisdom. He recognized the urgency of the moment. He leveraged the enthusiasm of young people and beleaguered working people who feel overlooked. He inspired people. He was a breath of fresh air.
What does that mean for Wisconsin?
This week the latest Marquette Poll reported that 55% of voters don’t want Evers to run for a third term as governor. Various political commentators have compared Evers to ex-President Joe Biden, warning that at 73 (almost a decade younger than Biden) he might be too old to win. The poll helped fuel a new round of that sort of speculation.
But the question for Democrats is not whether Evers should run again. Presented with no alternative, 83% of Democratic voters told Marquette pollsters they want Evers.
The real question is, what is the party’s vision for its own future and the future of our state? For a long time, Democrats in Wisconsin have lacked a bench. If Evers decides not to run, there is no obvious candidate to take his place. Meanwhile, Evers is currently engaged in backroom negotiations with Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on the state budget. Embarrassingly, Democratic leaders in the Legislature are not included in those talks and appear not to know what’s being traded behind closed doors.
Asked whether she thinks the closed door sessions are OK, Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein told reporters, “I think this is probably normal. I’ve talked to other majority and minority leaders in the past, and this is kind of how it’s happened in the past.”
That’s it?
As legislative Democrats conduct what some have called a dress rehearsal for real power, preparing to step into the majority for the first time in more than 15 years, it’s not clear how they will govern. Will they still let a Democratic governor call all the shots in budget negotiations? Will they play hardball if a Republican takes Evers’ place — following the example of the current Republican majority and blocking every initiative the governor proposes and seizing his powers whenever they get a chance? What are their bottom-line issues? How will they transform the lives of the people of our state?
We badly need a more functional government and a more cohesive Democratic Party in Wisconsin.
More than anything, we need bold, progressive leadership that articulates a strong vision for a government that serves the interests of the majority of voters, not just rich people and insiders. Mamdani showed that there is real hunger for that in the electorate. That should be an inspiration to Wisconsin’s future leaders.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued two orders Wednesday, declining to hear cases challenging the constitutionality of the state’s congressional maps.
Democrats had hoped that the liberal wing of the court retaining majority control of the body in this spring’s election would give them an opportunity to change the congressional lines. Republicans currently hold six of the state’s eight congressional seats, and Democrats hoped they could flip the 1st and 3rd CDs under friendlier maps.
Before Republicans drew new congressional lines in 2010, Democrats controlled five of the state’s seats. The current maps were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and approved by the state Supreme Court when it was controlled by conservatives. That Court had required that any proposed maps adhere to a “least change” standard that changed as little as possible from the 2010 maps.
While Evers’ maps made the two competitive districts slightly closer contests, they’re still controlled by Republican U.S. Reps. Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden.
The two lawsuits were brought by the Elias Law Group representing Democratic candidates and voters and the Campaign Legal Center on behalf of a group of voters. The cases argued the maps violated the state’s constitutional requirement that all voters be treated equally.
The challenges against the maps drew national attention as Democrats hope to retake control of the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections.
This is the second time in as many years that the Supreme Court, under a liberal majority, has declined to hear challenges to the congressional maps.
In both cases, the Court issued unanimous decisions without any explanation as to why they weren’t accepting the cases.
Aside from declining to hear the cases, Justice Janet Protasiewicz issued an order denying requests that she recuse herself from the case. Republicans have called for her recusal from redistricting cases because of comments she made during her 2023 campaign about Wisconsin’s need for fairer maps. Previously, after Protasiewicz joined the Court, as part of a new liberal majority, it declared the state’s legislative maps, which locked in disproportionate Republican majorities in the Legislature, unconstitutional.
“I am confident that I can, in fact and appearance, act in an impartial manner in this case,” she wrote. “And the Due Process Clause does not require my recusal because neither my campaign statements nor contributions to my campaign create a ‘serious risk of actual bias.’”
A growing memorial for Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband stands Monday, June 16, 2025 at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
The horrific assassination of Minnesota’s Democratic legislative leader Melissa Hortman last weekend left people across the country in a state of shock and grief.
Derrick Van Orden held a press conference Sept. 9 to discuss crimes committed in his hometown by a Venezuelan immigrant. | (Screenshot via Zoom)
But just across the border from Hortman’s home state, Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden seized on the double murder of Hortman and her husband, Mark, who were shot dead in their home, and the near-fatal shootings of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, to mock Democrats and try to score political points. Van Orden falsely characterized the suspected shooter, a right-wing religious fanatic on a mission to murder Democrats and abortion providers, as an anti-Trump protester who “decided to murder and attempt to murder some politicians that were not far Left enough for them.”
This wildly misleading analysis came straight out of the MAGA alternative reality machine on social media, where, Minnesota Reformer editor J. Patrick Coolican wrote, right-wing influencers began peddling misinformation about Hortman’s murder just hours after it happened.
Van Orden was not alone in helping to spread those lies. Wisconsin’s former Republican Gov. Scott Walker also did his part. In a now-deleted post on X, Walker wrote that if the assassination “ends up being done by an ultra-liberal activist … watch for many on the left to be silent or even justify it. Wrong!”
It is now clear that suspected murderer Boelter was a Republican who, as an evangelical Christian minister, gave sermons railing against abortion and LGBTQ people. Walker at least had the good sense to take down his post — lapsing into the silence he’d predicted “many on the left” would observe.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah was shamed by his colleagues into taking down a similarly callous post in which he blamed “Marxists” for the murders and appeared to gloat that it was a “nightmare” for Walz.
Van Orden, on the other hand, doubled down.
“I stand by my statement,” he wrote on X after U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan chastized him for replying to Walz’s remembrance of Hortman by saying that the Democratic governor is “stupid” and a “clown.” Van Orden responded to Pocan with an obscenity. That’s the post he stood by.
Van Orden, who attended the Jan. 6 rally in Washington after President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election alongside the Capitol insurrectionists, is hardly a model of statesmanship. His boorish behavior in Washington on more than one occasion has embarrassed our state.
But there’s something more troubling going on here than one politician’s loutish behavior.
The horrifying political assassination in Minnesota is a direct result of the same MAGA disinformation machine that went into overdrive trying to distort the truth about the assassin’s aims. Van Orden is one of many Republicans who have hyped the idea that the U.S. is under attack from “criminal, illegal aliens” who were allowed by the Biden administration to “wander around the nation at their leisure.” (In fact, immigrants commit violent crimes at lower rates than U.S.-born citizens, and Van Orden’s district is full of hardworking immigrants who lack legal status but without whom Wisconsin’s dairy industry would collapse.)
Republicans following Trump’s lead have stirred up a moral panic around immigration, abortion, LGBTQ people and other non-threats in increasingly hysterical terms. Their rhetoric laid the groundwork for actual physical violence. It has been used to justify the unprecedented spectacle of masked federal agents seizing people on U.S. streets and deporting them without due process, as well as the Trump administration’s outrageous manhandling and handcuffing of Judge Hannah Dugan in Milwaukee, Sen. Alex Padilla in California and a mayoral candidate and Comptroller Brad Lander in New York City.
Trump’s invitation to physical violence against his opponents and the press are a hit with his base. It seems inevitable that eventually someone would take him up on it.
Adding fuel to the fire, Trump’s MAGA minions have made his sociopathic callousness part of their brand. Trump refused to call Walz after the murders in Minnesota, and instead took a gratuitous swipe at the man who campaigned against him as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate in 2024, calling him “whacked out” and “a mess.”
“I could be nice and call, but why waste time?” Trump told reporters.
In a terse statement, Walz spokesperson Teddy Tschann explained why: “Governor Walz wishes that President Trump would be a President for all Americans, but this tragedy isn’t about Trump or Walz. It’s about the Hortman family, the Hoffman family, and the State of Minnesota, and the governor remains focused on helping all three to heal.”
What happened in Minnesota is a tragedy for all of us. It’s made worse by the lack of leadership from politicians who not only don’t have the wisdom and maturity to respond appropriately, but who, by failing to take responsibility for their actions, are actively propelling us toward a more terrible future.
Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan at a town hall meeting in Eau Claire, with a chair for Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden who represents the 3rd Congressional District that includes Eau Claire. The chart behind Pocan shows most of the tax cuts passed by House Republicans go to those in the highest income brackets. | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner
“Is Derrick here?” asked U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, the Democratic congressman representing Wisconsin’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes Dane County. Pocan was in Eau Claire, the 3rd Congressional District represented by Derrick Van Orden, a Republican, on Saturday, May 31, at a town hall organized by Opportunity Wisconsin, a coalition of grassroots groups, at the Pablo Center at the Confluence, Eau Claire’s performing arts center.
Van Orden was invited to attend the event but declined.
Pocan is one of several congressional Democrats who have begun holding town hall meetings in Republican districts where Republican representatives have been reluctant to meet their constituents who are upset about budget cuts that threaten access to Social Security, Medicaid and federal food assistance.
Pocan focused on what President Dondald Trump (R) has called “the Big Beautiful Bill” that was recently passed by the House of Representatives, and which Pocan called “the worst bill I’ve ever seen introduced by anyone, by any political party.”
He chided Republican supporters for cutting Medicaid benefits for nearly 14 million Americans, raising the premiums for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and cutting food assistance to 11 million mostly low-income children through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The Republican budget reconciliation package also extends tax cuts passed in 2017 for America’s top earners, resulting in a nearly $5 trillion national deficit over 10 years.
A May 20 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the GOP budget bill projects it would increase the national deficit by $3.8 trillion and decrease Medicaid spending by $698 billion and SNAP spending by $267 billion.
A May 22 CBO projection notes the bill would reduce SNAP participation by “roughly 3.2 million people in an average month over the 2025–2034 period.”
There are different projections on how many people would experience a Medicaid cut, with estimates ranging from 7.5 to 10 million.
Van Orden sent out a release after Pocan’s appearance in Eau Claire:
“What Mr. Pocan is doing is absolutely despicable – continuing to fearmonger our vulnerable populations, including seniors, veterans, hungry children, individuals with disabilities and pregnant women. This bill protects Medicaid and SNAP for those most in need and prevents a 25% tax hike on Wisconsin families. Anyone telling you anything different, including Mr. Pocan, is lying to you.”
Van Orden also disputes the CBO’s analysis, stating that the CBO has been wrong in the past and tends to be overly critical of Republican-sponsored legislation.
“There are not cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, veteran benefits, SNAP and WIC (Women, Infants and Children program) are not being cut,” Van Orden told a local TV station after the House passed the bill.
But Pocan said Van Orden has been corrected even by other Republicans who admit the bill would reduce spending on Medicaid.
“83% of the benefit goes to the top 1% of the people,” Pocan said of the tax cuts, “so they are taking from the pockets of pretty much everyone in this room and putting it into the pockets of Elon Musk and Donald Trumps and others.”
Pocan added that only 5% of the tax cuts in the bill will go to working people, including those who won’t have to pay taxes on tips, seniors and to offset interest payments on car loans. And, he noted, those cuts will sunset, while the much larger tax cuts for top-earners, which account for 83% of the cost of the bill, are permanent.
“The single largest cut to health care in American history is in this bill, 13.7 million people are estimated would lose access to health care because of the cuts to Medicaid,” Pocan said. “But what doesn’t get as much coverage is they also cut some of the premium assistance for the Affordable Care Act. So it’s a $700 billion cut to Medicaid, but also a $300 billion cut to the Affordable Care Act. We don’t even have the estimates of the numbers yet, but millions more will pay increased premiums.”
Pocan said Republicans have said the Medicaid cuts are really about setting work requirements in exchange for benefits and not a straight cut.
“Two-thirds of the people who get Medicaid are working poor,” Pocan said. While they shouldn’t be affected by the new work requirements, the red tape involved in proving their work history will help push people off Medicaid.
“It’s not about trying to have any accountability,” he said. “It’s to just make it harder for people to get health care.” Pocan pointed to a state work requirement for Medicaid recipients in Arkansas, where people who lost coverage were actually eligible for care. The work requirements did not boost employment, researchers found and many of those who lost coverage had trouble accessing the online reporting system.
Pocan also noted that the projected increase in the deficit under the House proposal would trigger a sequestration requirement, resulting in automatic cuts to Medicare of nearly $500 billion.
SNAP cuts would mean a loss of $314 million for Wisconsin.
Pocan also criticized Trump’s “on again, off again” practice of announcing tariffs, which had created a climate of uncertainty for businesses.
“Not only did Donald Trump not reduce costs like he promised in November, but the tariffs are actually a tax on all of us,” he said.
Pocan criticized Van Orden for not coming to town hall meetings to defend his vote for the Republican budget bill.
Van Orden has said he prefers telephone town halls where the meeting isn’t dominated by people he describes as leftwing critics, and he also has said that his family has received death threats and is vulnerable in an in-person setting.
Pocan acknowledged death threats should be taken seriously, but also stated he and many others in Congress have received death threats, and he criticized Van Orden’s telephone town halls for only allowing his supporters to talk.
Pocan also criticized Van Orden for going back on his promise never to cut Medicaid or reduce SNAP. Van Orden has claimed the bill doesn’t reduce Medicaid and that Medicaid and SNAP payments will continue as usual for recipients if they meet the new work requirements.
A registered nurse who attended the town hall in Eau Claire said many of her clients are on Medicaid and Medicare, with several living in nursing homes, and she asked what would happen to them if the House budget bill became law.
State Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) who came to the town hall with Pocan, said approximately 55% of people in long-term care in Wisconsin are on Medicaid and if Medicaid funding is cut it will also impact the other 45-50% who have private insurance because facilities will close due to lack of funding.
Pocan also responded to questions about cuts to Social Security Administration staff, saying, “When you cut thousands of people who work for Social Security, you make it harder for people to get access to their money.”
Speaking more generally of federal cuts under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, he added, “They fired the people who worked on avian flu, bird flu, which was affecting us greatly recently, and they had to rehire them at the Department of Health and Human Services.”
Pocan said he believed Trump won in November because the cost of living was high and noted that in other countries incumbents also lost because of a backlash caused by global inflation.
“So that was the No. 1 thing going for Donald Trump in November, but today it’s the No. 1 thing that’s taking him down the polls, because he said he would address it. He’s done nothing,” said Pocan.
Asked how Democrats could encourage younger people to vote, Pocan said, “The good news is younger people absolutely agree with more progressive public policy and not conservative policy.” But people “want to fight back, you want something to happen,” he added.
He encouraged Democratic leaders to hold more town hall meetings in Republican districts.
“We should be going into many more Republican districts,” he said.
Pocan also encouraged attendees to meet Van Orden whenever he is in Eau Claire and ask to talk to him directly, and invite the press to be there for the interaction.
He encouraged the crowd of 100-plus to become active.
“You happen to be in this very unique position of having a member that is in a purple district,” Pocan said of Van Orden, who won in 2024 by one of the smallest majorities for a Republican in Congress. He “could lose his seat if he doesn’t listen to you.”
Most Americans would not face a tax increase near 65% if President Donald Trump’s tax cut extension does not become law.
The bill would extend income tax cuts set to expire Dec. 31. It would offset some costs with Medicaid and food stamp cuts.
The Tax Foundation estimates that if the cuts expire, 62% of taxpayers would see a tax increase in 2026. The average taxpayer’s increase would be 19.4% ($2,955).
House Republicans estimated 22%, a figure cited by the White House.
GOP U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin, claimed May 17 at the Wisconsin Republican Party convention that “the vast majority of Americans” would see a 65% increase.
His office did not respond to requests for information.
Tax Policy Center expert Howard Gleckman said “there is no income group that would get anything like a 65% tax hike.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky also said the 65% claim is far from accurate.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming called on Wisconsin Republicans to focus and move forward to elections next year, saying they "won the country last November and saved America. Next year, we can save Wisconsin." Schimming and state Treasurer John Leiber speak to reporters at the RNC in 2024. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin’s Republicans urged party members to put aside their differences over the weekend, saying that unity will be necessary if they want to win the 2026 elections for governor, Congress and the state Legislature.
The state party reflected on recent elections as they met in Rothschild, Wisconsin. Many of the state’s top Republicans delivered glowing reviews of Trump’s first few months in office and celebrated Wisconsin’s role in helping reelect him.
“We are seeing President Trump honor the promises he made,” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said. “That was made possible because of people like you that delivered the 10 electoral votes to President Trump of Wisconsin.”
Despite Trump carrying the state in November, the state party is reeling from recent losses.
Johnson called the April Wisconsin Supreme Court election “stinging” and a “crushing defeat.”
Republicans’ preferred candidate Brad Schimel lost his bid for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court by nearly 10 percentage points, solidifying a liberal majority on the Court at least until 2027. It was the third Supreme Court election in a row that conservatives lost after Dan Kelly was defeated by double digits in both 2020 and 2023. The Republican-endorsed candidate for the spring state Superintendent race, Brittany Kinser, also lost in April. Kinser, a school choice advocate, thanked the party for its help at the convention.
“There’s no way you can sugarcoat that,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the results were because of “voters who came out to try and save America by electing Donald Trump” but didn’t come out to vote in April to “ensure that [Trump] would have four years where he could implement his agenda without possibly the majority shifting in the House.” He said the party needs to work to get voters out in non-presidential elections. , especially as Trump is in his second term and is barred from running again by the U.S. Constitution.
“As much as many would want Donald Trump to be on the ballot again, he won’t be. He won’t be, and we’re going to figure out how we win, but without Donald Trump on the ballot here in Wisconsin, so that’s just a hard truth,” Johnson said.
Fights within county parties have also broken out since the April elections. Those divisions were on display at the convention as some from a local county party sought to keep Kelly Ruh, the party treasurer and one of the people to serve as a fake elector for Trump in 2020, from being seated as a delegate. Her supporters said it was “absurd” that members of the party would seek to block their own treasurer from voting, while others said she shouldn’t be seated because to do so would subvert the vote taken by the county party. The full convention voted to seat her anyway.
“There’s always power struggles,” Johnson, who declined to take sides in any fights, said. “But I have to admit in the 15 years since I entered the political process, I’ve never seen as many squabbles.”
Johnson warned that the party won’t be able to win if Republicans are “disunified.”
U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden echoed Johnson’s calls for unity, saying that people didn’t vote because Republicans were fighting.
“If I hear one more person, say, RINO [an acronym for Republican in Name Only], you’re gonna get the horn,” Van Orden said. “Knock it off. We are Republicans who are Americans who are patriots. We love our country. We love our families. We love our communities.”
Wisconsin RNC Chairman Terry Dittrich said Republicans need to up their game and don’t have time to waste ahead of 2026.
“We stop the infighting. We start working together. We welcome the youth in. We pay attention to our goal… to make sure President Trump can finish his job in four years and go on with JD Vance for another four years and another four years and another four years,” Dittrich said. “Let’s all unify.”
State Treasurer John Leiber is leading an effort to examine the recent losses — a job he was assigned by Schimming. At the convention, Leiber cautioned party members against “pointing fingers” at others.
“That doesn’t help anyone… What I’m focused on is how we can use that experience, learn from it and figure out how to win in 2026,” Leiber said.
Lieber said his committee is working to gather information and data to understand ways of making progress, and he asked attendees to fill out a handout to provide feedback. He noted that he is up for reelection in 2026.
“I want to win, so I don’t have any reason to try to smooth things over or sugarcoat. If anything I want to identify what exactly we need to do, what we can do better, how we do it better, and identify the ways that we can all work together to accomplish our goal, which is of course winning,” Leiber said.
Schimming said that the party has to be honest about the April elections and the frustration about them. But he said Republicans need to focus and move forward to win the next election.
“Doesn’t mean we agree on everything. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t change tactics or strategies, but it means we gotta look forward… We’re gonna work together. We’re gonna listen. We’re going to lead. We’re going to lead, and we’re going to do what it takes to win. We won the country last November and saved America. Next year, we can save Wisconsin,” Schimming said.
2026 gubernatorial, legislative and Supreme Court elections
The calls for unity come during an off year for Wisconsin elections but also as crucial gubernatorial and state legislative races lie ahead in November 2026. A race for the state Supreme Court will also take place in April with Justice Rebecca Bradley up for reelection, though that race, which won’t tip the ideological balance of the Court, wasn’t a prominent focus at the convention.
Gov. Tony Evers has yet to decide whether he will run for a third term, but Republicans are intent on putting a Republican in office, whether that means ousting Evers or defeating another Democratic candidate. So far, only one Republican, Washington Co. Executive Josh Schoemann, has launched his campaign for the office.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany is also considering a run for governor and spent the majority of his time on stage at the convention taking jabs at Evers.
“The question — as we have this great reset led by President Trump — is will Wisconsin be one of the winners?” Tiffany said. “Will Wisconsin be one of the winners like Texas and South Dakota, Tennessee, Florida? States like that are winning, people are moving to those states, businesses are growing, people want to be there. Are we going to be one of those states or are we going to be like the losers in Illinois and Minnesota?”
“We all know what the problems are. The question is how are we going to fix it?” Tiffany said. “We can fix it easily by replacing Tony Evers in 2026.”
U.S. Rep. Tony Wied from Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District said Republicans need to keep up their momentum into the next year, and in the race for governor the “fight starts right now” and can’t wait.
“We have a governor who refuses to even say the word mother,” Wied said, referring to Evers’ proposal to update language in state laws related to infertility treatments, “who fights the Trump administration at every single turn, who would rather protect illegal aliens than hard-working Wisconsinites.
State Rep. Mark Born (R-Spring Green) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) were also critical of Evers during a panel discussion. Born said he introduced a “ridiculous budget again” that included “reckless spending,” and “massive policy trying to rewrite everything that’s happened in the state in the last more than a decade now.” LeMahieu said that Evers is trying to “turn us into Minnesota, turn us into Illinois — states that have out of control spending.”
“If you could think of a dumb idea for government, the governor probably had it in his budget,” Born said.
Lawmakers said it would be essential they keep control of the Senate and Assembly to continue to stop Democrats’ agenda.
Running under new legislative maps in 2024, Republican lawmakers lost 14 state legislative seats in the last elections — leaving them with slimmer majorities in the Senate and Assembly. In 2026, Democrats are seeking to flip the Assembly, which currently has a 54-45 Republican majority, and the Senate, which currently has an 18-15 Republican majority.
“We’re going to be up against it this next year, but we’re out there fighting, knocking on doors. We are the firewall against really horrible liberal policies coming into Wisconsin,” LeMahieu said.
The Senate will be particularly crucial as it will be the first time the new district lines are in place for the half of the seats up for election. While addressing the convention, former Gov. Tommy Thompson said some have been telling him that they are afraid they will lose the state Senate.
“Don’t even think that way,” Thompson said. “We are winners, not losers. We’re going to campaign. We are going to unite… and we’re going to win.”
Trump’s agenda
Republicans were complimentary of Trump’s first few months in office, including his efforts to detain and deport noncitizens, bar transgender people from certain spaces, eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and cut investments in social programs.
Wied said the border is “more secure than at any other point in history.”
“Trump is doing what he said he would do. Under President Trump and Republican leadership, illegal immigrants will no longer be given a free pass in this country,” Wied said. “If you break the law, you are going to face consequences.”
“Isn’t it great that border crossings are going down and deportations are going up?” Tiffany asked. “Isn’t it great to live in America like that?
Johnson was not completely on board with everything Trump is doing, expressing concern about the cost of the so-called “big beautiful bill” Trump is working to get through Congress, which using the budget reconciliation process to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent, increase funding for immigration enforcement, expand work requirements for food assistance and cut Medicaid costs by implementing work requirements.
“The big, beautiful bill isn’t what it’s advertised to be,” Johnson said. “We’re not going to be bending the debt curve down. We would be exacerbating the problem by a total of about $4 trillion over the next 10 years.”
Splitting from Johnson, Van Orden said that Republicans should also be united on Trump’s bill.
“We don’t need grandstanders in the Republican party — stop talking and get it done,” Van Orden said, echoing Trump.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina delivered a keynote address to the convention, praising Trump for his immigration policies and his efforts to stop transgender women from participating on women’s sports teams. Mace is known for seeking to bar transgender people from certain spaces, including bathrooms, locker rooms, and targeting her Democratic transgender colleague in the House of Representatives and other transgender individuals.
“I like an immigration policy kind of how I like my sweet tea — with a lot of ICE,” Mace said, playing on the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“There has never been a president stronger than Donald Trump. They impeached him. They raided his home. They indicted him. They even shot him, and the man still survived. He stood tall. We prayed for him every single time, because no weapon formed against him shall ever prosper,” Mace said. “Trump is back. He’s securing the border. He’s deporting illegals. He’s protecting women’s sports, and he’s declaring there are only two genders, and DEI under Donald J Trump is DOA.”
Mace, who noted she’s considering running for governor of South Carolina in the future, took her comments further telling convention goers that the U.S. is in a battle.
“It’s not necessarily a battle between the parties or left and right or ideology. It is a battle between good and between evil, and we cannot allow this evil to win,” Mace said.
U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden tours Gilbertson's Dairy in Dunn County. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
When he was campaigning for Congress in western Wisconsin, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden talked about growing up “in abject rural poverty,” raised by a single mom who relied on food stamps. As a result, he has said, he would never go along with cuts to food assistance.
“He sat down in my office when he first got elected and promised me he wouldn’t ever vote against SNAP because he grew up on it, supposedly,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said in a phone interview as he was on his way home to Wisconsin from Washington this week.
But as Henry Redman reported, Van Orden voted for the Republican budget blueprint, which proposes more than $200 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in order to make room for tax cuts for the very wealthy.
Still, after that vote, Van Orden issued a public statement warning against reckless cuts to SNAP that place “disproportionate burdens on rural states, where food insecurity is often more widespread,” and saying it is unfair to build a budget “on the backs of some of our most vulnerable populations, including hungry children. Period.”
Van Orden sits on the House Agriculture Committee, which was tasked with drawing up a specific plan to cut $230 billion from food assistance to pay for tax cuts. Van Orden reportedly balked at a cost-sharing plan that shifted 25% of the cost of the program to states, saying it was unfair to Wisconsin.
Van Orden took credit for the plan, which ties cuts to state error rates in determining eligibility and benefit amounts for food assistance. According to WisPolitics, he declared at a House Ag Committee markup that “states are going to have to accept the fact that if they are not administering this program efficiently, that they’re going to have to pay a portion of the program that is equitable, and it makes sense and it is scaled.”
But states, including Wisconsin, don’t have money to make up the gap as the federal government, for the first time ever, withdraws hundreds of millions of dollars for nutrition assistance. Instead, they will reduce coverage, kick people off the program and hunger will increase. The ripple effects include a loss of about $30 billion for farmers who supply food for the program, Democrats on the Ag Committee report, and damage to the broader economy, since every $1 in SNAP benefits generates about $1.50 in economic activity. Grocery stores, food manufacturers rural communities will be hit particularly hard.
Wisconsin will start out with a bill for 5% of the costs of the program in Fiscal Year 2028, according to a bill explanation from the Agriculture Committee. But as error rates vary, that number shifts sharply upward — to 15% when the error rate goes from the current 5% to 6%, to 20% if we exceed an 8% error rate, and so on.
And there are other cuts in the bill, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) points out, including stricter eligibility limits, work requirements that cannot be waived in times of economic hardship and high unemployment, and reductions in benefits that come from eliminating deductions for utility costs.
More than 900,000 children, adults, and seniors count on Wisconsin’s SNAP program, known as FoodShare, according to an analysis of state health department data by Kids Forward. The same analysis found that covering the costs of just 10% of SNAP benefits would cost Wisconsin $136 million.
Alaska and Texas have higher error rates than Wisconsin, and so they — and their hungry kids — are stuck with the biggest cuts. Even if you accept that that is somehow just, the people who are going to pay for this bill in all the states, including ours, are, as Van Orden himself put it, “the most vulnerable populations, including hungry children. Period.”
“He says one thing and does another,” Pocan says of Van Orden’s flip-flopping on SNAP. “He’s gone totally Washington.”
That’s too bad for the people left behind in rural Wisconsin, who will take the brunt of these unnecessary cuts.
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