Wisconsin lawmakers heard testimony Thursday on a bill to make tips for restaurant servers and other workers exempt from Wisconsin's state income tax. (Getty Images)
Wisconsin policymakers approved more than $1.3 billion in tax cuts in the latest state budget but the exclusion of a “no tax on tips” proposal has lawmakers pushing ahead with a bill that would line up state law with a new federal law.
Bill coauthor Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) said during a hearing in the Assembly Ways and Means committee that lawmakers should help working class people who are “trying to get themselves to that middle class” with Assembly Bill 38. A hearing on the bill was held in the Senate in May, though it has yet to come up for vote in either chamber.
“When I was a younger man, I was a waiter at Perkins, and I received tips. I also received tips for a couple years as a valet, and folks that receive tips aren’t just waiters and valets, but also housekeepers, bartenders, delivery drivers, massage therapists, hairdressers, taxi drivers, tour guides,” Tusler said. “Those are the type of people we’re talking about, trying to help with this bill, trying to not tax and as representatives, these are great folks for us to target, and as Christians, we should always be trying to help the poor.”
President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law on July 4 includes a federal provision that will allow workers to deduct up to $25,000 in tips annually from their taxable income. Those earning more than $150,000 aren’t eligible for the deduction.
The Wisconsin bill and a recent amendment to it seeks to implement the same policy when it comes to the state income tax, which currently considers tips as taxable income. The deduction would apply to tips whether paid by cash or credit. Similar to the federal law, the provision will go into effect starting tax year 2025 and sunsets after tax year 2028 — around the end of Trump’s second term in office.
“Any time that we can allow people to keep more of their hard-earned money — that’s going to be something that I’m supporting,” Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) told the committee.
Erin Vranas, co-owner of Parthenon Gyros located in downtown Madison and chair of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association’s Board, said many restaurant employees are struggling with semi-unpredictable income.
“Every dollar matters, so this bill really could help provide meaningful relief,” Vranas said, adding that it would also help restaurants trying to recruit and retain employees. “Wisconsin restaurants face ongoing workforce shortages, and I understand this isn’t just a restaurant thing, but we definitely feel it in this industry. AB38 will help us recruit and retain staff, making restaurant jobs more competitive and sustainable. When employees keep more of their hard-earned tips, then they’re more likely to stay and grow and see hospitality as a sustainable career, which strengthens both our businesses and Wisconsin as a state.”
The minimum wage for tipped employees in Wisconsin is currently $2.33 per hour. Employers are required to make up the difference if an employee’s combined wages and tips do not equal the regular minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Susan Quam, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, said she only knows of two restaurants that pay the minimum wage. Those restaurants have a $100 per person check average and employees typically make $20 per customer “every single time they work, so we’re talking about folks who are making $100 to $150 dollars an hour in tips.” WRA, a nonprofit trade association that represents thousands of food, beverage and hospitality businesses, supports the bill.
“The vast majority of our members tell us that they’re paying well above that $2.33 to their tipped employees, some of them higher than the $7.25 minimum wage,” Quam said. “The marketplace is dictating what that base wage is, not necessarily the fact that they are getting tips.”
Tusler explained that employees would still need to report tips, both because there is a limit on the tax deduction and because tipped employees need a record of their full income when applying for loans.
“It would make it more difficult for those tip earners to borrow money for their houses or their cars,” Tusler said.
He told the committee the bill would also cut down on confusion between the federal and state policies when people are filing taxes.
The tax break also wouldn’t cost the state much, Tusler said. The Department of Revenue estimates that the state brings in about $33.7 million a year from tips and would lose about that much in each year of the biennium under the proposal.
“That’s it,” Tusler said. “We have a $111 billion budget.”
The recent bipartisan state budget cut taxes by about over $1 billion, but the tips proposal was not included in the budget passed by the Republican-led Legislature and signed by Gov. Tony Evers last month. Evers had included a similar proposal in his budget proposal, but Republican lawmakers threw it out when they started working on the budget.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Jacque, previously introduced the idea of exempting cash tips from taxes in 2019, though it never became law.
The idea picked up steam nationally when President Donald Trump started campaigning on the idea, which led Republican lawmakers to reintroduce the proposal in Wisconsin this year.
The coauthors of the bill expressed frustration that no Democrats have signed onto the bill yet, noting that Evers has supported something similar before.
“This was something where Gov. Evers basically took that previous proposal… cut and pasted that into his budget proposal, so it’s not like there was ever any indication that this wasn’t something that shouldn’t have bipartisan support,” Jacque said. “And I certainly hope that it will going forward.”
Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) said during the hearing that she and her husband, who is a bartender, have discussed the issue extensively since it started gaining popularity around the 2024 election and questioned whether a bigger conversation about helping lower-income workers needs to be had.
“I would say encouraging employers to have better benefits, higher pay, better working conditions are also ways we get people to realize the American dream,” Fitzgerald said. “Cutting taxes might be one small part of that, but there’s a broader array of things that we can do, and if, and if that’s your goal, and it’s my goal, then I say we attack some of those other issues.”
Jacque said he understands that tax relief needs to be multifaceted, but said that if the state starts “mandating things on employers that potentially raise costs…, you aren’t going to have customers and those jobs aren’t going to be supported.”
Vaccine misinformation pushed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could put American lives at risk. (Eric Harkleroad/KFF Health News)
President Donald Trump’s administrations have been notorious for an array of “alternative facts” — ranging from the relatively minor (the size of inaugural crowds) to threats to U.S. democracy, such as who really won the 2020 election.
And over the past six months, the stakes have been life or death: Trump’s health officials have been endorsing alternative facts in science to impose policies that contradict modern medical knowledge.
It is an undeniable fact — true science — that vaccines have been miraculous in preventing terrible diseases from polio to tetanus to measles. Numerous studies have shown they do not cause autism. That is accepted by the scientific community.
Yet Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has no medical background or scientific training, doesn’t believe all that. The consequences of such misinformation have already been deadly.
For decades, the vast majority Americans willingly got their shots — even if a significant slice of parents had misgivings. A 2015 survey found that 25% of parents believed that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine could cause autism. (A 1998 study that suggested the connection has been thoroughly discredited.) Despite that concern, just 2% of children entering kindergarten were exempted from vaccinations for religious or philosophical objections. Kids got their shots.
But more recently, poor government science communication and online purveyors of misinformation have tilled the soil for alternative facts to grow like weeds. In the 2024-25 school year, rates of full vaccination for those entering kindergarten dropped to just over 92%. In more than a dozen states, the rate was under 90%, and in Idaho it was under 80%. And now we have a stream of measles cases, more than 1,300 from a disease declared extinct in the U.S. a quarter-century ago.
It’s easy to see how both push and pull factors led to the acceptance of bad science on vaccines.
The number of recommended vaccines has ballooned this century, overwhelming patients and parents. That is, in large part, because the clinical science of vaccinology has boomed (that’s good). And in part because vaccines, which historically sold for pennies, now often sell for hundreds of dollars, becoming a source of big profits for drugmakers.
In 1986, a typical child was recommended to receive 11 vaccine doses — seven injections and four oral. Today, that number has risen to between 50 and 54 doses by age 18.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which renders judgments on vaccines, makes a scientific risk-benefit assessment: that the harm of getting the disease is greater than the risk of side effects. That does not mean that all vaccines are equally effective, and health officials have done a lackluster job of fostering public understanding of that fact.
Older vaccines — think polio and measles — are essentially 100% effective; diseases that parents dreaded were wiped off the map. Many newer vaccines, though recommended and useful (and often heavily advertised), don’t carry the same emotional or medical punch.
Parents of the current generation haven’t experienced how sick a child could be with measles or whooping cough, also called pertussis. Mothers didn’t really worry about hepatitis B, a virus generally transmitted through sex or intravenous drug use, infecting their child.
That lack of understanding spawned skeptics. For example, since 2010, the vaccine for influenza, which had been around for decades, has been recommended annually for all Americans at least 6 months old. In the 2024-25 season, the rate of flu vaccination was only between 36% and 54% in adults; in other years, it has been lower than that. “I got the flu vaccine, and I still got the flu” has been a common refrain of skeptics.
“Pre-covid, there were people who took everything but flu,” said Rupali Limaye, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, who studies vaccine demand and acceptance. “Then it became everything but covid. Now it’s everything — including MMR and polio.”
Even as the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed helped develop covid vaccines, conservative media outlets created doubts that the shots were needed: doubts that mRNA technology had been sufficiently tested; doubts that covid-19 was bad enough to merit a shot; concerns that the vaccines could cause infertility or autism.
Trump did little to correct these dangerous misperceptions and got booed by supporters when he said that he’d been vaccinated. Once vaccine mandates came into play, Trump strongly opposed them, reframing belief in the vaccine as a question of personal liberty. And if the government couldn’t mandate the covid shot for school, it followed that officials shouldn’t — couldn’t — mandate others.
Thus 100 years of research proving the virtues of vaccination got dropped into a stew of alternative facts. You were either pro- or anti-vaccine, and that signaled your politics. Suddenly, the anti-vax crowd was not a small fringe of liberal parents, but a much larger group of conservative stalwarts who believed that being forced to vaccinate their kids to enter school violated their individual rights.
Even within the Trump administration, there have been some who (at least partly) decried the trend. While Marty Makary, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, defended Kennedy’s decision to roll back the recommendation that all Americans get annual covid boosters — saying the benefits were unproven — he noted it should not be a signal to stop taking other shots.
As “public trust in vaccination in general has declined,” he wrote, the reluctance to vaccinate had harmed “vital immunization programs such as that for measles–mumps–rubella (MMR) vaccination, which has been clearly established as safe and highly effective.”
Nonetheless, Makary’s boss, Kennedy, continued to promote bad science about vaccines broadly, even as he sometimes grudgingly acknowledged their utility in cases like a measles outbreak. He has funded new research on the already disproven link between MMR shots and autism. He has halted $500 million in grants for developing vaccines using mRNA technology, the novel production method used for the first covid vaccines and a technique scientists believe holds great promise for preventing deaths from other infectious diseases.
In my 10 years practicing as a physician, I never saw a case of measles. Now there are cases in 40 states. More than 150 people have been hospitalized, and three, all unvaccinated, have died.
Alternative facts have formed what David Scales, a physician and sociologist at Weill Cornell Medical College who studies misinformation, calls “an unhealthy information system.” It is an alternative scientific universe in which too many Americans live. And some die.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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A homeless encampment near the Lincoln Memorial is cleared by employees of the Washington, D.C., government on Aug. 14, 2025. City officials put notices at the camp that they would be breaking it down after President Donald Trump issued his "crime emergency" order. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Officials have already cleared dozens of homeless encampments in the District of Columbia in recent days as President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the nation’s capital for a “crime emergency” at the same time takes aim at people without housing.
Advocates working to end homelessness within the district and across the country raised alarm to States Newsroom over these removals and their impact on people without housing and the providers trying to serve them. The drive to push out homeless people came after Trump in July signed an executive order that attempts to overhaul federal policy on homelessness, declaring: “Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe.”
Multi-agency teams had eliminated 48 encampments in the District of Columbia as of Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing.
Metropolitan Police Department patrol units “are actively working with city officials to locate and clear additional encampments and remove homeless residents off of Washington’s streets,” she said.
Leavitt told reporters days prior that homeless people in the city would be “given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services,” and would be “susceptible” to fines or jail time if they refused.
A day before Trump declared his “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 11, the president wrote on social media that homeless people must move out “IMMEDIATELY.”
“We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” he wrote.
Days later, bulldozers and garbage trucks were at work dismantling campsites.
According to WTOP News last week, leaders in the surrounding area of Montgomery County, Maryland, were preparing for a potential rise of homeless people in the county as a result of the president’s crackdown.
Jesse Rabinowitz, campaign and communications director at the National Homelessness Law Center, said “things seem so fluid and so chaotic that it’s hard to get an accurate representation” of where Trump’s campaign to get homeless people out of sight stands.
Rabinowitz said last week he witnessed the tossing of people’s belongings and the evictions of people experiencing homelessness, noting that “it was fast, it was chaotic, it was expensive, and it didn’t help anybody.”
“We know that clearing encampments makes it harder for people to get into housing,” he added. “People’s IDs that they need to get into housing are destroyed, people’s medications that they need to stay healthy are thrown away, people’s bikes that they need to get to work are often trashed.”
Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the practice and policy of fining, ticketing and arresting people rather than creating housing and services for them is “devastating” — both to people experiencing homelessness and the providers who serve them.
Oliva said outreach workers can lose track of people that they’ve been working with for a long time, destroying trust between the two.
“That’s some of what I’ve seen over the last week here — as providers are trying to keep people as safe as possible, it’s getting harder to track them down to make sure that they can provide the services that are necessary for folks.”
Street outreach teams at work
Lara Pukatch, chief advocacy officer at Miriam’s Kitchen, said the organization, which works to end chronic homelessness in Washington, D.C., is “deeply concerned about what’s happening.”
Pukatch said the group’s street outreach teams “have really been working almost around the clock to address what’s going on,” including sharing information with people living outside when they hear about threats of encampment evictions to make sure they know what’s happening and the options they have.
“This also involves working nights, working weekends, connecting people to the life-saving supplies and supports that they’ve always needed, but in addition, really working hard with people to make sure that they’re safe and that they are not going to be further harmed or traumatized by what’s happening in the city.”
July executive order
Trump’s federal takeover in Washington, D.C., and the encampment clearings build off of the sweeping July executive order he signed.
The order says it aims to end federal support for “Housing First” policies that “deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency.” The “Housing First” model focuses on providing immediate housing, with services offered afterward.
The order also calls on Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner to ensure that programs receiving federal housing and homelessness assistance require people with “substance use disorder or serious mental illness” obtain treatment or mental health services in order to participate.
Part of the order also encourages involuntary civil commitment expansion, where individuals with mental health conditions are placed into treatment facilities against their wishes.
Administration officials who say they are fighting crime in the district have also emphasized actions of homeless people. Vice President JD Vance, talking to National Guard troops at Union Station on Wednesday with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, said when he visited the transit center with his children two years ago, they were “screamed at by violent vagrants and it was scaring the hell out of my kids.”
Now, he said, “DC is already safer than it was nine days ago. We’re going to make it safer still to come. This is your city. You should feel free to come and visit here, have a meal, see all these incredible monuments, and actually enjoy yourself.”
Supreme Court decision
Oliva, of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, noted that while the events of the past week are “certainly alarming,” they mark a broader trend that has gained steam, beginning with the 2024 Supreme Court decision that allowed cities to punish homeless people for sleeping outdoors, even where there is no shelter available to them.
“What we’ve seen since President Trump came into office is a series of policies put in place — or attempted to put in place — through executive orders that really don’t do anything to address the root causes of homelessness because we know that homelessness itself is not actually a criminal issue, it’s an economic issue,” she said.
Though the president’s federal takeover has a 30-day limit, Trump wants an extension, leading to questions about how long these actions will continue.
Seizing on that assertion — despite there being no credible evidence to support it — Trump promised on Truth Social to “lead a movement” to phase out mail‑in ballots and voting machines and promote “watermark paper.” He suggested he would implement these changes with an executive order ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The post contains many other false, misleading or unsubstantiated statements about the use of mail ballots, including claims Trump and his allies have made before — even as more Republican officials have tried to encourage voting by mail.
His claims notwithstanding, courts have repeatedly rejected allegations of widespread fraud tied to mail ballots, and many democracies around the world use them. And under the Constitution, he has no explicit authority over the “time, place and manner” of elections. Experts say that an executive order like the one Trump describes in his post would be immediately challenged in court and unlikely to take effect.
Beyond that, any major change to voting by mail before the 2026 midterms would be a logistical nightmare for election administrators, and it would disproportionately affect voters who rely on it most, including overseas service members, veterans and people with disabilities.
Here’s a fact check of some of the key claims in his post.
What Trump said:
“States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them.”
Fact:
Trump’s claim that states are “merely an agent” of the federal government in elections is false, and contrary to decades of Republican orthodoxy on this point.
Meanwhile, Republicans for decades have framed states’ rights as a fundamental principle. This stretches back to Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, through Ronald Reagan’s emphasis on “federalism,” and into recent decades where GOP leaders have framed decentralization of power as protection against “big government.”
Voting has been a primary example for that very point.
For example, after the contentious 2000 presidential election, Republicans fiercely defended Florida’s right to set its own recount rules. GOP leaders and state attorneys general argued in the Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder (2013) that federal oversight of state election laws was unconstitutional. Over the last decade, Republicans in Congress have opposed Democratic efforts to pass federal voting-rights legislation like the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, arguing they represented “federal takeovers” of elections. Then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2019 called the legislation “a one-size-fits-all partisan rewrite by one side here in Washington.”
In 2020, when Democrats proposed federal requirements to expand mail voting due to COVID-19, Republicans fought them off. And when Trump floated the idea of delaying the November election, Republican senators like McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio reminded him that Congress and the states control election timing and procedures.
What Trump said:
“We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED”
Fact:
Many democracies use mail voting, including Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia. Some use it more extensively than the U.S. No country has “given it up” because of widespread fraud. Fraud is rare in countries that use vote by mail, as it is here.
Germany has been using vote by mail since the 1950s; in its 2021 federal election, about half of German voters cast their ballots through the mail. In Switzerland, nearly all voters receive their ballots by mail, and more than 70% of voters return them in the same way. The United Kingdom allows any voters to request a mailed ballot, and about 20% of voters take advantage of the policy. The vast majority of European countries allow at least some form of mail voting, especially for citizens living abroad or for those with disabilities.
What Trump said:
Voting machines are “Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial” and “cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.”
Fact:
Paper ballots still have to be counted — either by hand (which is slow and error-prone) or by machine. That’s why nearly every state that uses paper ballots still relies on scanners to tally them quickly and accurately.
Existing federal law also requires the use of at least one voting machine in every single precinct in the country, for use by voters who have disabilities that make casting a paper ballot difficult. Trump cannot invalidate federal law through an executive order, so voting machines aren’t going anywhere.
Watermarks are not a standard or proven safeguard, though some states do have them (or something like them). The places that use them still use machines to count these ballots.
What Trump said:
“Democrats are virtually Unelectable without using this completely disproven Mail-In SCAM. ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS.”
Fact:
There is no evidence that one party “cheats” with mail ballots. Voting by mail is used by Republicans and Democrats alike, and in jurisdictions led by Republicans and Democrats. In fact, Republican voters are often more likely to use mail voting, especially in states like Arizona and Florida, where Republicans championed the practice until recently. In fact, there’s no evidence that vote by mail benefits either party over the other — multipleacademicstudies have reached this conclusion.
What Trump said:
“ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING.”
Fact:
Mail‑in voting has consistently been shown to operate extremely securely due to robust safeguards. In states like Pennsylvania, counties that offer ballot curing — the ability to correct errors like missing signatures — report significantly lower rejection rates, demonstrating that the system isn’t rigged, but rather is responsive and adaptable.
Votebeat’s coverage highlights what research studies have shown repeatedly: Instances of fraud in mail-in voting remain exceedingly rare. Even when ballots get rejected, that’s typically due to procedural mistakes — not attempts at manipulation or deceit. Election administrators across the country work under strict, bipartisan protocols, including signature checks and secure handling procedures, to protect integrity. Courts and election officials routinely affirm the reliability of mail ballots when these protocols are followed. In both routine practice and under close scrutiny, mail-in voting stands out as both secure and trustworthy.
What Trump said:
“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS…by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections.”
Fact:
Courts have ruled that Trump does not have the authority to unilaterally change federal election rules, as they consider several lawsuits challenging his March executive order.
In halting some provisions of that executive order, for example, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in April that “our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States — not the President — with the authority to regulate federal elections.” That ruling blocked Trump’s direction to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to take steps to require voters to prove citizenship when registering to vote.
A federal judge in Massachusetts later blocked the same provision of the order, writing that Trump exceeded his authority. That judge also blocked parts of the order telling the U.S. Justice Department to enforce a ballot receipt deadline of Election Day.
Nothing stops Trump from leading an informal movement, however. He’s arguably been doing that for years already, and while it has had some impact on policy, voters haven’t really changed their habits much.
Jen Fifield contributed reporting.
Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat‘s newsletters here.
Renewable Energy is Not Causing Energy Cost Spikes, Coal is Washington, D.C. – Today, Donald Trump published on Truth Social that “Any State that has built and relied on WINDMILLS and SOLAR for power are seeing RECORD BREAKING INCREASES IN ELECTRICITY AND ENERGY COSTS.” This is false. Energy Innovation reported that “states with the largest increases in wind and …
Community organizations such as DAIS in Dane County could see further cuts if the Trump Administration is allowed to withhold VOCA funds. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has joined a multi-state lawsuit against the Trump Administration’s demand that states participate in federal immigration enforcement efforts or risk losing access to federal money available through the Victims of Crime Act.
If the conditions are allowed to go through, Wisconsin could lose up to $24 million meant to help compensate victims of crime as well as fund local advocates, counselors and crisis response centers, according to a state Department of Justice news release
“VOCA funding is intended to be used to help victims of crime,” Kaul said in a statement. “It is appalling that the Trump administration is weaponizing this funding.”
Wisconsin is joined in the lawsuit, which was filed in a Rhode Island federal district court, by New Jersey, California, Delaware, Illinois, Rhode Island, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
VOCA takes fees, fines and penalties collected in federal court proceedings and disburses those funds to the states to use on victim services — which can include the operations of community-based organizations such as domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers and the work of victim-witness offices within county district attorneys’ offices.
While individual law enforcement agencies have agreed to help immigration authorities in various capacities through efforts such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program, the lawsuit argues that civil immigration enforcement is strictly a federal responsibility. Requiring that states participate in such actions violates the constitution’s tenets of separation of powers and federalism, the suit argues.
A handful of communities across the state have enacted policies to prevent local law enforcement from aiding ICE enforcement. Milwaukee Police Department policy states that immigration enforcement is the authority of the federal government and local cops getting involved in the enforcement of immigration law could harm the department’s relationship with immigrant communities.
“With a policing philosophy that is community-based, problem-oriented, and data-driven, we are committed to ridding the city’s streets of violent offenders regardless of whether such offenders are in the United States legally or illegally,” the policy states. “We are also committed to facilitating safe, sustainable communities where individuals are encouraged to report crime and provide the police with useful information and intelligence. However, proactive immigration enforcement by local police can be detrimental to our mission and policing philosophy when doing so deters some individuals from participating in their civic obligation to assist the police.”
The Trump Administration’s threat to withhold VOCA funds comes as the program has already seen massive cuts. Last year, Wisconsin’s portion of federal VOCA grants dropped from $40 million annually to $13 million.
Because of those previous cuts, shelters across Wisconsin have been struggling to make ends meet and retain the services available for victims of crime.
“Victim services is not just about one person gets hurt and experiences trauma, and then they’re helped and they go on with their lives,” Shira Phelps, executive director of DOJ’s Office of Crime Victim Services, told the Wisconsin Examiner last year. “This is really about sort of taking away a foundation for communities that help in every other aspect. Housing, education, all of those different fields are going to feel this really deep impact.”
The coal-fired Mill Creek Generating Station operates in Kentucky last year. President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered some retiring coal plants to stay online, even as they have struggled to remain economically viable. (Photo by Liam Niemeyer/Kentucky Lantern)
Mandates from President Donald Trump’s administration to retain aging coal plants could cause a massive spike in energy costs, according to an independent analysis commissioned by several environmental groups.
Orders from the U.S. Department of Energy to save coal plants from retirement could cost ratepayers more than $3 billion per year, according to a report from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm. It was carried out on behalf of Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club.
Under Trump, the agency has issued emergency orders to maintain operations at coal plants that were scheduled for retirement. While federal officials say the coal plants need to stay online to avoid blackouts, power plant owners and state regulators planned their closures because they were no longer economically viable or needed for reliability.
“DOE mandates override those well-informed decisions, inflating electric bills for homeowners and businesses and undermining the competitiveness of U.S. factories and data centers,” the Grid Strategies analysis found.
Across the country, coal plants have phased out as they’ve struggled to compete with cheaper renewables and natural gas. A 2023 analysis by Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan think tank, found that 99% of existing U.S. coal plants “are more expensive to run than replacement by local wind, solar, and energy storage resources.”
But Trump, who has pushed to unleash more fossil fuel development and to stymie wind and solar, has ordered a retiring coal plant in Michigan to stay online, along with an oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania.
“Based on the trend to date and indications that DOE has approached the owners of many retiring fossil power plants about potentially mandating their retention, DOE may attempt to mandate the retention of nearly all large fossil power plants slated for retirement between now and the end of 2028,” reads the Grid Strategies report.
The cost of keeping those plants online would be immense. By 2028, if Trump were to mandate the retention of all fossil fuel plants slated for retirement, the annual cost to ratepayers would be more than $3.1 billion, the analysis found.
The report also considers a number of aging plants that are not yet scheduled for retirement. It finds Trump’s actions could create a “perverse incentive,” causing plant owners to claim they’re planning to shut down, inducing the feds to step in and keep them open, with the cost borne by ratepayers.
Accounting for that possibility, the report found that ratepayer costs could reach $5.9 billion per year to keep the entire aging fossil fuel fleet online. California, Texas and Colorado would see the highest increases in electricity bills.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.
Boxes of ballots wait to be counted at Milwaukee's central count on Election Day 2024. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
A bipartisan group of former elected officials from Wisconsin on Monday criticized President Donald Trump’s promise to end mail-in voting and the use of electronic voting machines.
In a Monday morning post on his social media site Truth Social, Trump said that he’d issue an executive order to end the practices ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES,” Trump wrote.
Neither the president nor the federal government has the authority to manage election administration in this way. The law gives individual states broad power to decide how to run their own elections.
Wisconsin’s election system is the most decentralized in the country, giving much of the authority over how to conduct voting to the state’s 1,850 municipal clerks. The state allows mail-in absentee voting without requiring voters to provide a reason, and the electronic voting machines approved for use in the state are incapable of connecting to the internet. Electronic voting machines are more accurate at tallying votes than a human hand counting them.
After Trump’s post, the Democracy Defense Project-Wisconsin board, which includes former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, former Attorney General JB Van Hollen, former U.S. Representative Scott Klug, and former Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate, said in a statement that such an action would increase inaccuracy in the state’s elections.
“The Constitution is clear: the federal government does not administer elections at the state level,” the group said. “In fact, improved access to voting methods, including the electronic machines Wisconsin uses that produce paper ballots and are unable to be connected to the internet, have benefitted Republicans just as much as Democrats. Wisconsin has displayed time and time again that our elections are safe and secure, and while we can always make them more efficient, there is no tolerance for inaccuracy in our results.”
Protesters gather in Milwaukee's Cathedral Square to march and rally as part of the No Kings Day protests nationwide. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Voting rights activists continue to be divided over gerrymandering. Here in Wisconsin, members of the Fair Maps Coalition, who just recently succeeded in getting representative voting maps for our state, are understandably alarmed by escalating threats to gerrymander the whole country, as Wisconsin Public Radio reports.
“I just hate it at its core,” Wisconsin League of Women Voters Executive Director Debra Cronmiller told WPR of the gerrymandering duel between Texas and California, as each state seeks to carve out more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“We can’t save democracy by suppressing voters, and this has to be an opportunity to think about a new process and standards, especially in Wisconsin,” iuscely Flores, Wisconsin Fair Maps organizing director, told WPR.
But the president and CEO of Common Cause, the national organization dedicated to voting rights and fair elections, told members last week that the group “won’t call for unilateral political disarmament in the face of authoritarianism.”
The Common Cause position is tricky. On the one hand the group reaffirms its commitment to nonpartisan redistricting commissions. On the other hand it gives its blessing to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to suspend exactly the sort of nonpartisan commission the group endorses — and which Wisconsin fair maps advocates have long been fighting for. Supposedly, suspending the commission is a temporary measure while Democrats in the legislature draw up gerrymandered districts in time for the midterms. After they do that, Common Cause, Newsom and various Democrats claim California can undo the gerrymander later and restart the fight for fair maps. Really?
“Independent redistricting commissions are one way — and by far the best way — to draw fair maps and achieve fair representation for every single American,” Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause president and CEO wrote in a letter to the group’s members. But, a follow-up email from Common Cause reiterated the group’s non-opposition to Newsom’s plan in California, saying, “As the nation’s leading anti-gerrymandering advocacy group, we understand that Trump and Republican leaders’ attempt to lock in unaccountable power poses a generational threat to our ability to decide our own futures.”
Maggie Daun brought up those same dire threats on her Civic Media radio show when she grilled me about my last column arguing that we can’t gerrymander our way back to democracy. What if this is the existential moment and Trump is about to send troops into cities across the U.S. and destroy democracy, Daun asked. I agree with her that we’re in an existential moment. But just because we want Democrats to do something to stop Trump, as so many people so passionately do, that doesn’t mean that gerrymandering to get a narrow Democratic majority in the House is the right thing to do. For one thing, a new House majority won’t be seated until 2027 and won’t fix the immediate crisis.
Trump is already sending troops into Democratic cities. And his plan to try more federal takeovers will likely unfold before the midterms. What we need right now is a massive popular movement to resist authoritarian overreach, local leaders who stand up to Trump, and courts that continue to hold the line on his administration’s assault on the rule of law.
The courts have played the biggest role in restraining Trump so far, issuing injunctions and blocking his orders Their power has been badly limited by the U.S. Supreme Court, which curtailed judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions and greenlighted some egregious administrative actions. The current Supreme Court majority has also helped Trump’s larger project of dismantling democracy by gutting the Voting Rights Act and by allowing partisan gerrymandering — which delayed but ultimately did not derail Wisconsin’s efforts to get fair maps.
Common Cause has led the fight against both partisan gerrymandering and the destruction of voting rights. On Saturday, the group declared a National Day of Action, with rallies in communities across the country, including in Wisconsin, to resist Trump’s Texas gerrymandering scheme and his unprecedented deployment of federal troops to run roughshod over local communities. But the group’s message is somewhat muddled, mixing strong language about fairness and voting rights with tolerance for the prospect of blue-state counter-gerrymandering.
One good thing about the gerrymandering brushfire spreading across the nation is that it has provoked a bipartisan backlash. Republicans in New York and California, facing the prospect of being drawn out of their seats, have begun speaking out against the gerrymandering plan for Texas, Politico reports.
Some quick math suggests that Republicans are likely to win a nationwide redistricting war that pulls in Missouri, Indiana, Florida and other red states. But Republicans who are in a minority in California and New York are still worried about losing their seats. “Redistricting is not really an ideological exercise as much as a self-interest exercise,” California-based GOP strategist Rob Stutzman told Politico. Hence blue state Republican House members are calling for their colleagues to stand down in Texas and other red states, lest they lose their seats in the blue state counter-gerrymander.
Instead of looking to gerrymandering, which is unfair, diminishes democracy and escalates hyper partisanship, opponents of the Trump administration need to keep building a big, pro-democracy movement that unites a majority of the country against Trump’s authoritarian overreach.
Wisconsin could lead the way.
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who has been holding town halls in Republican districts, reports being deluged with worried questions from both his own and his GOP colleagues’ constituents who don’t like the cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, and Social Security staffing in the unpopular “Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Most Americans don’t want to give away their health care, security and well-being so Elon Musk can get a tax cut.
Unfortunately, right-wing activists have played a long game, stacking the Supreme Court, blocking Democratic nominees, destroying the Voting Rights Act and putting the whole Heritage Foundation Project 2025 plan for authoritarianism in place. That won’t be undone in a single midterm election. But it is possible to leverage a broad-based populist movement of people who recognize it’s in their own interest to fight back.
Federal Bureau of Investigation and Metropolitan Police Department officers conduct a traffic stop near the U.S. Capitol on Aug. 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice will rewrite an order from Attorney General Pam Bondi that initially placed a Trump administration official in charge of the District of Columbia’s police force, after an emergency hearing late Friday afternoon on a lawsuit filed by the district.
Attorneys on behalf of the Justice Department told District of Columbia Judge Ana C. Reyes they would rewrite Section 1 of Bondi’s order by a deadline the judge set of 6:30 p.m. Eastern Friday.
In that section, Bondi’s late Thursday order named Terry Cole, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, as head of the Metropolitan Police Department.
District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb called that move a “brazen usurpation of the district’s authority” in his suit filed early Friday against the Trump administration.
Reyes, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, said if she did not receive the new order by the deadline, she would issue a temporary restraining order against the DOJ. She said she found that section of Bondi’s order “plainly contrary to statute” of the district’s Home Rule Act of 1973.
The exact changes to the order were not immediately available.
District filed suit Friday
Schwalb early Friday sued the Trump administration for taking control of the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,400 officers.
The suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia argued that President Donald Trump’s Monday executive order to federalize the district’s police force “far exceeded” the president’s authority under the Home Rule Act of 1973 that allows Washingtonians to elect their local leaders, but gives Congress control over local laws and the district’s budget.
Trump has warned he may pursue similar action in other Democratic-led cities that he sees as having “totally out of control” crime, though experts have questioned the legality and mayors already have raised objections.
“This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it,” Schwalb, a Democrat elected in 2022, wrote on social media. “The Administration’s actions are brazenly unlawful. They go well beyond the bounds of the President’s limited authority and instead seek a hostile takeover of MPD.”
District Mayor Muriel Bowser pushed back on Bondi’s order, and wrote on social media that “there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official.”
“Let us be clear about what the law requires during a Presidential declared emergency: it requires the mayor of Washington, DC to provide the services of the Metropolitan Police Department for federal purposes at the request of the President,” she said. “We have followed the law.”
The suit asks for a judge to vacate Bondi’s order and an order to prevent the Trump administration “from issuing any future orders or directives or taking any other action that attempts to place MPD under the control of anyone other than the Mayor and the Chief of Police, otherwise assert operational control over MPD, or otherwise attempt to direct local law enforcement activities.”
The suit does not challenge Trump’s decision to deploy 800 National Guard members to the district. Because the district, home to more than 700,000 residents, is not a state, the president has the sole authority over the National Guard members.
Carjacking preceded Trump order
Trump earlier this week declared a “crime emergency” after a former U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, official was injured on Aug. 3 in an attempted carjacking incident around 3 a.m. Eastern near the Logan Circle neighborhood. Two Maryland teenagers were arrested on charges of unarmed carjacking in connection with the incident.
Violent crime in the district is at a historic 30-year low.
The suit notes Trump’s previous comments about his plans for the district, from his time as a 2024 presidential candidate to his most recent remarks about taking over control of the district while at a February press conference.
“I think that we should govern the District of Columbia … I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely flawless … And I think we should take over Washington, D.C. … We should govern D.C. The federal government should take over the governance of D.C.,” Trump said in the court document.
Advocates and local leaders have criticized the president’s decision, arguing that the move is nothing more than an extension of the administration’s immigration crackdown. Checkpoints have popped up all over the city in communities with a high immigrant population.
Additionally, the district’s police chief Thursday issued a new order to allow local police to aid federal officials in immigration enforcement for immigrants not in police custody.
Trump praised Thursday’s order, calling it “a very positive thing,” especially at checkpoints in the district.
“When they stop people, they find they’re illegal, they report them, they give them to us,” he said.
Darryl Chavis, 62, served in the U.S. Army for two years as a watercraft operator. He stands outside the Borden Avenue Veterans Residence, a short-term housing facility in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, N.Y., where he lives. Chavis relies on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and is worried about new work requirements for the program, commonly known as food stamps. (Photo by Shalina Chatlani/Stateline)
NEW YORK — After a year in the U.S. Navy, Loceny Kamara said he was discharged in 2023, because while on base he had developed mental health issues, including severe anxiety and nightmares, and had fallen into alcoholism.
Kamara, 23, went to rehab and managed to get sober for some time while living with family in the Bronx, he said. But after he lost his job as a security guard in December, Kamara was kicked out of his home. Now he lives at a veterans homeless shelter in Long Island City, a neighborhood in Queens, New York, and he relies on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — commonly known as food stamps — and odd jobs to make ends meet.
Each month, nearly 42 million people receive SNAP benefits to help supplement their grocery budgets. Able-bodied SNAP recipients who are between 18 and 54 and don’t have children have always been required to work. Veterans, however, have been exempt from those rules — but that’s about to change.
The giant domestic policy measure that President Donald Trump signed on July 4 eliminates that exemption. Beginning in 2026, veterans will have to prove they are working, volunteering, participating in job training, or looking for work for at least 80 hours a month to keep their food stamps beyond three months, unless they qualify for another exemption, such as having certain disabilities.
Republicans in Congress and conservatives who helped formulate the law say these eligibility changes are necessary to stop people who could be working from abusing the system. But critics say the change fails to take into account the barriers many veterans face, and that the new work rules will cause thousands of veterans to go hungry.
“I’m pissed. I mean, I cannot get a job. Nowhere to live,” said Kamara. As he spoke, Kamara pointed to his collared shirt, noting that he had just dressed up to interview for a job as a security guard. He learned that morning he hadn’t gotten the job.
“I’ve been out of work for eight months,” Kamara told Stateline. “It’s hard to get a job right now for everybody.”
Loceny Kamara, 27, was discharged from the U.S. Navy after serving for a year. In December, Kamara was kicked out of his home. Now he lives at the Borden Avenue Veterans Residence and relies on food stamps and odd jobs to make ends meet. (Photo by Shalina Chatlani/Stateline)
Veterans depend on SNAP
Nationally, around 1.2 million veterans with lower incomes, or about 8% of the total veteran population of 16.2 million, rely on food stamps for themselves and their families, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research group.
An analysis by the group found veterans tend to have lower rates of employment because they are more likely to have health conditions, such as traumatic brain injuries, that make it difficult for them to work. They also tend to have less formal education, though many have specialized skills from their time in the military.
There has been a work requirement for most SNAP recipients since 1996. But Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the rules have “never really been enforced.” Rector argued that able-bodied people who have been exempt from the work requirement, such as veterans and homeless people, create an unnecessary burden on the system if they are capable of working but don’t.
“Most of the people that are in this category live in households with other people that have incomes, and so there really isn’t a chronic food shortage here,” Rector said in an interview. “We have tens of thousands of free food banks that people can go to. So it’s just a requirement to nudge these people in the proper direction, and it should no longer go unenforced.”
Darryl Chavis, 62, said that view ignores the difficulties that many veterans face. When Chavis left the U.S. Army at 21 after two years of service, he said, he was “severely depressed.”
“Nobody even came to help me,” said Chavis, who served as a watercraft operator, responsible for operating and maintaining tugboats, barges and other landing craft.
Chavis said he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, which has made it difficult for him to keep a job. He just moved back to New York from Virginia after leaving a relationship. He’s been at the housing shelter in Long Island City since January.
“What I’m trying to do is get settled in to, you know, stabilize into an apartment. I have the credentials to get a job. So it’s not like I’m not gonna look for a job. I have to work. I’m in transition, and the obstacles don’t make it easy,” Chavis said.
The new SNAP work rules apply to all able-bodied adults between 55 and 64 who don’t have dependents, and parents with children above the age of 14. Some groups, such as asylum-seekers and refugees, are no longer eligible for the program.
Barbara Guinn, commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, estimates that around 300,000 New Yorkers could lose SNAP benefits due to work requirements. Of those, around 22,000 are veterans, homeless or aging out of foster care, she said. Almost 3 million New Yorkers relied on SNAP as of March 2025.
Veterans in other states are in a similar situation. In California, an estimated 115,000 veterans receive SNAP benefits, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The number is nearly 100,000 in Florida and Texas, and 49,000 in Georgia.
Between 2015 and 2019 about 11% of veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 lived in food insecure households, meaning they had limited or uncertain access to food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP.
“We know that SNAP is the best way to help address hunger. It gets benefits directly to individuals,” Guinn said. “There are other ways that people can get assistance if they need it, through food banks or other charitable organizations, but we do not think that those organizations will have the capacity to pick up the needs.”
A greater burden on states
In addition to the work rule changes, the new law reduces federal funding for SNAP by about $186 billion through 2034 — a cut of roughly 20%, according to the Congressional Budget Office, an independent research arm of Congress. The federal government expects the new work requirements to reduce SNAP spending by $69 billion as people who don’t comply are dropped from the rolls.
SNAP has historically been funded by the federal government, with states picking up part of the cost of administering the program. Under the new law, states will have to cover between 5% and 15% of SNAP costs starting in fiscal year 2028, depending on how accurately they distribute benefits to people who are eligible for the program.
This has been a strategic agenda to dismantle SNAP and to blame states for doing so.
– Gina Plata-Nino, SNAP deputy director at the Food Research & Action Center
“This has been a strategic agenda to dismantle SNAP and to blame states for doing so, because they knew they are making it so incredibly burdensome to run and operate and unaffordable,” said Gina Plata-Nino, SNAP deputy director at the Food Research & Action Center, a poverty and hunger advocacy group.
“States are going to have to cut something, because there’s no surplus. There are no unlimited resources that states may have in order to be able to offset the harm.”
Guinn said New York expects to see a new cost burden of at least $1.4 billion each year. In California, new state costs could total as much as $3.7 billion annually, according to the California Department of Social Services.
Kaitlynne Yancy, director of membership programs at Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said many veterans with disabilities will not be able to fulfill the work requirements or find resources elsewhere. And it’s unclear whether states will be able to provide their own relief to people who are no longer exempted from work requirements or will be excluded from the program.
“It is a frustrating thing to see, especially for those that have been willing to put everything on the line and sacrifice everything for this country if their country called them to do so,” she said.
Yancy, 35, served in the U.S. Navy from 2010 to 2014. She began to use food stamps and the Medicaid program, the public health insurance program for people with lower incomes, as she navigated life’s challenges. They included going back to school to pursue her bachelor’s degree, becoming a single mother, and a leukemia diagnosis for one of her children. Frequent trips to the hospital made it hard for her to work steadily or attend school for 20 hours each week, she said.
Guinn said the new rules will create significant administrative challenges, too; even SNAP recipients who are working will struggle to prove it.
“Maybe they’re working one month, they have a job, and then their employer cuts their hours the next month,” Guinn told Stateline. “There are mechanisms for people to upload documentation as needed to demonstrate compliance with the program, but from an administrative standpoint, right now, we don’t have any super-high-tech automated way of doing this.”
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.
Jack Link’s, the world’s largest manufacturer of meat snacks, has spent years integrating itself into the country’s cultural and political arenas.
Riding a wave of protein-crazed consumers and a booming snack industry, the company’s iconic Sasquatch marketing campaign has helped its products become a staple in gas stations, grocery checkout lines and school vending machines.
The company has also spent years cultivating deep political ties, funneling millions to Donald Trump and nurturing a relationship with the president that has led to White House access.
Trump has been a strong supporter of the meat industry and welcomed Jack Link’s officials to a White House event during his first term. However, the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement is currently pushing for healthier eating standards and for states to restrict processed foods in their nutrition programs.
Now, Jack Link’s and the processed meat industry are caught between conflicting ideologies within the Trump administration and a battle over the future of food policy.
“There’s very much a conflict within this administration about the role of corporate power and public health,” said Judith McGeary, executive director of the Texas-based sustainable agriculture and farmer advocacy group Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance.
In May, the federal MAHA commission, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recommended in a new report that Americans consume fewer sugary drinks, snacks and processed foods.
While the report didn’t specifically mention processed meat snacks, it grabbed the attention of snack giants like Jack Link’s and other corporate agriculture groups, which are opposed to any additional regulations or changes to the food industry, McGeary said.
The report did note that low-income children and families consume more processed meat than their peers and that these products have been classified as carcinogens linked to serious health risks.
Kennedy, along with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, has encouraged states to restrict what foods can be purchased with benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP.
States, from West Virginia to California, have responded by approving bans that limit purchases of sugary beverages, snacks and foods with dyes and artificial ingredients.
Jack Link’s responded by hiring a lobbying firm, a move that paid off when it faced increased regulations during Trump’s first term.
Jack Link’s benefits from political, consumer trends
Minong, Wisconsin — a small, rural village in the state’s northwestern tip, home to taverns, gravel roads, rows of northern Wisconsin pine trees, and plenty of grazing land for beef cattle — is one of dozens of small towns across the state with roots in the cattle and lumber industries.
Minong is also home to a bigfoot-sized footprint of Jack Link’s that is hard to ignore.
Jack Link’s, owned by Link Snacks, is a $2 billion, privately owned company with dual headquarters in Minong and downtown Minneapolis, a few hours away.
Jack Link’s has dual corporate headquarters in Minong, Wis., and Minneapolis, pictured here on July 3, 2025. (Steven Garcia for Investigate Midwest)
The company employs roughly 4,000 people worldwide. Jack Link’s leadership has long served on local college and hospital boards and, in 2016, broke ground for the Jack Link’s Aquatic & Activity Center in Minong.
What started in the late 1980s as a family-owned jerky company has evolved into a global enterprise with offices and production plants in Canada, Australia, Mexico and Brazil.
Troy Link, son of company founder and current board member John “Jack” Link, has led the company’s global expansion since he became CEO in 2013.
Link has also developed a relationship with the Trump administration over the years by hosting private fundraising events and donating to his campaigns.
Last year, Link also donated half a million dollars to America PAC, a political action committee founded and operated by Elon Musk, according to Federal Elections Committee filings.
This donation placed Link among a highly influential group of donors and prominent technology and cryptocurrency industry moguls, such as Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.
Link donated $1.3 million during Trump’s 2020 re-election bid and also welcomed the president to a private fundraiser in July 2020 at his Florida mansion.
As a whole, the Link family has donated roughly $2.3 million to candidates, committees and state parties in the last decade. The majority of this occurred during the 2020 and 2024 Trump campaigns.
In 2018, the company was invited to the White House as part of a “Made In America” exhibition, where each state showcased a single business with products made in the country.
Troy Link did not respond to repeated requests for comment regarding the relationship of Jack Link’s and the Trump administration.
This relationship with politicians has served the company in the past. In Trump’s first term, Jack Link’s lobbied for beef jerky and meat snack sticks to qualify for the nation’s Child Nutrition Programs, such as school meals.
An Obama-era rule prohibited the reimbursement of beef jerky and dried meat products for school food purchases in 2011. When the rules were revisited under Trump in 2018, Jack Link’s argued in documents submitted to the USDA that dried meat products should receive the same crediting and treatment as other meat, like hamburgers and chicken strips.
“These food products should be held to the same standard as any other meat product when determining eligibility,” a Jack Link’s attorney wrote. “Currently, this is not the case because USDA has arbitrarily disqualified dried meat products from the program.”
A bipartisan trio of Wisconsin federal officials came to the aid of Jack Link’s during this regulatory update, with Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and former Congressman and current U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy writing in support of this change soon after.
“We are concerned that (Food and Nutrition Service) has overstepped in excluding this entire product class from consideration,” the officials wrote in a February 2018 letter. “Therefore, we respectfully request USDA to reevaluate this categorical exclusion.”
Link family members donated a combined $73,000 to the authors of the letter.
The lobbying effort worked. The Food and Nutrition Service announced in December 2018 that beef jerky and dried meat products were now eligible for reimbursement as part of school snacks and meals. Jack Link’s currently markets its snacks directly to school food purchasers.
The addition of school contracts and other market growth helped fuel the company’s expansion.
In recent years, Jack Link’s has broken ground on new manufacturing facilities across the country and purchased jerky companies from Tyson Foods and British packaged goods giant Unilever.
The company also launched Lorissa’s Kitchen, a healthy meat snack brand fronted by Troy’s spouse, Lorissa, and sold at Walmart and Costco nationwide. The brand differentiates itself from Jack Link’s by selling snacks “without added preservatives, nitrites or MSG and allergen-free products,” according to company media statements.
During the 2024 Republican National Convention, Link also appeared on a Fox News business segment to argue that inflation under Biden was making it more expensive for consumers to purchase snacks.
“Buying snacks should not be a luxury item; this should be an everyday occurrence,” Link said. “We just need to put more money back into the consumer’s pocket.”
Protein snacks boom amid calls to reduce meat consumption
As Jack Link’s worked to build a close relationship with the Trump administration, meat consumption was booming, especially thanks to right-wing influencers.
Online personalities, such as podcast hosts Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, have advocated for all-meat diets, including raw meat and eggs.
The connection between meat consumption and conservative politics dates back decades, according to food studies researcher Adrienne Bitar.
“Higher meat consumption has always been understood as sort of more conservative,” said Bitar, author of “Diet and the Disease of Civilization.”
“Where it comes up in the alt-right is the idea that the feminizing effects of civilization are unnatural, restrictive, repressive, and to liberate yourself from the accoutrements of civilization means to follow your appetite, with the hunger for meat being one of those appetites.”
Meat snacks sales increased 40% from 2019 to 2022, according to an industry report. The desire for more protein-dense snacks has risen across the entire food sector, from protein-packed popcorn to chocolate muffins.
However, the nation’s protein consumption far outpaces that of similar nations and needs to be reassessed, according to grocery experts and leading nutritionists.
“Unless you’re a competitive athlete or competitive bodybuilder, you’re probably eating too much protein,” said Errol Schweizer, publisher of The Checkout Grocery Update, a grocery industry publication, and former vice president of grocery for the multinational supermarket Whole Foods.
As protein rises in popularity among consumers, many nutritionists say Americans need more fruits and vegetables in their diet. (Mónica Cordero / Investigate Midwest)
Schweizer said the popularity of protein snacks has ebbed and flowed with American consumers, following the trends of certain diets and lifestyles over the past few decades. U.S. consumers are “obsessed” with protein intake, he said, and typically have diets that consist of fewer fresh fruits, vegetables, fiber and healthy fats.
Schweizer’s observations align with the nation’s blueprint for diet and nutrition.
Updated every five years, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans helps shape national standards for nutrition labeling, school meals and chronic disease prevention.
In October 2024, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a 20-person group of nutrition experts, released its recommended updates to both the USDA and the HHS. Now those two agencies will review recommendations and public comments to set the final dietary guidelines later this year.
Since 2000, the panel has consistently urged Americans to cut back on red and processed meats in favor of lean meat, seafood and plant-based proteins.
The committee’s 2024 report recommends diets “lower in red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, refined grains and saturated fats.”
The country’s leading meat industry group, The Meat Institute, whose members include Jack Link’s and other major meatpacking and meat snack companies, has argued against the committee’s recommendations.
“The Meat Institute is extremely concerned that consumers will inaccurately perceive meat and poultry products as poor dietary choices, which may lead to a variety of unintended consequences, including nutritional deficiencies in certain sub-populations,” the Virginia-based group wrote to the HHS in February.
The National Pork Board, the pork checkoff organization based in Clive, Iowa, wrote to the health department in February, stating that recommendations to reduce consumption of red meats are short-sighted and efforts to push foods such as legumes and beans over meats “does not seem to be supported by a robust body of evidence.”
“The elevation of plant-based protein sources over lean meats could inadvertently discourage the consumption of nutrient-dense lean meats, thus increasing the risk of nutritional deficiencies,” the letter stated.
In its inaugural report, the MAHA Commission wrote that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans has a “history of being unduly influenced by corporate interests,” noting how a past attempt to reduce the push for reducing intake of processed meats has been met with backlash and scientific discrediting from the meat industry.
Processed food industry fortifies as feds debate SNAP, diet guidelines
In late June, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, flanked by Kennedy in the state capitol, announced a sweeping set of executive orders to remove processed foods and foods with additives from the state’s nutrition programs.
“For far too long, we have settled for food that has made us sicker as a nation,” said Stitt at a June press event. “In Oklahoma, we’re choosing common sense, medical freedom, and personal responsibility. President Trump and Secretary Kennedy have led the charge nationally; I’m grateful for their support as we Make Oklahoma Healthy Again.”
Other states have followed suit with Arkansas, Indiana, West Virginia and California enacting bans on processed foods from SNAP purchases, or are exploring ways to reduce ultra-processed foods in the state, often with the support of Kennedy and Rollins and other federal leaders.
However, Joelle Johnson, deputy director for the food and nutrition consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, said despite growing debates about ultra-processed foods in the nation’s food programs, there is a lack of clear guidance from the federal government to retailers and food purchasers about what would and wouldn’t qualify as being ultra-processed.
“I would be surprised if we see bans of ultra-processed foods in SNAP, beyond candy and sweetened beverages, anytime soon,” she said.
Still, major snack and processed food companies, including Jack Link’s, are bracing for any changes that could harm their sales.
The Jack Link’s corporate headquarters as seen on July 3, 2025. (Steven Garcia for Investigate Midwest)
Consumer Brands Association, a Virginia-based organization representing major packaged food companies, including Tyson Foods and Coca-Cola, spent $42 million in lobbying over the past decade, focusing on issues including SNAP funding and dietary guidelines, among other issues.
Since 2023, the organization has worked with lobbyist Clete Willems, the deputy assistant of international economics during Trump’s first term and a former Obama administration official, according to lobbying disclosure documents.
Conagra Brands, the publicly traded, packaged food conglomerate that owns major brands such as Slim Jims, Orville Redenbacher, Birds Eye Frozen Foods and Reddi-Wip, spent over half a million dollars in the past year lobbying federal officials and has spent $4.6 million in lobbying in the past decade. Conagra and Consumer Brands Association did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
In April, Link Snacks, the parent company of Jack Link’s, hired lobbying firm Bockorny Group, which has also represented the meatpacking company Agri-Beef Co. and pork industry publication National Hog Farmer. This was the first time the beef jerky giant has lobbied federal officials.
Lobbyists working for Jack Link’s include Pete Lawson, a former VP for Ford Motors and staff attorney for Virginia Democratic Congressman Jim Moran, and Eric Bohl, a former staffer for the congressional offices of Missouri Republicans Vicky Hartzler and Jason Smith, who worked on the 2014 Farm Bill.
This year, Link Snacks has spent $25,000 on lobbying the federal government to support “protein snacks in SNAP program” as well as issues with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, according to lobbying disclosure documents.
US updates EV charger program to streamline approvals and expand funding access for states.
New rules let states deploy charging stations with fewer regulatory and planning requirements.
Transportation Secretary criticizes subsidies yet commits to implementing federal charger program.
Earlier this year, the Federal Highway Administration effectively paused the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program. At the time, state transportation directors were told the Trump administration had “decided to review the policies underlying the implementation of the NEVI” program and its guidance would be updated to better align with their latest priorities.
Many people feared that would mean disastrous things for the $5 billion program, which was part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. However, the Trump administration is now reluctantly moving ahead with plans to support electric vehicle charging.
The Department of Transportation unveiled revised guidance for the program, which they claimed will “streamline applications, provide states with more flexibility, and slash red tape left by the Biden-Buttigieg Administration.” The Trump administration went on to claim their predecessors “wasted time, money, and public trust in implementing the program.”
Fewer requirements, more flexibility
Political mudslinging aside, the government said the changes minimize the content necessary in state plans, while also simplifying their approval process. States can also expect more flexibility to determine the appropriate distance between charging stations.
DOE DC fast charger map
While it’s hard to argue with those updates, the government also noted the changes eliminate “requirements for states to address consumer protections, emergency evacuation plans, environmental siting, resilience and terrain considerations.”
This sounds like a terrible idea as a lack of charging stations on emergency evacuation routes could be a matter of life or death. However, the government said states “should … address emergency and evacuation needs, snow removal and seasonal needs, and ways for EV charging to support those needs.”
A quick deadline ahead
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, “While I don’t agree with subsidizing green energy, we will respect Congress’ will and make sure this program uses federal resources efficiently.” He added, “Our revised NEVI guidance slashes red tape and makes it easier for states to efficiently build out this infrastructure.”
With the updated guidance released, the clock starts ticking as the government said states should submit their EV Infrastructure Deployment Plans within 30 days. That’s a quick turnaround and one that could prove bumpy.
President Donald Trump announces a "crime emergency" in Washington, D.C., during a White House press conference on Aug. 11, 2025. Standing behind Trump are, from left to right, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro. (Image via White House livestream)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump asserted control Monday of the District of Columbia police force and mobilized 800 National Guard troops in the nation’s capital under what he declared a “crime emergency.”
Trump took the step despite a three-decade low in violent crime in Washington, D.C., while warning he may pursue similar action in other Democratic-led cities that he sees as having “totally out of control” crime.
Trump at a press conference said that he hopes other Democratic-led cities are watching because Monday’s actions in the district are just the beginning.
“We’re starting very strongly with D.C.,” Trump said.
The president placed the Metropolitan Police Department of roughly 3,400 officers under federal control, citing the district’s Home Rule Act that allows for the federal takeover until an emergency is declared over, or 30 days after the declaration. Congress can also authorize the extension.
“We’re going to take our capital back,” Trump said.
The mayor of the district, Muriel Bowser, called Monday’s action “unsettling and unprecedented.” She added that she was not informed by the president that the district’s police force would be taken over.
DOGE staffer hurt
The escalation of federal control came after a former U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, official was injured in an attempted carjacking incident around 3 a.m. Eastern near the district neighborhood of Logan Circle. Two Maryland teenagers were arrested on charges of unarmed carjacking in connection with the incident.
The president said he is prepared to send in more National Guard “if needed,” and that he will handle the city the same way he has handled immigration at the southern border. The Trump administration has been carrying out a campaign of mass deportations.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during the press conference that members of the National Guard will be “flowing into” the district sometime this week.
Local officials in the district protested Trump’s move. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, an elected official, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the Trump administration’s “actions are unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful.”
“There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia. Violent crime in DC reached historic 30-year lows last year, and is down another 26% so far this year,” Schwalb said.
“We are considering all of our options and will do what is necessary to protect the rights and safety of District residents,” he continued.
Trump at the press conference said that he’s also directed officials to clear out encampments of homeless people in the district, but did not detail where those people would be moved.
Hundreds of federal law enforcement officers, representing agencies from the Drug Enforcement Agency to the Interior Department, were deployed across the city Saturday and Sunday.
Los Angeles and beyond
The president’s crackdown in the district occurred after a federal appeals court this summer temporarily approved Trump’s move to take control of the California National Guard from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for the purpose of quelling protests over the administration’s aggressive immigration raids.
The president Monday slammed several major Democratic cities – Baltimore, Chicago, New York City and Oakland – and inaccurately claimed they had the highest murder rates.
Trump said that he hopes other cities are “watching us today.”
“Maybe they’ll self clean up and maybe they’ll self do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused the problem,” the president said.
Trump pointed at Chicago, criticizing Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker.
“I understand he wants to be president,” Trump said of Pritzker, before taking a shot at the governor’s personal appearance. “I noticed he lost a little weight so maybe he has a chance.”
The top Republican on the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over the district, praised Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard and take over the police department.
“President Trump is rightly using executive power to take bold and necessary action to crack down on crime and restore law and order in Washington, D.C.,” Rep. James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, said in a statement.
Comer added that the committee next month will hold a hearing with Schwalb, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and Mayor Muriel Bowser.
While state governors have control over their National Guards, the president has control over the National Guard members in the district. The National Guard does not have arresting authority, under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.
During Trump’s first term, he deployed roughly 5,000 National Guard on Black Lives Matter protesters in the district after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.
And despite requests from congressional leaders, Trump notably delayed activating National Guard members during the 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, when the president’s supporters tried to subvert the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
In one of Trump’s first actions on his inauguration day in January, he pardoned hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters who were charged by the Department of Justice for their involvement in the insurrection.
Putin meeting
In a question-and-answer session after announcing the National Guard deployment, Trump told reporters he hoped his meeting this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin would help put that country on a path to peace with Ukraine, which he said would involve each country ceding some territory to the other.
Trump described the Friday summit in Alaska — Putin’s first visit to the U.S. in a decade — as a “feel-out meeting.”
Asked if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited to the summit, Trump said he was “not part of it.” Any framework for peace discussed between Trump and Putin would be relayed to Zelenskyy, he said.
An end to the war would have to come from direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy, which may or may not ultimately involve the U.S., he said.
“I’m going to put the two of them in a room, and I’ll be there or I won’t be there, and I think it’ll get solved,” he said of Putin and Zelenskyy.
Trump said he was “a little disappointed” that Zelenskyy did not immediately agree to cede territory to Russia, which invaded his country in February 2022. Zelenskyy has repeatedly said giving land to Russia was a nonstarter, including after Trump suggested it over the weekend.
the Von Ruden farm sits on a hill overlooking Vernon County. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
State Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) and Rep. Jenna Jacobson joined Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden on his Vernon County farm Thursday to criticize the economic and agricultural policies of President Donald Trump as bad for Wisconsin’s small and medium farms.
The event at the farm in Westby came as Wisconsin Republicans have ignored or disputed the cumulative effect on farmers of tariffs on foreign imports, cuts to programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and an immigration policy that has scared away some farm laborers who are afraid to show up to work.
“The tariffs coming out of Washington D.C. are hurting our farmers across Wisconsin and across the country, and you don’t have to just take this from me,” Pfaff said. “All you have to do is look at the economic indicators, those troubling signs that are coming across from Washington, D.C. Job growth is stagnating, prices are rising, and the agriculture sector is taking a hit. Sadly, my Republican colleagues in Madison seem to be turning a blind eye to all of these concerns.”
Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden speaks about the affect of Trump tariffs as state Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) and Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon) listen. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), whom Jacobson is challenging in next year’s midterm elections, recently said that “farmers aren’t concerned” about the potential damage of Trump’s policies. At a telephone town hall earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany said that through actions such as raising the estate tax exemption for farms and the establishment of trade agreements with countries around the world, Wisconsin farmers will be able to benefit from “free markets.”
But Von Ruden told the Wisconsin Examiner he doesn’t see how Wisconsin’s farmers can benefit when the federal government is cutting programs that directly help them find markets for their products while tariffs only make it harder to export. Trump and Republicans have made massive cuts to USDA programs that help schools and food banks buy food from local farmers. The recently enacted Republican reconciliation law makes large cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, which low-income residents have been able to use to buy food from producers at local farmer’s markets.
“That’s hundreds of millions of dollars that farmers are going to lose because the government’s not going to be purchasing [food] to take care of the most needy people in this country,” Von Ruden said. “The other thing is, because we’ve allowed so many loopholes in the USDA, fewer people are getting bigger dollars from the government or insurance subsidies and things like that. So that’s taking money away from the small producers, because we don’t have the capabilities to hire an attorney to make sure that we get that $5 or $6 million check from Uncle Sam. Our members and myself, I would much rather get my income from the marketplace versus depending on a government check.”
Von Ruden’s kids are the fourth generation to work on his family farm. He said that with Trump’s tariffs, his costs are going up. Canadian fertilizer is more expensive. The John Deere tractor he uses will soon be unaffordable.
“We need to make sure that we’re growing agriculture, not decreasing it. Looking at how tariffs are going to affect this farm, we’re going to see the trickle down effect from that in the commodity markets,” Von Ruden said. That trickle down effect is the biggest concern for farmers, he added.
“The president has said that he’s going to make sure that farmers are taken care of,” Von Ruden said. “Tariffs aren’t going to do that. So let’s stop all the rhetoric.”
The Von Ruden farm has been in the family for four generations. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Jacobson pointed to a number of proposals in the Wisconsin Legislature meant to help farmers respond to Trump’s trade wars that Republicans have blocked.
“Wisconsin Republicans had three chances to support our farmers, and three times they voted no,” she said. “Howard Marklein and Republicans in both chambers have failed to support our family farmers, failed to invest in our agricultural industry and made it harder for those in need to buy food. This is completely unacceptable.”
The driftless region of western Wisconsin is set to become a major target for Democrats in next year’s midterm elections as the effects of Trump administration and Republican policies hit the purple swing region. In addition to Jacobson’s challenge of Marklein, Democrats are targeting U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s 3rd Congressional District seat.
The next-generation Chevrolet Bolt will initially use an LFP battery from China.
GM expects to start producing the new Bolt later this year, with deliveries in 2026.
12 of the 13 EVs that GM currently sells in the US use locally-made battery packs.
Amid ongoing pressure to shift away from imports, one of America’s largest automakers is taking a temporary detour. While President Donald Trump has been pushing US companies to rely less on foreign suppliers, General Motors is planning to import battery packs from Chinese manufacturer CATL.
The company says this decision is short-term, part of a broader strategy to eventually build its own battery packs domestically.
The move was initially reported by The Wall Street Journal, and later confirmed by the carmaker. CATL will supply GM with lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries for the next-generation Bolt, which is expected to enter production later this year before arriving in dealerships in 2026.
GM says it plans to rely on CATL’s battery packs for around two years. After that, it expects its partnership with LG Energy Solution to support domestic production of more affordable battery systems.
“For several years, other U.S. automakers have depended on foreign suppliers for LFP battery sourcing and licensing,” a company spokesman confirmed. “To stay competitive, GM will temporarily source these packs from similar suppliers to power our most affordable EV model.”
2027 Chevrolet Bolt teasers
The Cost of Going Global
Of the 13 electric vehicles GM currently sells in the U.S., twelve are equipped with battery packs made domestically. The only exception is the Cadillac Celestiq, which uses a foreign-sourced pack.
By importing battery packs from China, GM will have to deal with duties of approximately 80 percent, according to Nunzio De Filippies from CargoTrans, a major logistics management firm. However, the automaker knows it needs to cut costs with its entry-level EV, and if it has to use Chinese batteries, then that’s what it’ll do.
Limited details are known about the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt, but GM has said it’ll cost slightly more than the old model, which started at $28,795 in 2023. It will be built at GM’s Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas.
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Responding to an order from President Donald Trump, several federal agencies are seeking to block undocumented immigrants and some immigrants with legal status from accessing programs that provide literacy classes, career education, medical and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, free preschool and more.
A range of institutions — including colleges, government agencies and nonprofits — manage the affected programs.
The order has caused widespread confusion about which organizations must check immigration status of the people they serve and how they could do that. Parts of the order appear to conflict with federal law.
Wisconsin joined 20 other states in a lawsuit challenging the new restrictions.
A group of federal agencies announced in July that at least 15 federally funded health, education and social service programs would exclude undocumented immigrants and some who are living in the country legally.
Responding to President Donald Trump’s February executive order to “identify all federally funded programs currently providing financial benefits to illegal aliens and take corrective action,” the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor listed programs that provide literacy classes, career education, medical and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, free preschool and more.
In Wisconsin alone, the state Department of Justice estimates the new federal restrictions “put at risk more than $43 million each year in substance abuse and community mental health block grants that fund services in all 72 counties, 11 Tribal nations, and approximately 50 nonprofit organizations.”
Wisconsin Watch contacted more than a dozen Wisconsin organizations, government agencies and national experts to learn about the new policy’s effects. But we found more questions than answers. Most are unsure who is subject to the new rules or how to comply.
While we were reporting this story, Wisconsin joined 20 other states in a lawsuit challenging the new restrictions. That suit is still pending, but the parties have agreed to a deal that would delay most of the restrictions in those states until September.
Confusion created by the guidance could have serious consequences, experts say. Some providers might delay or cancel programs unnecessarily out of an abundance of caution, while some immigrants may avoid services for which they remain eligible, such as health care and education.
While much remains unclear, here’s what we know so far.
Which immigrants would be barred?
A 1996 law already prohibited certain immigrants from receiving 31 “federal public benefits,” including Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and cash assistance. The Trump administration’s new guidance bars the same immigrants from additional programs, according to the National Immigration Law Center.
Those ineligible include:
People with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
People with nonimmigrant visas, such as student visas, work visas and U visas for survivors of serious crimes.
People who have pending applications for asylum or a U visa.
People granted Deferred Enforced Departure or deferred action. This includes Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients — those who entered the country as children.
Undocumented immigrants.
Lawfully present immigrants who don’t fall into categories below.
People in the following groups would remain eligible:
Lawful permanent residents (green card holders).
Refugees.
People who have been granted asylum or withholding of removal.
Certain survivors of domestic violence.
Certain survivors of trafficking.
Certain Cuban and Haitian nationals.
People residing under a Compact of Free Association with Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.
Why the confusion?
A range of institutions — including colleges, government agencies and nonprofits — manage the affected programs. Many did not previously check the immigration status of the people they serve; creating a process to do so may add costs and logistical challenges. It could prove especially daunting for organizations like soup kitchens and homeless shelters, which provide urgent services to people without easy access to documents.
Meanwhile, entities that administer these federal funds include nonprofits and federally funded community health centers, which operate under laws that conflict with the guidance.
Health and Human Services said its settlement with the suing states “will permit the agency to consider, as appropriate, whether to provide additional information” about the restrictions it announced.
How would the changes affect health care in Wisconsin?
Wisconsin has 16 federally qualified community health centers serving patients at 217 sites. They receive money from Congress to provide primary care to all, regardless of their ability to pay. Nationally, such clinics serve more than 32 million patients, making up 1 in 10 people in the United States and 1 in 5 people in rural America, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers.
Aside from emergency rooms, they are often the only care options for undocumented immigrants or those with limited English proficiency, said Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at KFF, a national nonprofit providing information on health issues.
Federal law requiring those clinics to accept “all residents of the area served by the center” contradicts the Trump administration guidance.
Layton Clinic is shown on May 9, 2018, in Milwaukee. Wisconsin has 16 federally qualified community health centers serving patients at 217 sites. New Trump administration rules seek to bar certain immigrants from such services, but they appear to contradict federal law. (Andrea Waxman /Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
The national association said in a July 10 statement that it’s working with experts and legislators to understand the impact of the new rules and ensure centers “have the information and resources needed” to continue serving their patients.
Access Community Health Centers, a nonprofit that provides medical, dental and mental health care at five south central Wisconsin clinics, will make “adjustments” if further federal guidance comes, CEO Ken Loving said.
“We don’t have the information we need to understand how this is going to impact us and how we can adapt to help our patients,” he said.
How would the changes affect education in Wisconsin?
The Wisconsin Technical College System has followed 1997 guidance that said public benefit restrictions did not apply to such educational services, spokesperson Katy Petterson said. She’s not sure how the updated guidance might affect the system, which will “wait to learn the impact of the lawsuit.”
If community-college-operated programs begin checking immigration status, ineligible immigrants may remain able to take federally funded classes through nonprofits that are subject to different rules.
A textbook lies on a table during a Literacy Network of Dane County English Transitions class at Madison College’s Goodman South Campus on July 9, 2025, in Madison, Wis. Some adult education services are on the list of federally funded programs that the Trump administration is targeting for immigration status checks, but the effects of the new rules are unclear. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
The nation’s 1,600 Head Start agencies, which provide free early childhood education and family support services for low-income families, fall under the restrictions announced in the Department of Health and Human Services notice. But the document doesn’t say whether Head Start staff must verify the immigration status of children, parents or both.
“It’s very ambiguous about who this impacts. … If you read the language, it’s 26-plus-ish pages of legal jargon, and it’s shifting,” said Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, which supports the state’s roughly 300 Head Start service sites.
One thing Mauer wants families to know: Children already enrolled in Head Start won’t be forced out.
“We want to follow the rules, but Head Start is not required to redetermine eligibility,” Mauer said, noting it has never been required to do so in 60 years. She’s been telling the center directors to sit tight, even as worried parents ask questions.
One entity that won’t start checking immigration status: K-12 schools. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that denying education to undocumented students violated their constitutional rights.
Must nonprofit providers start checking immigration status?
Probably not. The 1996 law restricting public benefits says nonprofit charities are not required to “determine, verify, or otherwise require proof of eligibility of any applicant for such benefits.”
At Literacy Network, a nonprofit offering a variety of free ESL and basic education classes in Madison, staff aren’t planning changes based on the new rule.
“It could certainly impact many of our students in other areas of their lives and therefore their ability to participate in our programs, but not who we can serve,” spokesperson Margaret Franchino said.
Still, guidance from the Department of Education is vague. It states that the exemption for nonprofits is “narrowly crafted,” and “the Department does not interpret (it) to relieve states or other governmental entities … from the requirements to ensure that all relevant programs are in compliance.”
Ryan Graham is the homeless systems manager at Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care, a nonprofit that supports agencies responding to homelessness across most of the state.
As his agency discusses updates with partner agencies, it is preparing for an “increased administrative burden on already stretched staff.”
“We don’t yet know whether there will be delays caused by having to check or validate someone’s citizenship status, especially in emergency situations where time is critical,” Graham said.
When do the new rules take effect?
The notices published in July took effect immediately, though some federal agencies said they would likely not enforce them for about a month. The Trump administration later agreed to pause enforcement until Sept. 3 in the 21 states that sued.
The Department of Health and Human Services, meanwhile, has voluntarily stayed enforcement of its directive in all states until Sept. 10.
What is the basis of legal challenges?
The multistate lawsuit argues the Trump administration failed to follow proper procedures in implementation and that it can’t retroactively change the rules after states accept grants to administer programs. Requirements to check the immigration status of every person served would unreasonably burden program staff and possibly force programs to close, the states argue.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul speaks at a press conference at the F.J. Robers Library in the town of Campbell, outside of La Crosse, Wis., on July 20, 2022. Kaul joined 20 other states in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to require more federally funded programs to check clients’ immigration status. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
States “will suffer continued, irreparable harm if forced to dramatically restructure their social safety nets and render them inaccessible to countless of the States’ most vulnerable residents,” the plaintiffs wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Head Start groups nationwide had already sued before the Trump administration published new guidance. That suit argued staffing cuts, funding delays and bans on diversity efforts threatened to destabilize Head Start — a long-standing, congressionally mandated program. A hearing in that suit was held Aug. 5 on a request to temporarily block the Health and Human Services notice.
What does the Trump administration say?
The 1996 public benefits ban exempted federal programs that offered services available to all people on the grounds that they were “necessary for the protection of life and safety.”
Trump calls that exemption too broad.
“A surge in illegal immigration, enabled by the previous Administration, is siphoning dollars and essential services from American citizens while state and local budgets grow increasingly strained,” the White House said.
Citing studies from congressional committees and groups that seek to severely curtail immigration, the White House argues that allowing broad access to federal resources incentivizes illegal immigration and costs U.S. taxpayers. The recent federal spending package also eliminated access to Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps for some authorized immigrants, including refugees and asylees.
Experts worry the confusion about the new rule could have a chilling effect, leading even eligible immigrants to stop using services.
Pillai of KFF noted that the restrictions on community health centers, alongside congressionally approved changes “that limit health coverage to a smaller group of lawfully present immigrants,” will likely make immigrant families even more reluctant to seek health care and social services.
The changes “may increase their reliance on emergency room care, which can be more costly in the long term,” she added.
Graham, the homeless systems manager, believes the Trump change will create “a direct barrier to safe and stable shelter for undocumented individuals and mixed-status families” and qualified immigrants or citizens who “may not have identification or the means to attain identification after fleeing a dangerous situation or crisis.”
It could also prompt administrators of some programs not covered by the rule to start screening participants as a precaution, or shut down programs to avoid screening challenges.
That has happened before. When Trump issued an executive order in January saying the administration would no longer “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support” gender-affirming health care for people under 19, some providers stopped offering those services even though state law protected them.
Braden Goetz, who worked for more than 20 years in the U.S. Department of Education and now works as a senior policy adviser at the New America Foundation’s Center on Education and Labor, said it’s unusual for federal guidance to be so sparse and ambiguous.
“Maybe that’s the intention: to confuse people and chill services to people who are not citizens or not legal permanent residents, and scare people,” Goetz said.
Five things to know about the new public benefits rule
The rule bars some immigrants with legal status, as well as all undocumented immigrants. That includes people with TPS, DACA, guest worker visas or pending asylum applications.
Children already enrolled in Head Start can continue attending, regardless of their immigration status. That’s because Head Start programs aren’t required to redetermine eligibility, according to Wisconsin Head Start Association executive director Jennie Mauer.
Nonprofit charitable organizations appear to be exempt from the new requirement. That means immigrants barred from services under the new guidelines may still be able to get services through nonprofit organizations.
Community Health Centers are required by law to accept all people in their area. It’s not clear how the new rules, which state that these federally funded health centers should only be available to “qualified immigrants,” will work with that law.
The new rules do not affect access to K-12 education, which the U.S. Supreme Court has found to be a right of every child regardless of immigration status.
Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success in Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Sreejita Patra is statehouse reporting intern for Wisconsin Watch.
A student draws with chalk on an outdoor court at a New York City public school in 2022. If states didn't receive billions in congressionally approved funding for K-12 education that the Trump administration had been withholding, officials said programs for migrants, English-language learners and kids in need of after-school care would be at risk. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
It’s been a troubling summer for anyone who cares about children, families and the thousands of students who rely on summer and after-school programs across Wisconsin. In early July, without warning and without sound legal authority, the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced it would withhold billions in federal education funds — including money that had already been appropriated by Congress months earlier.
Among the frozen funds was support for 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLCs) — the only federal program dedicated exclusively to after-school and summer learning. In Wisconsin, more than 18,000 students across over 150 programs rely on this funding for safe, enriching places to go when school is out. These programs aren’t extras. They are essential for student success and family stability.
Also caught in the freeze were other critical federal programs, including Title II-A (teacher professional development), Title IV-A (student support), Title III-A (English learners), Title I-C (migrant education), adult basic education, and English literacy and civics education. These dollars support some of our most vulnerable students.
There was no clear explanation. No legal justification. And no warning to the schools and organizations already planning for the 2025–26 school year.
But the response from the after-school field was swift. National networks like the Afterschool Alliance, local providers, parents and state advocates mobilized. Tens of thousands of letters and phone calls poured into congressional offices. The Afterschool Alliance organized a briefing for the bi-partisan Senate Caucus and then within days, 10 Republican senators sent a letter demanding the OMB release the funds. That pressure worked. The administration reversed course. For now, the 21st CCLC money is moving.
This was a critical victory — but also a red flag.
Why did we have to fight so hard for funding that was already signed into law? Why was it even legal for the administration to delay disbursement based on a vague “review”? And what’s to stop it from happening again next year?
This experience exposed a dangerous truth: Wisconsin has no backup plan. We are in the minority of states without any dedicated state funding stream for after-school and summer learning programs. That leaves our kids — especially those in rural or under-resourced areas — completely dependent on federal dollars. And when federal dollars get caught up in politics, Wisconsin kids lose.
We can’t afford that gamble.
Because 21st CCLC programs are not just child care; they are proven, high-quality learning environments that deliver real results.
In fact, students who regularly attend these programs see improvements in their grades, attendance, engagement and even standardized test scores. A national study of low-income, ethnically diverse students found that regular attendance in a high-quality afterschool program like 21st CCLC led to up to a 20-percentile gain in math scores. Students also showed better behavior and were less likely to be chronically absent. In Wisconsin, where absenteeism has surged post-pandemic, this is exactly the kind of support our students need.
After-school programs work because they meet kids where they are. These programs offer hands-on STEM projects, arts and music, physical activity, service learning, leadership development and workforce readiness. They give students new experiences, expose them to future career paths, and build skills like communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. They engage the whole child and they engage families, too.
They’re also essential for working parents. A recent survey found that nine in 10 voters agree that after-school and summer programs are vital to the economic well-being of families. Employers rely on them to ensure parents can work full hours. Yet today, two-thirds of Wisconsin families who want after-school and summer programs can’t access them. There simply isn’t funding to support the need.
And demand is growing. In 2024 alone, more than half of 21st CCLC providers reported having waitlists. Nearly 90% said they are worried about long-term sustainability. And while the cost of operating these programs has gone up, federal investment hasn’t kept pace with inflation — meaning we’re doing more with less every year.
Affluent parents have long understood that learning opportunities outside of school hours are essential to their children’s full development. All of Wisconsin’s children deserve the same chance to thrive. These programs are a vital part of our state’s education and workforce infrastructure, and it’s time Wisconsin started treating them that way.
Yes, restoring the 21st CCLC funds was a victory. But it came only because thousands of people raised their voices. We shouldn’t have to beg to protect something so fundamental. And we shouldn’t leave our kids’ futures up to the whims of politics in Washington.
If we want every student in Wisconsin to have a chance to succeed, not just in school, but in life, we need to invest in these programs. Not just when there’s a crisis, not just when federal funds are threatened, but every year. With reliable, sustainable state funding.
Our kids and our communities deserve nothing less.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, left, and Texas Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, right, listen as Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu speaks to reporters during a press conference at the DuPage County Democratic Party headquarters on Aug. 3, 2025 in Carol Stream, Illinois. Wu was with a group of Democratic Texas lawmakers who left the state so a quorum could not be reached during a special session called to redistrict the state. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Fueled by President Donald Trump’s aims to bolster the U.S. House’s razor-thin GOP majority in the 2026 midterm elections, a rare mid-decade redistricting fight in Texas grew increasingly bitter in recent days and engulfed other states.
As Democratic legislators in the Lone Star State fled to block a new congressional map, a handful of both blue and red states eyed their own redistricting plans, lawsuits cropped up and members of Congress pledged bills to curb redistricting wars.
While Texas is the only state that has so far taken formal action to redraw its U.S. House lines, a full-blown arms race could be imminent.
Here’s a breakdown on the redistricting battle as the drama unfolds:
How did all of this interest in redistricting kick off?
Republicans in Texas drew a new congressional map at the urging of Trump that could give the GOP five crucial new congressional seats in 2026.
Midterm elections typically lead to the loss of congressional seats for a president’s party.
Meanwhile, the GOP currently holds 219 seats in the House, while Democrats hold 212 spots, with four vacancies. That extremely narrow majority has created immense challenges for U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, as he tries to enact Trump’s sweeping agenda and cater to the president’s demands as well as factions in the GOP conference.
Though congressional districts are typically redrawn every decade following each U.S. Census, the move, particularly in Texas, is not unprecedented and is allowed.
What’s going on in Texas?
Texas Republicans unveiled a draft of the new congressional map in late July, which looks to reshape and flip major metro areas’ districts held by Democrats.
According to The Texas Tribune, the Department of Justice sent Texas’ leaders a letter in early July that said four of its districts violate the U.S. Constitution. The proposed map would dismantle those districts, per the Tribune.
More than 50 of Texas’ Democratic legislators left the state to try to block the legislature from adopting the new map, according to the Tribune.
This move has drawn the ire of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who went so far as to file a lawsuit asking to remove the Texas House Democratic Caucus chair, state Rep. Gene Wu, after Wu left the state.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also said Tuesday that he will pursue a court ruling that declares the seats vacant for the House Democrats who do not return by Friday.
Texas GOP U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has also called on the FBI “to take any appropriate steps to aid in Texas state law enforcement efforts to locate or arrest potential lawbreakers who have fled the state.” Trump on Tuesday, asked by a reporter if the FBI should “get involved,” said, “Well, they may have to.”
How is California reacting?
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been among the most vocal Democratic governors in suggesting retaliating against Texas Republicans by redrawing his populous blue state’s own lines before the 2026 elections.
State laws in California and other Democratic states make mid-decade redistricting tougher than it is in Texas.
While pro-democracy groups have praised California’s nonpartisan commission as the “gold standard” of independent redistricting, Newsom has indicated he would ask state lawmakers to temporarily scrap it to join the arms race he says Trump started in Texas.
At a Monday press conference, Newsom justified his exploration of mid-decade redistricting in the Golden State by describing Trump’s recent and historic record as anti-democratic.
“These folks don’t play by the rules,” Newsom said. “If they can’t win playing the game with the existing set of rules, they’ll change the rules. That’s what Donald Trump has done … Here is someone who tried to break this country, tried to light democracy on fire on Jan. 6. He recognizes he’s going to lose in the midterms.”
What other states are looking at potentially redistricting?
Vice President JD Vance is slated to visit Indiana Thursday in an attempt to push redistricting, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
Indiana GOP Gov. Mike Braun said that as of now, no commitments have been made, when asked about redistricting efforts in the Hoosier State, per the Capital Chronicle.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun was careful in his comments Tuesday about potential redistricting in Indiana to net a GOP seat — or two — in Congress. (Photo by Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
Leaders of large Democratic states, in addition to California, are considering their own redistricting in response to Texas.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wrote in an op-ed published in the Houston Chronicle Tuesday that she would “not sit on the sidelines” and watch “Republicans dismantle democracy.”
“What Texas is doing isn’t a clever strategy, it’s political arson — torching our democracy to cling to power,” Hochul wrote. “The only viable recourse is to fight fire with fire.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker appeared alongside Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and a group of exiled Texas Democratic lawmakers at a news conference Tuesday. Pritzker said it was “possible” the state would pursue redistricting, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Other Democratic governors — even including Laura Kelly of ruby-red Kansas — raised the prospect during a Democratic Governors Association meeting in Wisconsin last week of pursuing mid-decade redistricting if Texas follows through.
Republican states are also considering jumping in the fray.
Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin, a Republican, told a news radio station last week that it was “likely” lawmakers would convene in a special session to redraw district lines after pressure from Trump.
And Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican who holds the most competitive of Nebraska’s three U.S. House seats but plans to step down, told the Nebraska Examiner that Republicans in the state were having conversations about potential redistricting.
What downside do some see?
An arms race to shorten the cycle for redrawing congressional lines could come at a cost for efforts to overhaul the redistricting process.
Common Cause, a national pro-democracy group that advocates for election reforms including nonpartisan redistricting, urged Democrats not to respond to Texas.
A redistricting arms race would only result in “rigged elections across America,” Emily Eby French, the policy director for Common Cause Texas, said on a press call last week. It was wrong for Republicans to put “a thumb on the scale” through redistricting, she said, but also wrong for Democrats to do the same.
“The real solution is for Democrats to help us lift the Republican thumb off of the Texas scale and every other scale in America until we reach free and fair elections for everyone.”
Are party leaders egging this on?
Trump, whose urging appeared to prompt Texas Republicans to action, has consistently pushed lawmakers in that state to reinforce the GOP advantage there.
Tuesday, he said on CNBC that Republicans were “entitled” to five more House seats in Texas.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin stands outside of a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon, on July 31, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom)
Martin, the DNC chair, responded in Illinois.
“No party is entitled to any district,” he said. “We have to go out and earn the votes.”
Still, Martin advised Democrats in blue states to do the opposite by responding in kind to Texas Republicans.
“We’re not here to tie one of our hands behind our back,” he said. “We can’t be the only party that’s playing by the rules.”
How is Congress reacting?
At least two GOP House lawmakers — representing blue states looking at retaliatory redistricting efforts against Trump — are taking it upon themselves to introduce bills in Congress that bar these initiatives.
GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley of California introduced a bill in the House this week that would ban mid-decade redistricting across the country.
Kiley said Newsom “is trying to subvert the will of voters and do lasting damage to democracy in California,” in a statement earlier this week.
“Fortunately, Congress has the ability to protect California voters using its authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “This will also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.”
Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, also said he plans to introduce legislation to prohibit “partisan gerrymandering and mid-decade redistricting.”
The New York Republican told CNN on Tuesday that “this is fundamentally why Congress is broken,” adding that “you do not have competitive districts and so, most members are focused on primaries and not actually engaging in a general election.”
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany speaks to voters on Jan. 27 at a listening session on the campus of UW-Eau Claire Barron County. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany painted a rosy picture of how the budget reconciliation law recently signed by President Donald Trump will affect Wisconsinites and pushed for state and federal policies that encourage the growth of extractive industries in the state during a telephone town hall hosted by the right-wing organization Americans for Prosperity on Tuesday evening.
Tuesday’s event struck a far different tone from the in-person town hall hosted by U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil last week and the tour of in-person listening sessions Tiffany made across his northern Wisconsin district in the early weeks of the second Trump administration in January.
At Steil’s event, in the much more politically mixed 1st Congressional District in southern Wisconsin, he faced a hostile crowd. And at one of Tiffany’s events in January, the crowd was made up of a mix of supporters and opponents worried about what the first weeks of Trump’s term meant for the country’s direction.
But on Tuesday, all six questions Tiffany took came from people who expressed broad support for the Trump administration and the policies in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed by congressional Republicans and signed by Trump.
Tiffany has been flirting with running for governor next year. He recently told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel he’d make a decision about entering the Republican primary by the end of September.
During the phone call, the moderator, Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin’s Megan Novak, noted that she was “seeing a lot of questions” in the queue about Medicaid but instead of letting a constituent ask the question, Novak asked if Tiffany could “clear up some of the information about what the bill actually does related to Medicaid to help protect it for the most vulnerable members of our society.”
The Medicaid provisions in the law are among the most controversial. In an effort to cut federal spending and partially fund the cost of expanding the tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017 during Trump’s first term, the law imposes strict work requirements on people seeking to qualify for Medicaid coverage. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the law will cause 10 million people to lose health care coverage.
Tiffany said he doesn’t believe the estimates and added that only people without legal documentation to be in the U.S. and lazy people will lose coverage.
“Let’s say there’s a 30-year-old young man sitting on his couch each day collecting $50,000 in benefits from you, the taxpayer,” Tiffany said. “Should you pay for their health care? I say no, and I think most people agree with that, that we should not, as taxpayers, be paying for someone’s health care when they’re able bodied and they can work.”
There is no evidence that a large subset of 30-year-old Americans who are not working are enrolled in Medicaid. Research has shown that many Medicaid enrolled adults work for low wages at small companies and in industries with low rates of employer-provided insurance coverage.
In his opening remarks, Tiffany said that the provisions of the Republican reconciliation package that will most benefit Wisconsinites are those that increase spending on air traffic controllers, codify a number of Trump’s executive orders and increase mineral drilling and logging in Wisconsin and across the country.
Throughout his career as a state legislator and member of Congress, Tiffany has been a major supporter of extractive industries. Several times during the town hall, he said the country and Wisconsin had to do more to use natural resources while deriding energy from sources such as solar and wind.
In an answer about passing policies to bring energy costs down, Tiffany said Wisconsin had to stop “sidelining baseload power” from sources such as coal and oil. He said that the country has devoted too much effort trying to move to intermittent power sources like solar and wind and complained that China is selling wind turbines to Americans while continuing to build coal plants.
China has continued to build coal-burning power plants and remains the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, however it is also the biggest installer of green energy technology. Last month, the country installed 100 solar panels every second, the Guardian reported.
“I believe you have to be able to utilize your natural resources to be prosperous,” he said. “You know, whether it’s forestry, mining, oil, gas, and, of course, agriculture. And I would say to you, tourism, also … and if we get rid of that red tape, we are going to be able to see more businesses created, especially in these regions where we get to utilize our natural resources.”
With the largely friendly lines of questioning, tight controls that prevented constituents from speaking and the relatively short 40-minute duration, Tiffany was under far less pressure than other Republicans at recent town halls, giving him room to promise that “we’re going to do more stuff around these lines” as the budget reconciliation package and to compare its provisions to those passed under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
“I think much like the 1980s when we saw the seminal changes that President Reagan led with the Reagan Revolution, I think you’re going to see the same thing as a result of the ‘One Big, Beautiful bill,'” Tiffany said. “This is going to kick off a decade, a decade of prosperity if we continue to move in the direction of free markets and free people.”
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