Promise Made, Promise Broken: The Derrick Van Orden Story

• Last week, Reps. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), Zach Nunn (R-IA) and Don Bacon (R-NE) introduced House Resolution 382, a procedural move to oppose legislation that cuts Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP).

• Eight days after the resolution was introduced, all three representatives voted in favor of a plan to slash as much as $300 billion from SNAP.
• HR 382 was a procedural move that isn’t eligible for a vote on the House floor until at least 30 legislative days after it was introduced, making it essentially useless since House Republicans are planning to vote on President Donald Trump’s tax cut bill before that.
• Van Orden, Nunn and Bacon are all members of the House Agriculture Committee, and they voted with their fellow Republicans on a plan to include as much as $300 billion in cuts from SNAP programs to the tax bill. The plan passed in the Agriculture Committee 29-25 on party lines on Wednesday.
• […] A report from the progressive think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) shows that the Agriculture Committee’s plan shifts at least 5% of food benefit funding to states. The report argues that this requirement alone would put significant strain on state budgets, and the ripple effects will likely see many low-income families lose access to food assistance benefits.
• Van Orden, Nunn and Bacon are all projected to face an uphill battle in their 2026 reelection efforts, and their seats are seen as some of the most attainable for Democrats to flip in the midterms.
• Johnson and the GOP are looking to pass a mega bill to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the ultra-wealthy in the United States. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the extension will add an estimated $4.6 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years. The CBO also estimates that the proposed changes to Medicaid could see up to 13.7 million people lose their health insurance by 2034.

Wisconsin Examiner: Van Orden’s flip-flop on SNAP hurts Wisconsin

• When he was campaigning for Congress in western Wisconsin, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden talked about growing up “in abject rural poverty,” raised by a single mom who relied on food stamps. As a result, he has said, he would never go along with cuts to food assistance. 
• But as Henry Redman reported, Van Orden voted for the Republican budget blueprint, which proposes more than $200 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in order to make room for tax cuts for the very wealthy.
• Still, after that vote, Van Orden issued a public statement warning against reckless cuts to SNAP that place “disproportionate burdens on rural states, where food insecurity is often more widespread,” and saying it is unfair to build a budget “on the backs of some of our most vulnerable populations, including hungry children. Period.”
• Van Orden sits on the House Agriculture Committee, which was tasked with drawing up a specific plan to cut $230 billion from food assistance to pay for tax cuts. Van Orden reportedly balked at a cost-sharing plan that shifted 25% of the cost of the program to states, saying it was unfair to Wisconsin.
• But then, on Wednesday night, Van Orden voted yes as the committee passed an unprecedented cut in federal funding for SNAP on a 29-25 vote.
• Van Orden took credit for the plan […] But states, including Wisconsin, don’t have money to make up the gap as the federal government, for the first time ever, withdraws hundreds of millions of dollars for nutrition assistance. Instead, they will reduce coverage, kick people off the program and hunger will increase. The ripple effects include a loss of about $30 billion for farmers who supply food for the program, Democrats on the Ag Committee report, and damage to the broader economy, since every $1 in SNAP benefits generates about $1.50 in economic activity. Grocery stores, food manufacturers rural communities will be hit particularly hard.
• More than 900,000 children, adults, and seniors count on Wisconsin’s SNAP program, known as FoodShare, according to an analysis of state health department data by Kids Forward. The same analysis found that covering the costs of just 10% of SNAP benefits would cost Wisconsin $136 million. 
• “He says one thing and does another,” Pocan says of Van Orden’s flip-flopping on SNAP. “He’s gone totally Washington.”
• That’s too bad for the people left behind in rural Wisconsin, who will take the brunt of these unnecessary cuts.