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Quotes of the week
78% of Americans support keeping health care tax breaks in place – including 57% of Trump supporters. Why? Because this isn’t a partisan issue for working families. Millions of Americans – no matter their party affiliation – don’t want their health care costs to skyrocket.
– U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, as Dems urge the renewal of tax credits under the Affordable Care Act amid the government shutdown.
Every day the Democrat shutdown continues, Wisconsin families pay the price. It’s time for Democrats to stop the games and do their job.
– U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah.
This week’s news
— Wisconsin Congress members this week continued to point fingers across the aisle as the federal shutdown drags on without a bipartisan agreement to reopen the government.
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Dems are pushing for an extension of enhanced tax credits under the Affordable Care Act in any funding agreement with Republicans and to roll back health care provisions in Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
At a state Capitol press conference on Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Town of Vermont, joined Dem state lawmakers and stakeholders urging action on the tax credits.
Asked if he’s seen Republicans call for House leaders to bring members back to Washington amid the shutdown, Pocan said he thinks Republicans are “on their third week of pina coladas.”
“They’re not showing up. We went last week to Washington, no matter what. They didn’t come. This week, I mean, if they’re not coming, it didn’t totally make sense for us to be here,” Pocan said. “So instead, I’m trying to get around and talk about what’s going on. But I don’t see any Republicans publicly taking their leadership on or really taking Donald Trump on on this. So that’s a problem.”
Pocan also held four town halls in GOP U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s district this week, criticizing the Prairie du Chien Republican and highlighting health care issues amid the shutdown.
Van Orden in a statement said Pocan is “angry that I won’t let illegal aliens have government-funded health care when seniors and veterans don’t have access to their health care as a result of the Democrats’ shutdown.”
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin at a virtual press conference this week said she doesn’t want the government to be in a shutdown, noting she continues to support Dems’ government funding proposal in the Senate.
“The only way out of this mess is when Democrats and Republicans start working together,” Baldwin said. “And I’ve been at the table, and I will stay right here until we reopen the government and stop health care costs from going through the roof. But my Republican colleagues are really nowhere to be found right now, and that’s extremely frustrating.”
Wisconsin Republicans continue to criticize Senate Dems for the shutdown.
U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, this week said U.S. Capitol Police won’t see a paycheck on Friday if the shutdown continues, knocking Senate Dems for “reckless behavior.” Steil chairs the House Administration Committee, which oversees the police force.
“At a time when lawmakers are facing increasing threats, it is more critical than ever that we take care of the officers who protect visitors, staff, and lawmakers every day,” Steil said. “It’s time for Democrats in the Senate to quit playing games and join Republicans to reopen the government.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, said he will be donating his salary to The Joseph Project during the shutdown. The faith-based jobs initiative began as a constituent service through Johnson’s office in partnership with the Greater Praise Church of God in Christ in Milwaukee.
“Every day the shutdown continues, the check gets a little bigger – compliments of Chuck Schumer,” Johnson said.
— Johnson says the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice briefed him on call logs that had been obtained for eight GOP senators, the Oshkosh Republican included, under the Biden administration.
In a post on X, Johnson said the eight “were surveilled simply for being Republicans” and called it “an outrageous abuse of power” by the Biden administration.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, posted a document on X that said an FBI agent conducted “preliminary toll analysis on limited tolls records” associated with the eight GOP senators. Grassley wrote it came during the FBI’s “Arctic Frost investigation into ‘election conspiracy.’”
Grassley’s Judiciary Committee said the FBI in 2023 obtained data about the senators’ phone calls from Jan. 4-21, 2021. The data doesn’t include the content of the call, but when and to whom it was made. The data also include the duration and general location of the call, the committee said.
Records related to the Jan. 6, 2021, violent protest at the Capitol show that Johnson’s office was involved in an effort to pass a false slate of electors to then-Vice President Mike Pence that claimed Donald Trump won Wisconsin when Joe Biden had secured its 10 electoral votes.
U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-New York, called Johnson “shameless” for his claim he was targeted simply for being a Republican.
“You laundered Russian misinformation in 2020 and then communicated with the WH on Jan 6. You weren’t surveilled. DOJ obtained basic records after the fact —date, time and length of call, but no substance — to confirm Trump’s effort to overturn the election,” Goldman posted on X.
— The American Dairy Coalition, American Business Immigration Coalition and U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden at the World Dairy Expo advocated for immigration law changes to bolster the agriculture workforce.
Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, said he wants to create a program attached to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s app that allows anyone who participates in the department’s self-deportation program to also participate in a program that grants them legal protected status for a year.
“It’s about an 80% solution,” he said during a Madison press conference. “Right now, any one of your workers can get on the CBP One app and push a button that’ll give them a plane ticket and 1,000 bucks to go home. I just want another button, add it on there, where you push the button and you go into a legal protected status for a year.”
Without immigrant agriculture labor, the U.S. will become “inherently dependent” on foreign nations to feed its own people, he said.
“I’m saying out loud what no Republican wants to say, that if we don’t retain our current agriculture labor workforce, our farms are going to close,” Van Orden said.
The fact that people who entered the U.S. illegally would have to first exit the country and then return through a legal port of entry is a crucial part of the bill, he added.
“This is why this is not amnesty, and it is not a pathway to citizenship other than one that exists already,” he said, noting those who come into the country under a protected legal status could still apply for citizenship, just like anyone else.
Posts of the week
ICYMI
WEAU: Congressman Mark Pocan held town hall in Eau Claire and across western WI
NPR: Shutdowns serve as excuse for GOP and Democrats to spend more, says Sen. Ron Johnson
The Hill: GOP leaders point to Capitol Police missed paychecks as shutdown drags on
Spectrum News 1: Poll: Tiffany, Barnes have early leads in primaries for Wisconsin governor, but many voters remain undecided
The Hill: Duffy delivers pizzas to air traffic controllers, offers shutdown warning
