In Washington, D.C., a proposal to cut spending and extend tax cuts hit a snag with some House Republicans rejecting the package as inadequate, while at the same time Congressional Democrats are decrying they proposed cuts to Medicaid and food aid. In Madison, Republican budget writers are working to fashion a state budget to submit to the governor, leaving Democratic budget writers like state Sen. Kelda Roys leery of the majority’s priorities.
 

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore
D-4th Congressional District

• In Wisconsin, more than one million people are covered by Medicaid, the federal health care program that provides coverage for lower income families and individuals. A Republican federal budget package includes provisions that would cut Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called FoodShare in Wisconsin. These spending cuts are combined in the package with a provision to extend President Donald Trump’s 2017 income tax cuts. Moore rejected the idea that these tax cats benefit average taxpayers.
• Moore: “Oh, that’s one of their huge talking points, Frederica, is that if we don’t pass this ‘big, beautiful bill,’ everybody, including lower-income taxpayers, are going to suffer. IBig gimmick that they temporarily raise some of the benefits for people in the lower quintiles — and, of course, just to get them through the 2026 election cycle — and then they go away, whereas they make the rest of the corporate benefits permanent. I mean, it is so nefarious, and it’s really not funny.”

State Sen. Kelda Roys
D-Madison

• Whereas the Republican majority on the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee holds the power in the state’s budget-writing process following its cutting of hundreds of elements in the governor’s proposed budget, Democratic budget-writers like Roys have their own priorities for state spending.
• Roys: “I would say we want to make sure that we are addressing the high costs of living for everyday Wisconsin families, things like child care, making sure kids have great funded public education and healthy school meals at schools, that we’re funding opportunities for advancement so that everyone can thrive, our universities, our technical colleges. These are the things that make Wisconsin a good place to live, and we have to be prepared to fund those things. That’s also what we heard as we traveled around the state and listened to people’s public input. The number one and two issues that people cared about were K-12 public school funding and child care.”

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