Rep. Derrick Van Orden Is My Local Villain in the Trump-GOP Cult. Who Is Yours?

U.S. Representative Derrick Van Orden campaigned for his Wisconsin 3^rd Congressional District seat stressing his intention to cut government costs by targeting waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending. As a member of the House Agriculture Committee he had the opportunity to block the committee from, as instructed by the Trump Administration, cutting nearly $300 billion in spending from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These proposed cuts will take food from the tables of the poorest families in this country to pay for tax cuts for the richest 1% of Americans as part of the Republican House Budget bill.

SNAP is a recurring target for Van Orden’s Republican Party. Van Orden has spoken as a defender of the program, even sharing his own story of his families reliance on SNAP benefits when he was a kid. He called the program “a hand up, not a hand out.” Yet last week, Derrick Van Orden, as he often does, made the wrong decision. Despite his insistence that he would defend the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, vital for so many low income families, he sided with the Trump administration to decimate a program that well over 40 million people rely on. These are people who, as Van Orden notes, just need a hand up.

Even as the president has grudgingly admitted that his tariffs will cause prices to rise, Van Orden conveniently failed to recall his gratitude for that “hand up” when he needed it. He could have done the right thing as a member of the Agriculture Committee by loudly and clearly stating that with rising food prices, cutting any funding from SNAP is morally wrong for those who depend on the program. It is also wrong for so many farmers who supply food for the program—about $30 billion wrong for those farmers and it’s wrong for the economy in general, as the Democrat members of the Ag Committee report that every $1 in SNAP funding puts $1.50 back into the economy.

To his credit, after pressure from constituents, Van Orden came out in opposition to the current plan to shift 25% of SNAP costs to state governments—this proposal would severely impact the poorest states, those with the most needy recipients, much harder than wealthier states. Van Orden instead proposed to focus on correcting “inefficiencies” within the SNAP program by tying the state’s share of SNAP payments to that state’s SNAP error rate.

However, these error rates or “inefficiencies” are false flags used by Van Orden and other Republicans to justify massive cuts. USDA policy changes counted the entire benefit amount as an error if there were any procedural mistakes, regardless of the household being eligible and receiving the correct benefits. SNAP already has a rigorous quality control system. Most over-payments are honest mistakes made by households or USDA, and quickly rectified. Hardly the massive fraud Republicans like Van Orden claim. Using these false numbers to justify massive cuts to a program thousands of Van Orden’s constituents rely on is deception, and will harm Wisconsin families.

There are families across Western Wisconsin in similar situations to that of Congressman Van Orden’s when he was a child; those who through no fault of their own need that hand up, just like he did. A $230 billion cut would decimate program services and put thousands of Wisconsinites into food insecurity. Any cuts to the program are direct cuts to the poorest families in our country.

It’s not just the recipients of SNAP that will be affected. Programs already cut by the Trump administration, cuts supported by Van Orden, have crippled family farms in Wisconsin. A program called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program refused to pay nearly 300 small farms in Wisconsin after Trump cut funding for their already-committed grants. SNAP benefits are often used to pay for this fresh, local produce, and cutting these benefits would further slash the already meager incomes of Wisconsin’s farmers and deny low-income Wisconsinites a valuable source of nutritious food.

Congressman Van Orden has again raised the cup of Republican Kool-Aid and convinced himself that cutting $300 billion from needy families is a good option for funding tax cuts for those high-income Americans who already have too much. He remembers the times when his family was in need, but that was then, this is now, and he is part of the Republican cult of Trump. A brave legislator would break with the Republican policy to put more money in the pockets of the rich while children go hungry, but not Van Orden.

The Republican budget bill, in addition to cuts in SNAP also included cuts to other safety net programs like Medicaid, failed to pass the House Budget committee on Friday because some members felt it did not make the cuts deep enough, it was not cruel enough.

But the Budget Committee showed its true colors on Sunday and passed the bill after making it more cruel for the nation's poor. And make no mistake, the full Republican-controlled House will pass a Budget bill and it will be cruel as can be, with even deeper cuts to the safety net programs so many low-income folks depend on. Van Orden will have a chance to side with his constituents and help those needing “a hand up” or side with his Republican cronies and fund tax cuts for the rich who want another “hand out.”

What will he do? What will your representative do?