Big Beautiful Bill defended, slammed in Congressional debates

By Benjamin Yount
The Center Square

With Election Day now less than two weeks away, some voters in certain parts of Wisconsin got a chance to see their candidates for Congress.

Tuesday saw two debates in two races for Congress.

In western Wisconsin, Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden and Democrat challenger Rebecca Cooke met for a candidate forum.

The two are locked in Wisconsin’s closest and highest profile race for Congress. Tuesday’s forum saw them answering questions about tariffs, President Donald Trump’s trade policy, farmers and healthcare.

Van Orden defended the One Big Beautiful Bill and earmarks.

“I was able to secure an extra one billion dollars for Badgercare in Wisconsin. A billion dollars for Badgercare for the state of Wisconsin. We also got a $50 billion rural healthcare infrastructure revitalization fund, that’s the largest investment in rural healthcare in the history of our country,” Van Orden said.

Cooke, however, said Van Orden and the One Big Beautiful Bill as making cuts to healthcare.

“We saw Sacred Heart close, we saw St. Joe’s in Chippewa Falls close, we’ve seen labor and delivery close in neighboring Menomonie during his term as a congressman. And you look at his vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill that cut healthcare for millions of Americans,” Cooke explained.

The healthcare cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill come in the form of either work requirements or denying care for people who are in the country illegally.

There was a similar clash in Wisconsin’s other congressional debate on Tuesday.

Southeast Wisconsin Republican Bryan Steil and his Democrat challenger, Mitchell Berman, faced each other in a debate on a Janesville radio station.

“The bill my opponent supported is going to cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid over the next 10 years,” Berman said.

But Steil, again, argued that the One Big Beautiful Bill actually increased Medicaid spending by a billion dollars.

“Medicaid in the state of Wisconsin, as a result of my work in passing a law over a year ago, results in an increase of $1 billion of federal money coming to the state of Wisconsin for Medicaid,” Steil added.

The two debates will be the only times the candidates will face each other.

Tuesday’s Congressional debates came one day before Wisconsin’s only debate in the governor’s race. That debate, between Republican Tom Tiffany and Democrat David Crowley, will be in Milwaukee tonight.