He Voted to Kill $2 Billion in Wisconsin Jobs. His District is Paying Attention

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Representative Derek Van Orton gave a speech over the weekend at the Wisconsin Republican Party convention.

[00:00:08]He talked about gas prices, he talked about grocery costs, and he talked about deportations and he got a standing ovation from the crowd.

[00:00:19]In the same week, PBS Wisconsin and the Western Wisconsin Building Trades published real numbers and they are absolutely devastating.

[00:00:29]Over $2 billion worth of threatened investments all across his state. More than 30 of them, by the way, are located in his own congressional district.

[00:00:40]They're clean energy projects, solar, wind, and as well as manufacturing. And they're all funded through inflation reduction act tax credits. The same tax credits that Derek Van Orton had voted to kill. All so the Republicans could pay for tax breaks for billionaires.

[00:01:03]He flew home, lied to his voters, and took their standing ovation. Remember, he claimed that he's fighting for working Wisconsinites, but I'm going to guess that the 40,000 building trades workers who we're going to build those projects are starting to figure out the reality.

[00:01:22]Let's get into it. Derek Van Orton represents Wisconsin's third congressional district. So, that's western Wisconsin, uh, as well as Lacrosse, Uklair, Prairie, Duchen, where he lives. And I probably said that wrong and I apologize. Words are hard.

[00:01:41]When Orton is a retired Navy Seal and he had flipped that seat in 2022 after Ron Kind had retired.

[00:01:49]Kind had held that seat for 26 years as a Democrat.

[00:01:54]Van Orton held his own seat in 2024, beating Rebecca Cook by about nearly three points, two 2.8 uh 51 to 48.6.

[00:02:06]So, it's not exactly a safe district.

[00:02:08]That's a swing district that he happened to win twice.

[00:02:13]Wisconsin 03 is a rural county. It's farm country. But it's also clean energy investment country because over the last few years, tax credits from the inflation reduction act have flowed into more than 30 projects across that district. And according to Western Wisconsin Building Trades, those projects represent roughly $2 billion and threaten Wisconsin investments and thousands of construction jobs. And on May 22nd, 2025, Van Orton voted yes on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which killed those clean energy tax credits.

[00:02:48]Yeah. Over $200 billion from wind, solar, nuclear, and other energy investments across the country. 15.5 billion dollars in canceled energy investments nationally just from January to June of 2025.

[00:03:03]And that was just from the threat of this bill passing. The same bill also cut Medicaid by roughly a trillion dollars over the next 10 years and SNAP by $186 billion over the same period.

[00:03:14]But don't worry, they did pass a $50 billion rural hospital fund spread out over five years for the entire country.

[00:03:23]Wow.

[00:03:25]Wait, let's do some quick math on that.

[00:03:27]Row Medicaid cuts$137 billion from the program a year. Um, uh, that's according to a KFFF analysis, right? They lose $87 billion from healthcare. Oops.

[00:03:44]The very bill that Derek Van Orton voted yes on along with, of course, every Republican.

[00:03:50]And that's the same bill that he went home to brag about. Now, about those 30 projects, the PBS Wisconsin segment and the Western Wisconsin building trades oped put both uh both put the number at more than 30 in that district alone, which would have been supported by the tax credits that Van Orton had voted to kill. Matt Gans, the union president who wrote the journal sentinel ed was explicit in his analysis of what happened. The threat was $2 billion in canceled or stalled investments. The threat is thousands of construction jobs. A threat is to the 40,000 building trades workers across Wisconsin counting on the clean energy pipeline to stay open. The one that Van Orton voted to close. Now, what gets me is the math on who got what. Big Beautiful Bill gave millionaires a tax cut worth approximately $90,000. Working families making under 50,000, they got a tax cut worth about 300.

[00:04:53]$90,000 to the millionaires to $300 to the worker.

[00:04:58]Per Matt Gans in the Journal Sentinel, the millionaire's tax cut is worth more than many people in Wisconsin 03 make in two years of working. The workers tax cut won't cover the higher energy bills the same bill is going to cause, not to mention inflation.

[00:05:17]That's the trade Derek Van Orton had made. Now, here's the thing. The inflation reduction act we know was a Democratic bill. Van Orton obviously didn't vote for it, but his district still benefited from it because the tax credits went to the places that had the workforce, the grid capacity, and the buildable land to host these projects.

[00:05:36]Rural western Wisconsin had checked every box. The money came in and construction crews immediately went to work. Then the big beautiful bill came.

[00:05:45]Killing those credits was the entire offset structure. They got killed. so billionaires could get tax cuts. The money for the people at the top came directly out of the funding mechanism that was paying union to uh you know build these things.

[00:06:04]He cashed the political credit on the front end and cashed the donor credit on the back while the Wisconsin contractor pays for both.

[00:06:14]But here's your uh your found and find out moment.

[00:06:19]As I mentioned, Wisconsin 03 is in the middle of nowhere. It's farm country.

[00:06:23]The big beautiful bill cut SNAP. Farmers depend on SNAP demand. So every cut to food assistance is a cut to the farmer's customer base. Okay?

[00:06:34]And so the big beautiful bill also cuts Medicaid. Western Wisconsin has already lost two hospitals per the Journal Sentinel OpEd. The same rural hospitals already hanging by a thread are about to lose even more Medicaid reimbursements.

[00:06:51]How many more will close before Van Orton admits that what his vote actually cost?

[00:06:57]Oh, wait. He'll never will. Wisconsin 03 is now Look, they should they could have been clean energy country, but instead they're not.

[00:07:09]These contractors are now looking at canceled projects. construction workers are s sitting there looking for their next job. The $2 billion in investments, they're not coming through the pipeline anymore.

[00:07:22]And all of this happened in a district that Van Orton just barely won.

[00:07:27]And his pitch at the Wisconsin GOP convention was about gas prices and grocery costs and deportations. He did not mention the jobs, the 30 projects, and didn't mention the trade workers, and didn't mention the hospitals that have disappeared.

[00:07:45]PBS Wisconsin mentioned them.

[00:07:48]Other news organizations have mentioned them. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran an oped under the headline that Van Orton chose GOP party bosses over Wisconsin workers. It's pretty damning.

[00:08:01]The Wisconsin contractor reads that OpEd, is he going to forget who, you know, is on that ballot? The farmer who snap dependent customer base just disappeared. Is he going to forget?

[00:08:14]Hopefully. The hospital administrator in western Wisconsin watching his peers close isn't going to forget.

[00:08:21]And the uh workers that Matt Gans speaks for, they're not going to forget either.

[00:08:28]Derek Van Horton barely won re-election last time.

[00:08:31]He's expecting to get reelected this time, but I think uh things aren't going to turn out the way that he hopes.

[00:08:40]We'll see.