CD7 Outreach & Inclusion Officers report for July 2025

the Big Bad Bill and CD7…

It’s sure as hell ain’t beautiful!

First, the macro (nationwide) effects- $3 Trillion more added to the debt, that’s about $10 Thousand more a person as the GOP likes to quote those stats. Immigration enforcement spending explodes from $10 Billion to $100 Billion a year. That buys us over $20 Million a mile for border walls, $450,000 a bed for 100 Thousand more prison beds, and around $300 Thousand a head just to hire 13 Thousand new ICE and BP thugs and give them a vehicle to trash. And that don’t include the transfers of funds from FEMA to fund concentration camps instead of disaster recovery. Reminds me of the Vietnam war when an honest economist pointed out that it would be cheaper to put the whole Viet Cong on the federal payroll than it was to kill them.

That overpriced linear pile of scrap metal AKA “Border Wall” will of course go to the southern border and with no mile long runway to host dramatic deportation flights, Appleton’s prison mistake will stay empty. But what we do have here is more farmland that is more productive than just about any other congressional district, producing around $9 Billion a year in revenue. Heck, just one of our cities, Marshall, ships out darn near a million dollars a DAY in farm sourced finished products! This prosperity is largely the work of two small groups- farmers and immigrants. While the census tells us about 6% of CD7 residents work on farms, only about 2% list their occupation as farmer- With median farm income in Minnesota down to barely 2 thousand dollars last year no wonder most farmers have to work off farm to survive. Farming is only barely breaking even while corn and beans are feedstocks for more profitable beef, poultry, pork, and fuel production. Animal agriculture is dependent on immigrant labor which is about 4% of our population caring for those animals and processing them into foods. So we have two key groups that are only single digit percents of our population that are key to the largest sector of our economy- And Trump first attacked the farmers with his tariffs and they got no help from this bill, while the immigrant workforce is threatened with harassment and deportation. The median age of those farmers is close to retirement age, and the immigrant workforce is aging too, this bill gives them even more incentive to quit, and then the biggest chunk of CD7’s economy is gone.

And we ain’t even talked about CD7s other big export, renewable energy… The BBB cuts support for biofuels that provide a market for a third of our corn. IIRC Lyon County’ biggest taxpayer is the ADM corn processing plant and the couple truck dealers nearby help give Marshall a hundred million dollars or so in vehicle and parts sales a year. Small wind and solar subsidies die at the end of 2025, while big wind and solar get a stay of execution for a year or so because the GOP thinks billionaires can’t afford to lose their subsidies that quick. We got no coal or oil in CD7 but lotsa sun and wind- And Fischbach and her GOP are gonna kill that!

The other big thing that makes CD7 different is that we’re older, less likely to finish college, and have more than our share of veterans, especially Vietnam era vets- So no surprise that health care and social services is the largest industry here.  The Big Bad Bill doesn’t help a bit- About half of us rely on federally funded health programs and the GOP is gutting every one- Cutting ACA subsidies less than 6 months from now, adding work requirements for 55 to 64 year olds many of whom are on disability retirement, requiring federal employees prove they’re not undocumented to get the health care benefits they earned and paid for, and cutting funding by reducing provider taxes. Worse yet, health care providers and state governments will have to eat increased costs to verify eligibility! Wanna go back to college and get that degree so you can get a job with health insurance? Again, the BBB is no help- They cut Pell Grants and are taxing non profit college’s endowments that fund student financial aid. But hey, GOP gotta give tax cuts to corporations for profits made in foreign countries!

Now you’d think with all these cuts in essential benefits we Americans have earned they’d balance the budget and give us a tax break, no? As noted a couple paragraphs back they gave that money and then some to fund the war on immigrants, including $23 Billion to the Coast Guard to buy icebreakers and such so they can keep Canadians from smuggling in poutine or see how far up the Rio Grande they can run them aground… Plus the military assets getting transferred to the border.

But I suppose it’s too much for us to expect a wannabe mafia of incompetents trying to pass themselves off as a government to at least save us taxpayers $$$ while they gut our benefits. But their “Alligator Alcatraz” says it all- Florida has a perfectly usable Camp Blanding National Guard base with dorms, dining halls, security, etc. ready to go. But instead they’re wasting damn near a half billion $$$ a year to attempt a concentration camp for 3000 inmates on an abandoned airport project’s flooding asphalt taxiway in a swamp that for damn good reason is one of the last places in the country, Alaska included, to be developed. Hell, coulda put ‘em up in luxury Miami hotels for less…

But “Camp Blanding” sound kinda, well, bland. While “Alligator Alcatraz” satisfies MAGA’s taste for cruelty and punishment for everyone who looks different than them, even when it costs $150 Thousand a year to make just one likely innocent prisoner suffer. That’s the GOP’s business plan- Give them your dollars, they give you suffering!     

Respectfully submitted, Dyna Sluyter                    

Trump and his failed soon to be cancelled reality TV show trying to masquerade as a government are about to milk the 250th celebration of our independence from another oppressive government for all it’s worth. Remember that 18th century British Royal Buffoonery that taxed our colonies, coming and going, for every ship’s cargo sailing across the Atlantic? Damn right we threw their tea and taxes overboard, and should do the same with Trump and his taxes at the polls in 2026!

Having scraped and saved my way to the middle class, at least before Trump’s taxes and tariffs, I just looked through the NYTime’s analysis of the bill and it won’t save me much, and I sure as hell know Trump’s new tariffs will take back that and more. For example, 80 odd days into Trump’s “90 trade treaties in 90 days” blunder he’s made maybe 3, and one is with Great Britain. And just like the 1700s, Britain screwed Trump and us over… Say you’re restoring a classic Land Rover or other British car, and find under that timeless aluminum body a rusted out steel frame. Fortunately while the British auto industry barely survives, most of the suppliers are still around and will be happy to supply a replacement frame, and galvanized to boot! But after giving you maybe a few bucks cut on your taxes, Trump’s 25% tariff on British auto parts will add thousands of $$$ to the cost of your classic British auto restoration! But the Brits put one over on Trump, negotiating a mere 10% tariff for up to 100,000 new cars a year, and you can bet those discounted tariffs will go on $100,000+ new Range Rovers, Bentleys, and Rolls Royces while your restoration gets taxed to death.

It gets worse, 87 trade treaties to go and most of the stuff we working folks buy ain’t even made here any more, and the last American factory was replaced with a Walmart. So in what amounts to a de facto federal sales tax the couple dollars Trump and his Criminal Enterprise AKA the GOP Party maybe spare us in our paycheck get taken back and more in Tariffs. Then there’s the middle class tax breaks like the energy efficiency tax breaks for windows, doors, heat pumps, TVs, and even wood stoves- All taken away in Trump’s new tax bill! Worse yet, Trump’s stealing your health insurance could be fatal!

So hopefully you’re properly pissed by now, but before you push a Land Rover overboard we need to talk strategy. By promoting and enacting fair progressive taxes and supporting working people we became the mainstream party that elected Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama, Biden, and decades long congressional majorities. Then we got lost in pronouns and other PC and Trump stole our voters.

America is not a country of latent socialists waiting to be set free, though we expect capitalism to actually feature competition and not greedy monopolies. We don’t mind paying our fair share in taxes, but resisting unfair taxes is darn near in our DNA. Having spent decades accusing us of levying oppressive taxes, Trump and his party have committed the actual offense themselves. This is our opportunity to CodeSwitch, “turn the tables”, and become the party of revolt against Trump and the GOPs unfair taxes and win back the working class majority that wins elections!