A week after the White House initiated a broad federal funding shakeup led by President Donald Trump’s billionaire advisor Elon Musk, Democratic members of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation are calling the actions a “coup” and an “insurrection.”
The memo announcing the widespread federal funding freeze announced by Trump’s Office of Budget and Management on Jan. 27 has been blocked by multiple federal judges, but some nonprofits in Wisconsin said they were still unable to access payment portals this week. The Office of Budget and Management did not respond to a request for comment.
As of Tuesday, Jen Bailey, a Wisconsin Head Start Association board member and owner of Reach Dane, said “at least” eight Head Start programs, including her own, were unable to access federal funds for things like payroll, health insurance and vendor payments.
“We obviously cannot continue to operate this way, particularly since there’s been zero communication about what is happening and why,” Bailey said. “We can’t keep burning through our reserve without knowing that we will be paid back at some point.”
Bailey said Head Start providers haven’t been given any official information, “which is part of the scary confusion and chaos that’s happening here.”
Refugee resettlement agencies in Wisconsin have also been impacted by an executive order Jan. 20 suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. On Tuesday, Wisconsin-based resettlement organizations told WPR they were notified they will not be reimbursed with federal funds.
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Also this week, the University of Wisconsin-Madison urged “reasonable caution” with regard to hiring research staff, “especially in areas that have ben highlighted by the federal administration.”
The uncertainty around federal funding came as Musk, the billionaire owner of SpaceX and Tesla, reportedly gained access to sensitive data at the U.S. Treasury, including Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems. Trump tapped Musk to lead an initiative dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and has defended Musk’s actions, even as Democrats have warned that the administration is blocking funding guaranteed by law.
Democrats rail against funding pause, Musk’s role in federal government
During a tour of the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy Monday, Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin told reporters that the actions by the Trump administration amount to an “unconstitutional and illegal grab of power,” particularly the decision to give Musk access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems.
“It’s like the biggest data hack ever in the world, and I am outraged about it,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin said she’d seen Musk posting information he got out of the database publicly and “bullying and threatening” groups who’d received the funding.
“I don’t know … what this transition is going to lead to, but it is looking more like a coup than a transition right now,” Baldwin said.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk’s DOGE representatives have been working on-site at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this week.
On Sunday, Musk shared a post on X, the social media company he owns, showing a list of recipients of federal grants aligned with Lutheran Family Services that accused organizations receiving the money as “money laundering” operations. Two of the grant went to Gundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation and Wisconsin Lutheran Child and Family Services. Musk said his DOGE team is “rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.”
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, took to social media Wednesday for a live briefing, echoing Baldwin’s concern. She said funding for programs like Head Start were passed by Congress and signed into law.
“From my perspective, this is an insurrection,” Moore said. “The only thing that hasn’t happened so far is that the Confederate flag has not been dragged through the (U.S Capitol) rotunda. That’s the only thing that hasn’t happened.”
As to Musk’s involvement in cutting federal funding, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, a Democrat from the Town of Vermont, claimed the DOGE head “gets more than $20 billion in contracts from the US government” and said he would introduce a bill to ban federal contracts for special government employees.
“Stop Elon’s grift!” Pocan said in a post on X.
Republican members of Wisconsin delegation supportive of Trump orders, Musk investigations
During an interview on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today,” U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Minocqua, said he thinks “mandatory spending” for programs like Social Security and Medicare will continue and painted the funding pause and various executive orders as “a review of discretionary spending.”
When told that a Head Start program in Waukesha was shut down because of the federal funding freeze, Tiffany said he’d like to review it. He said “if it’s a worthy program,” he believes the Trump administration would continue to fund it.
Tiffany brushed aside concerns that Trump’s executive branch is overreaching by halting funding for programs authorized by Congress.
“Did we appropriate the money? Yes, we did,” Tiffany said. “But it is up to the executive branch to make sure that the money is going out in a fashion that represents the will of the American people to take a little time out here to say we’re going to review some of these.”
Other Republican members of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation did not respond to WPR’s requests for comment, but a few addressed the spending cuts on other news outlets or social media.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson told Fox Business he appreciates Trump’s “bold, swift and decisive action” and that he trusts Musk.
“I applaud Elon Musk. I applaud the Trump administration. I applaud President Trump,” Johnson said. “This is why he was elected.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Onalaska defended Musk in an X post Monday, downplaying concerns about Musk not being elected. Van Orden said “none of the bureaucrats responsible for spending trillions of dollars on garbage” were elected either.
“That is why we call them ‘unelected bureaucrats,’” Van Orden said. “It is in the title. Cope.”
Newly elected U.S. Rep Tony Wied, R-De Pere, addressed the spending cuts in response to a social media post by Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Ocasio-Cortez called the effective shuttering of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, a “five alarm fire.”
“The five alarm fire is the corrupt people that have been running USAID,” Wied said.
U.S. Reps. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville; Scott Fitzgerald, R-Clyman; and Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah, did not respond to requests for comment for this story, and did not address the spending freeze on social media.
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