{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://fedorchak.house.gov/media/press-releases/fedorchak-highlights-what-one-big-beautiful-bill-means-north-dakotans-during", "Fedorchak highlights what the One Big Beautiful Bill means for North Dakotans during third Fedorchak Forum: Conversations with Constituents", "2025-06-16", "2025", "2025-06", "Republican", "House", "ND", "Julie Fedorchak", "F000482", "fedorchak.house.gov", "fedorchak", "https://fedorchak.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "Washington, D.C. \u2013 Congresswoman Julie Fedorchak (R-ND) hosted her third statewide Fedorchak Forum last week, a conversation with North Dakota constituents to discuss issues, answer questions, and hear concerns directly. During the discussion, she provided an update on the One Big Beautiful Bill and answered questions on how the legislation will help all North Dakotans, including through historic tax relief.\n\nOn how the One Big Beautiful Bill impacts the budget deficit:\n\nFedorchak pushed back on claims that the One Big Beautiful Bill will increase the deficit, saying that to fully tackle the federal deficit, we have to both reduce federal spending and advance pro-growth policies. She broke down the numbers:\n\nCosts:\n\nTax cuts: $3.7 trillion to extend and enhance current tax policy needed to avoid the largest tax increase in history, let Americans keep more of their hard-earned money, and supercharge economic growth.\n\nSpending: $350 billion for border security and military readiness including hiring more border patrol and ICE agents, finishing the wall, and restocking and rebuilding the military.\n\nTotal cost: $4.1 trillion.\n\nSavings/Revenue:\n\n$1.7 trillion in direct spending reductions.\n\n$2.6 trillion in economic growth-driven revenue.\n\nTotal savings/revenue: $4.3 trillion\n\nTotal impact to deficit: -$200 billion.\n\nOn reducing the budget deficit:\n\nFedorchak acknowledged there is still a lot of work to be done to reduce the federal deficit but highlighted why voting in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill matters in the long run. She said, \u201cthe way I looked at this package\u2014this is step one. One piece of getting our budget under control and our nation's fiscal house in order is growth. [...] The current tax package was expiring. Congress had to act on that one way or another. Now is a great time to do that. We extended it, made important improvements in it to hopefully help stimulate even more growth and reinvestment in America, while also doing almost a record amount of spending cuts: $1.7 trillion in spending reductions.\u201d\n\nLooking ahead, Fedorchak said she\u2019s eager to pursue even more deficit reduction through the annual appropriations process, where Congress sets the budgets for federal departments and agencies.\n\nNotably, the House passed a $9 billion rescissions package on Thursday\u2014another step toward reducing federal spending, eliminating waste, and redirecting funds toward American priorities.\n\nOn omnibus spending packages:\n\nFedorchak voiced strong support for returning to the regular appropriations process\u2014passing 12 separate spending bills to fund government agencies for Fiscal Year 2026. \u201cIt's been since 1987 when we passed them all in the House and the Senate and had a budget on the regular order,\u201d she noted. \u201cSo, yes, this has been a long-time problem in our country. I hope that we're going to start moving that in the right direction. I'm going to do my very best in the House to be part of those solutions.\u201d\n\nShe also set the record straight: the One Big Beautiful Bill is not an omnibus spending package. It\u2019s a reconciliation bill\u2014a fast-track budget tool typically used in times when one party controls the House, Senate, and White House. \u201cIt has strict rules in terms of what can and cannot be included,\u201d she explained. Under Senate rules, all provisions must have an intended budgetary effect and cannot touch or change Social Security. This typically limits spending in a reconciliation bill to mandatory spending, not discretionary spending like year-end omnibus spending bills. This is why programs like Social Security weren\u2019t addressed in the package, despite false claims from Democrats.\n\nOn tax relief for seniors on Social Security benefits:\n\nFedorchak highlighted a key win for seniors in the One Big Beautiful Bill\u2014a targeted tax break on Social Security benefits. While the bill doesn\u2019t directly reform the Social Security program itself, she shared how it delivers meaningful relief by creating a new deduction for seniors earning under $75,000 individually or $150,000 for married couples. This deduction allows eligible seniors to offset the taxes they would otherwise pay on their Social Security benefits.\n\nOn Medicare and Medicaid:\n\nFedorchak emphasized that the One Big Beautiful Bill does not impact Medicare at all.\n\nOn Medicaid, she stressed a key fact that\u2019s often overlooked in these discussions: \u201cWe will spend more money on Medicaid tomorrow than we spend today. And over the course of the next 10 years, under this bill, the amount of money spent on Medicaid will increase by 25 percent.\u201d\n\nFedorchak emphasized that the reforms included in the bill are aimed at strengthening the program for those who need it most\u2014pregnant mothers, individuals with disabilities, and seniors. She clarified that the only individuals who stand to lose coverage over the next 10 years under these reforms are the estimated 1.4 million illegal immigrants enrolled in the program, and individuals that do not qualify for Medicaid to begin with. For able-bodied adults between the ages of 19 and 64, the bill introduces modest \u201ccommunity engagement\u201d or work requirements: 20 hours a week of school, volunteering, or work. These requirements come with a long list of exemptions, including for pregnant women, medically frail individuals, caregivers, tribal members, and individuals with disabilities.\n\nOn investing in border security:\n\nFedorchak emphasized that investments for border patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers included in the One Big Beautiful Bill apply nationwide, including the northern border. Fedorchak recalled her visits with border patrol agents and the North Dakota law enforcement community, noting how \u201cthere are very active challenges in our state as it relates to illegal immigrants, so those resources will go to help them\u2014help hire more border patrol folks and help improve staffing on the northern border.\u201d\n\nOn Job Corps:\n\nFedorchak highlighted her recent conversation with U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, where she pressed for an update on proposed changes to Job Corps. Although the Labor Secretary could not comment due to a temporary restraining order on the administration\u2019s decision, she pointed Fedorchak to troubling data in the program\u2019s transparency report.\n\nFedorchak shared that data, noting that the average national graduation rate from Job Corps hovers just below 39 percent despite a staggering average cost of more than $80,000 per student. Fedorchak expressed support for Secretary Chavez-DeRemer\u2019s pledge to reform the program, saying she appreciated the Secretary\u2019s commitment to \u201chelp address problems in the program to help improve that performance and help ensure that the investments made deliver a better outcome for the American taxpayers.\u201d She also underscored her support for job training programs broadly and the Minot Job Corps referencing her visit to the site a few years ago. \u201cI know of the great work they do. It's a really important resource in Minot, and it's an important resource for our state,\u201d she added.\n\nOn the Landowner Easements Rights Act:\n\nFedorchak provided an update on the Landowner Easements Rights Act, legislation she introduced with Rep. Hageman (R-WY), which will allow landowners to buy back their easements at a fair market price and restrict future U.S. Fish and Wildlife easements to a maximum of 30 years. On the timeline of the bill, she added, \u201cif it isn't pursued in the reconciliation process, then Senator Cramer will go through a committee process like I'm doing in the House, and hopefully we'll get it through, get a Floor vote, get it passed, and get it through to the President to sign this session. That's my goal.\u201d\n\nOn the Veterans Administration (VA):\n\nFedorchak recapped her recent meeting with U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, where they discussed efforts to refocus the agency on delivering results\u2014not bloating the bureaucracy. She noted that the previous administration had added 50,000 employees, yet the VA\u2019s backlog still grew. \u201cThere's something off there,\u201d Fedorchak said.\n\nShe emphasized that Secretary Collins is taking a different approach. \u201cThe goal of the new Secretary is to improve the benefits and improve the results, so that the veterans who get their services from the VA actually have better results,\u201d she said.\n\nImportantly, she told listeners that planned staffing cuts would not impact frontline care or services. \u201cThey're looking to cut out the bureaucracy\u2014the middleman\u2014the folks who aren't necessarily delivering the services to the veterans,\u201d Fedorchak said.\n\nOn the Internal Revenue Service (IRS):\n\nFedorchak criticized the Biden administration\u2019s decision to hire 87,000 new IRS agents, clarifying that more bureaucracy doesn\u2019t mean better results. \u201cThis administration is looking for savings in every single agency across the government, and the IRS is no different from that,\u201d she said.\n\nShe pointed to her experience in North Dakota state government as a model for fiscal discipline. \u201cWe went through the same exact type of exercise in state government on a routine basis in North Dakota. That's how you get good results with taxpayers' dollars,\u201d Fedorchak noted. Challenging the assumption that bigger staff leads to better service, she said, \u201cIn order to operate more efficiently, we need [to] reduce the cost of government.\u201d\n\nOn energy reliability:\n\nFedorchak clearly laid out her concerns while discussing reliability issues tied to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO). \u201cI am gravely concerned about these capacity shortages,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we do not have reliable, affordable power, our economy will shut down and our communities will be very unsafe. It is the foundation to everything that we do.\u201d She pointed to the early retirement of baseload power generators\u2014before adequate replacements are in place\u2014as a key driver of the problem.\n\n\u201cWe need to slow down the pace of retirements and tie them to the availability of new resources that can meet the demand that's required,\u201d Fedorchak urged. She also emphasized the need to streamline the permitting process and reduce delays in the interconnection queue\u2014the backlog of projects waiting to connect to the power grid. \u201cI think AI is going to help with that process a lot,\u201d she noted. \u201cBut there's also some bills in Congress that I've helped support and cosponsor to help prioritize certain resources for faster interconnection processes.\u201d\n\nWhen asked about geothermal energy, Fedorchak was positive. She called it \u201can amazing resource,\u201d adding how, \u201cit's untapped, largely in our country, and we should try to help stimulate the growth of that industry and that technology.\u201d\n\nOn immigrant status in the North Dakota workforce:\n\nFedorchak made clear her expectation that North Dakota employers are following the law when it comes to hiring. \u201cI believe the vast majority of North Dakota farmers\u2014I would hope all of them \u2014 are hiring legal immigrants, and not depending on illegal immigrants,\u201d she said.\n\nAt the same time, she acknowledged the workforce realities facing key North Dakota industries. Agriculture and manufacturing, she noted, often depend on a highly specialized labor force that includes legal immigrants. Fedorchak expressed support for \u201ccommon-sense visa reform to make it easier, faster, and simpler for our employers, no matter what industry they're in, to secure the immigrant workers that they need.\u201d\n\nOn wind energy:\n\nFedorchak made clear her energy policy views are rooted in free-market principles. \u201cI support free markets, so my focus is on trying to get the incentives correct. I do support and have been a strong advocate for eliminating the tax credits for wind and solar, because they've been in place for 32 years,\u201d she said.\n\nShe acknowledged tax credits have played a role in advancing renewable energy. \u201cI think about 17% of our grid resources are renewable\u2014wind and solar\u2014nationwide,\u201d Fedorchak noted. \u201cSo the tax credits have been effective. They worked. They brought down the cost of wind and solar. They've helped stimulate its development and implementation, and it's time for them to be phased out.\u201d\n\nFedorchak will continue to host Fedorchak Forums regularly to keep North Dakotans updated on the work she is doing on their behalf in Washington D.C. The next date will be announced soon, and people will be able to sign up to participate here.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T01:08:28Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://fedorchak.house.gov/media/press-releases/fedorchak-highlights-what-one-big-beautiful-bill-means-north-dakotans-during"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6018231399357319, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}