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Top Finance Committee Democrat Rips Trump's New Canada Tariffs as 'Yet Another Shakedown'
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman described Trump's latest tariffs as "unutterably idiotic."
Jul 21, 2026
Critics are piling on President Donald Trump for once again picking a fight with the United States' top trading partner by moving to slap 50% tariffs on certain imported Canadian goods.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said on Tuesday that Trump's latest broadside against Canada was "yet another shakedown that will raise the cost of living for Americans, their families, and small businesses across the country."
Wyden also said that Trump has "abused every trade authority at his disposal" and vowed to soon release a bill "to rein him in and put Congress back in the driver's seat" in crafting US trade policy.
Wyden wasn't the only Democrat to take a shot at Trump over his new economic attack on Canada.
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) called Trump's new tariffs "really dumb" given that they violate a trade deal that Trump himself negotiated with Canada and Mexico during his first term.
"You cannot negotiate a trade agreement, sign it, celebrate it, then blow it up and expect anyone to trust the next deal," said Levin. "And who actually pays? American importers and American families. Tariffs are a tax on us."
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) predicted that US consumers would once again pay the price for the president's trade war.
"We're the ones who will eat the cost," wrote Huffman. "That's what happened with Trump's last tariff spree and it will happen again. Trump's failed foreign and economic policies are making life worse for hardworking people."
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman on Tuesday published an analysis trying to make sense of the justifications for Trump's latest trade war with Canada, but he came up mostly empty.
"The White House fact sheet claims that the new tariffs are a response to Canadian policies that discriminate against US products," explained Krugman, "notably the moves by most Canadian provinces... to stop importation of US alcoholic beverages. But these policies were themselves a response to the tariffs on Canadian goods Trump had previously imposed."
Krugman then noted that Trump shifted his justification for the tariffs, saying they were designed to punish Canada after smoke generated by wildfires in Ontario billowed into the US last week.
However, Krugman found this explanation even more absurd.
"Blaming Canada for not controlling fires that are, in reality, largely a consequence of global warming," Krugman remarked, "is unutterably idiotic."
Krugman concluded his analysis by arguing that "whatever the real motivation for these new tariffs, they are almost surely illegal," noting that they run afoul of Trump's own North American trade deal.
Trump on Tuesday indicated that the tariffs on Canada were not actually a response to the wildfires, though he said his administration was looking at separate measures to punish the Canadian government for purportedly doing a poor job of managing its forests.
Q: Are the Canada tariffs in response to the wildfires?
Trump: No, We're looking at that separately. They need us to survive. Without us, there's no way they can survive pic.twitter.com/ycllBXmPTd
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 21, 2026
Several studies have found that Trump's tariffs, which he kicked off in April 2025, have cost US businesses and consumers hundreds of billions of dollars, as importers pass most of the increased costs imposed by the tariffs to consumers in the form of higher prices.
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Senate Urged to Reject Trump Plot to Unleash AI for Medicare Service Denials
"The bottom line is this: Seniors who choose traditional Medicare should not have their care blocked by AI," said one campaigner.
Jul 15, 2026
Advocates for seniors on Wednesday urged US senators to vote for a resolution that, if passed, would block a new Trump administration pilot program under which claims by patients seeking certain healthcare services through traditional Medicare would be reviewed by private companies using artificial intelligence to deny care.
Upper chamber lawmakers are set to vote Thursday on a resolution introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and supported by 20 Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to stop the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' so-called Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model.
CMS claims WISeR "helps protect American taxpayers by leveraging enhanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, along with human clinical review, to ensure timely and appropriate Medicare payment for select items and services."
What CMS doesn't mention—and what alarms a growing number of physicians and advocates—about the voluntary model is that AI-assisted reviews could contribute to inappropriate care denials, despite the required human review. Private Medicare Advantage healthcare profiteers have been using AI to deny care for years.
Critics argue that, even if a human must sign off, AI will effectively drive many of the recommendations, making it easier and faster to deny or delay care. They also warn of inevitable financial incentives tied to reducing Medicare spending, raising concerns that AI would likely be used as a cost-cutting tool.
"WISeR is not wise at all. It is a dangerous, profit-motivated experiment that allows private third parties to use artificial intelligence to delay and deny seniors’ medical care," Social Security Works executive director Alex Lawson said Wednesday. "Under the WISeR pilot program, which went live in January 2026, reports already show Medicare beneficiaries are waiting 2 to 4 times longer to access certain care."
"This is just one more example of the harm that Republicans’ disastrous healthcare agenda has already waged on American patients," he continued. "Last year, Republicans slashed $1 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act spending to line their cronies’ pockets. Now, they are importing the worst parts of Medicare Advantage—automated care denials—into traditional Medicare."
"The bottom line is this: Seniors who choose traditional Medicare should not have their care blocked by AI," Lawson added.
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100% Tax Proposed to Counter 'Most Corrupt Thing… Ever Seen From an American President'
Sen. Ron Wyden said the $1.8 billion slush fund was "staggeringly corrupt even by Trump's bottom-dwelling standards."
May 21, 2026
President Donald Trump's attempt to create a $1.8 billion slush fund for his political allies is coming under bipartisan attack, and congressional Democrats are proposing a 100% tax on any of its future beneficiaries to thwart what's being described as an unprecedented form of corruption in the nation's nearly 250-year history.
Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) on Tuesday introduced the first bill taxing Trump slush-fund payouts at a 100% rate, and he was followed on Thursday by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who introduced a similar bill in the US Senate.
If enacted, the legislation would negate the entire $1.8 billion venture, which was created as purported restitution for Trump politcal allies who have been convicted of committing crimes on his behalf, and force beneficiaries to return any payments received to the US Department of Treasury.
The bill would slap on an additional 50% penalty "in the case of any willful attempt to avoid or evade the tax."
Wyden described the president's slush fund, which could be used to pay out cash to Trump supporters who violently stormed the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, as "staggeringly corrupt even by Trump’s bottom-dwelling standards."
"Congress must do whatever it takes to prevent Donald Trump from stealing $1.8 billion from the American people to fund right-wing violence and handouts to insurrectionists," said Wyden. "This money doesn’t belong to Donald Trump, it belongs to the taxpayer.”
Thompson, the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax, said that the legislation is need to stop Trump's attempt "to line the pockets of January 6th insurrectionists who attacked law enforcement and tried to overturn our democratic election."
"My legislation ensures if a sitting president sues our government while in office," added Thompson, "they get taxed 100% on any money paid through a trial or settlement."
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) took some time on Thursday to provide an overview of the Trump slush fund's creation in a lengthy social media post.
As explained by Levin, the fund came about after Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) earlier this year over the 2019 leaking of his tax returns.
Levin noted that "IRS lawyers did their jobs" by writing a memo of legal arguments they believed would defeat Trump's lawsuit in court.
However, before the case could be fully heard in a courtroom, Trump agreed to drop his lawsuit while the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the creation of the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" as a settlement.
Levin also called attention to the structure of the committee, which he said was riddled with conflicts of interest.
"The acting attorney general, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, picks the five commissioners who decide who gets paid," he said. "Trump can fire any of them. Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are not ruled out."
Levin concluded by calling the fund "the most corrupt thing I've ever seen from an American president."
While Democrats are taking the lead in the effort to block Trump's slush fund, some Republicans have also indicated their opposition to the initiative.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), one of the most vulnerable GOP members of the House, said on Wednesday that "a nearly $1.8 billion DOJ-controlled fund cannot be created, defined, and distributed in the shadows," and he demanded acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche provide answers about who will be eligible to receive payouts and under what legal authority.
"Taxpayer dollars will not be turned into a discretionary payout fund," Fitzpatrick emphasized. "Transparency is not optional. Accountability is not negotiable."
According to a Thursday report from Punchbowl News, Senate Republicans are preparing to slap restrictions on the $1.8 billion fund that could prevent any payments from going to January 6 rioters who attacked police officers.
In an interview with Punchbowl News, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) expressed incredulity that such guardrails were even necessary.
"Imagine that—a fund that is set up to compensate people who assaulted Capitol Police officers," Tillis said. "How absurd does that sound coming out of my mouth?"
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Wyden Denounces 'Highly Questionable' $370 Million Tax Giveaway to Gas Giant by Trump IRS
Sen. Ron Wyden called the IRS' decision to grant Cheniere Energy a massive tax windfall "extremely troubling" given that it was one of the companies President Donald Trump promised to help during the 2024 campaign.
Apr 17, 2026
Sen. Ron Wyden is calling foul over a $370 million tax break that the Trump administration recently gave to Texas-based gas company Cheniere Energy.
In a letter to Cheniere CEO Jack Fusco, Wyden (D-Ore.) demanded more information from the company about the windfall it received after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) signed off on what the senator described as a "novel and highly questionable tax position."
According to Wyden, the IRS determined Cheniere was eligible to receive the Section 6426 credit—intended to incentivize the use of "alcohol fuel, biodiesel, and alternative fuel mixtures"—which the energy company said it used to power its liquified natural gas (LNG) transport carriers.
Taking advantage of the tax credit in this manner, Wyden argued, is a complete distortion of what it was intended to accomplish.
"The alternative fuel tax credit that Cheniere claimed is for alternative fuel mixtures in 'motorboats,'" wrote Wyden. "'Motorboat' is defined elsewhere in federal regulations as a vessel '65 feet in length or less.' LNG carriers are closer to one thousand feet in length, and the 'alternative fuel' that Cheniere's carriers were powered by was reportedly LNG boiloff that would have been wasted if it were not used to power the carriers."
Wyden emphasized this point by adding, "If Cheniere’s carriers are in fact 'motorboats,' then the Titanic was a dinghy."
The Oregon Democrat said the IRS' decision to grant Cheniere this tax credit was "extremely troubling" given that the gas giant "was among the oil and gas companies then-candidate [Donald] Trump promised to give a free hand in rulemaking" during the 2024 presidential election campaign.
Wyden then demanded that Cheniere provide him a copy of the closing letter the IRS sent to the firm following its review of the alternative fuel tax credit claim; a list of each carrier, complete with the carrier's length and displacement, that Cheniere has designated as a "motorboat"; and an explanation for "how $370 million in alternative fuel costs was calculated for the periods 2018 to 2024."
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Democratic Lawmakers Demand Probe Into DHS Warrantless Location Tracking
“Location data is extremely sensitive, and can reveal someone’s religion, their political views, medical conditions, addictions, and with whom they spend time."
Mar 03, 2026
Over 70 Democratic US lawmakers on Tuesday demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans' location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement—which critics say violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition of unwarranted search and seizure.
In a letter to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, 72 congressional Democrats led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) wrote, "Public contracting documents indicate that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently resumed buying Americans’ location data from a shady data broker" after the agency "ended a previous program to purchase Americans’ cellphone location data in 2023, following an investigation by your office and scrutiny from Congress."
"Location data is extremely sensitive, and can reveal someone’s religion, their political views, medical conditions, addictions, and with whom they spend time," the lawmakers' letter states. "It is for that reason that ordinarily, the government must obtain a warrant from a judge in order to demand such data from phone or technology companies."
While the Fourth Amendment generally prohibits the government from searching or obtaining Americans' private information without a warrant, federal agencies have circumvented the proscription by buying sensitive personal data from private brokers.
"Public reports indicate that ICE has resumed its location data purchases, even though DHS has yet to adopt all of the recommendations from your prior review," the lawmakers noted in their letter.
The letter continues:
ICE issued a no-bid contract to the surveillance company PenLink in 2025, which included licenses for its location tracking product, Webloc, according to press reports. Webloc was developed by the controversial surveillance company Cobwebs Technologies, which was combined with Nebraska-based PenLink as part of a $200 million private equity deal in 2023. Cobwebs gained notoriety when Meta banned the company in 2021, as part of a crackdown on surveillance mercenaries after detecting the company’s customers targeting activists, opposition politicians, and government officials in Hong Kong and Mexico.
ICE is now stonewalling congressional oversight into its purchase of location data. Sen. Wyden’s office requested a briefing from ICE soon after this contract was revealed in the press, in October, which was scheduled in December, for February 10, 2026. One day before that briefing was to take place, ICE canceled it with no explanation and without any offer to reschedule.
"Given DHS’ failure to adopt a policy for the use of commercial data, coupled with ICE awarding a no-bid contract to a shady data broker that is likely violating federal law, we urge you to open another investigation into the purchase," the lawmakers wrote.
The letter asks:
- Whether ICE and other DHS components are purchasing illegally obtained location data about Americans;
- If so, why does DHS not have policies in place to prevent taxpayer dollars from going to contractors that have invaded Americans’ privacy in violation of federal law;
- How ICE and other DHS components have used location data and whether they have used it to investigate Americans for engaging in constitutionally protected activities, including protesting or monitoring ICE operations;
- Whether ICE and other DHS components are auditing employee access to commercial location data to identify likely patterns of abuse; and
- Why has DHS still not adopted a policy for the use of commercial location data, as you recommended in 2023?
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently explained, ICE has spent $5 million on Webloc and Tangles, another location and social media surveillance product made by PenLink.
According to EFF:
Webloc gathers the locations of millions of phones by gathering data from mobile data brokers and linking it together with other information about users. Tangles is a social media surveillance tool which combines web scraping with access to social media application programming interfaces. These tools are able to build a dossier on anyone who has a public social media account. Tangles is able to link together a person’s posting history, posts, and comments containing keywords, location history, tags, social graph, and photos with those of their friends and family. PenLink then sells this information to law enforcement, allowing law enforcement to avoid the need for a warrant. This means ICE can look up historic and current locations of many people all across the US without ever having to get a warrant.
There have been several attempts to solidify restrictions on government purchase of Americans' personal data in recent years, most notably the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act (FANFSA), which failed to pass.
Last month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement Act, which would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act but is also intended to protect Americans from warrantless spying, including by closing the data broker loophole that lets law enforcement buy their way around the Fourth Amendment.
Also last month, Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) led 13 Democratic lawmakers who sent a separate letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seeking answers about ICE's use of PenLink surveillance technology "designed to collect and analyze cellphone location data across entire neighborhoods."
"Mass surveillance of entire communities or city blocks raises serious questions about data privacy and potential violations of civil liberties," Brown wrote.
"Americans should be able to trust their government to uphold the Constitution and respect fundamental rights," she added. "Instead, DHS appears to be engaging in broad surveillance practices to monitor entire communities, violating Americans’ fundamental civil rights and civil liberties to punish dissent and advance the president's cruel and unconstitutional mass deportation agenda."
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Wyden Presses DEA for Answers About Drug-Trafficking Probe Targeting Epstein and 14 Associates
"I’m convinced there’s a mess of financial crimes running throughout the Epstein story, and a lot of other people who were directly involved are still walking free," said the senator.
Feb 27, 2026
US Sen. Ron Wyden has given the Drug Enforcement Administration two weeks to provide key information on a secretive, long-running investigation into potential drug trafficking and money laundering by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and 14 co-conspirators.
The Oregon Democrat wrote to DEA Administrator Terrance Cole asking for a fully unredacted version of a 69-page memo from 2015 that was prepared by the director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Fusion Center, a specialized Department of Justice (DOJ) unit that President Donald Trump shut down last year.
A heavily redacted version of the memo was included in the Epstein files that were released last month and referred to an OCDETF probe nicknamed "Chain Reaction."
The investigation had been opened in 2010, according to the document, and was still active at the time the memo was drafted. Epstein's 14 co-conspirators, all of whom had their names blacked out in the file release, were being investigated for "illegitimate wire transfers which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the US Virgin Islands and New York City."
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the release of files related to Epstein's sex trafficking operation, requires that redactions are used to protect the identities of victims, "not members of a criminal sex trafficking organization," Wyden wrote in his letter.
“The fact that Epstein was under investigation by [OCDETF] suggests that there was ample evidence indicating that Epstein was engaged in heavy drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy. This is incredibly disturbing and raises serious questions as to how this investigation by the DEA was handled,” Wyden wrote.
“Since Epstein and his 14 co-conspirators were never charged by the DOJ for drug trafficking or financial crimes, I am concerned that the DEA and DOJ during the first Trump administration moved to terminate this investigation in order to protect pedophiles," he continued. "I am also concerned that the excessive redactions of this memorandum for operation ‘Chain Reaction’ go well beyond the intent of the Epstein Files Transparency Act."
In a statement on social media Friday, the senator said the Senate Finance Committee, of which he is the ranking member, needs "to know the results" of the OCDETF's investigation.
"Did it result in any charges being brought against the targets? Why did it end, and when? Did the first Trump administration squash it?" he asked.
This document is proof that it’s essential to keep following the money. I’m convinced there’s a mess of financial crimes running throughout the Epstein story, and a lot of other people who were directly involved are still walking free. That’s unacceptable.
— Senator Ron Wyden (@wyden.senate.gov) February 27, 2026 at 10:15 AM
"This is a big one," Wyden said of the redacted memo.
Wyden has led efforts to get to the bottom of financial secrets regarding Epstein's sex trafficking and other criminal operations. Last summer he drew attention to Suspicious Activity Reports that were filed with the US Department of the Treasury, including information on more than 4,725 wire transfers involving Epstein's bank accounts, totaling $1.5 billion in value.
The redacted memo in the Epstein files, he said, "is proof that it’s essential to keep following the money."
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Senate GOP Kills Bill That Would've Reversed $10 Billion Trump Corporate Tax Break
Sen. Ron Wyden called the tax giveaway "indefensible at a time when so many Americans are getting battered by inflation and barely staying afloat."
Feb 10, 2026
Nearly all US Senate Republicans on Tuesday voted to block a resolution that would have reversed a Trump administration regulatory change set to give some of the country's richest companies a $10.3 billion tax break.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution was spearheaded by Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Angus King (I-Maine). The vote on whether to advance it was 47-51. The only Republican to vote in favor was the other Mainer, Susan Collins, who just confirmed she is running for another term, despite two strong Democratic challengers.
In a statement after the vote, Wyden tied the target of his resolution—an Internal Revenue Service guidance undermining the corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT)—to the sweeping budget package that GOP lawmakers passed and President Donald Trump signed last summer, which also featured significant tax breaks for the rich.
"The ink is barely dry on the megabill Trump and Republicans passed to give $1 trillion in new tax breaks to giant corporations, and now his Treasury Department is throwing another $10 billion handout to the most profitable corporations in America," Wyden said.
"The pattern we're seeing is that the Trump administration gives big corporations and ultrawealthy donors whatever tax benefits they want the second they walk through the door at the Treasury Department, but that doesn't mean the Senate has to allow this giveaway to happen," he stressed. "Stuffing $10 billion into the coffers of corporations that are already raking in enormous profits is indefensible at a time when so many Americans are getting battered by inflation and barely staying afloat."
King similarly declared that "it's downright unfair to give billions in tax relief to America's most successful corporations when Maine people are struggling to afford their prescription drugs, childcare, and groceries." He described their resolution as "a commonsense step toward a fairer tax policy that prioritizes people over profits and levels the playing field."
Although the defeat was predictable, economic justice advocates lambasted Senate Republicans for killing the resolution.
Americans for Tax Fairness executive director David Kass said in a statement that "after passing historic tax giveaways for billionaires and big business through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA), blowing up the deficit, and cutting billions from critical healthcare and nutrition programs to pay for it, Trump and his GOP allies in the Senate are taking every opportunity to ensure economic elites can avoid paying their fair share."
"This guidance would effectively circumvent Congress and create numerous opportunities for corporate tax evasion while increasing the deficit and national debt, thus creating more imbalance in a tax code that already favors the wealthy and large corporations," Kass said. "Sen. Wyden is right to lead the charge to stop this guidance—average Americans should not be forced to subsidize some of the most profitable companies on Earth."
Like the Senate, the House of Representatives is also narrowly controlled by the GOP. Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, noted in a Tuesday blog post that "even if lawmakers of both parties had sufficient backbone to retake the legislative power that the executive branch has usurped, President Trump would veto such a bill."
"But as a matter of educating lawmakers and the public, the recently rejected measure was a success given that tax legislation (such as this resolution) up for a vote in Congress usually gets an official budget score from Congress' revenue estimators at the Joint Committee on Taxation," he wrote. "And in this case, that reveals that this unilateral corporate tax cut from the Trump administration will cost $10 billion over a decade unless it is reversed."
"The Senate's failure to ratify Wyden's resolution may be only the opening salvo for members of Congress who want to retake the power given them under the Constitution to make tax law," Gardner suggested. "The regulation in question is not the first, and surely not the last, attempt by President Trump to unilaterally cut corporate taxes."
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Resolution Aims to Undo ‘Hidden’ $10 Billion Trump Tax Giveaway to Massive Corporations
"Congress must not accept this unjustifiable, $10.3 billion giveaway," said the office of Sen. Ron Wyden, who is leading the repeal effort.
Feb 10, 2026
The Republican-controlled US Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on a Democratic resolution aimed at overturning a major tax giveaway to large corporations that the Trump administration quietly implemented last year without congressional approval.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution is led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. In a memo released ahead of Tuesday's vote, Wyden's office noted that the Trump administration's regulatory assault on the Biden-era corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT) is expected to hand corporations and private equity firms more than $10 billion in tax breaks.
"This tax break is hidden inside new guidance, IRS Notice 2025-28," Wyden's office observed. "The notice makes changes to the rules governing how corporate giants and private equity firms can count income coming from partnerships they own, essentially giving those corporations a 'choose-your-own-tax-rate' adventure."
The CAMT, approved under the Inflation Reduction Act in an effort to combat corporate tax avoidance, requires highly profitable US companies to pay a tax of at least 15% on so-called book profits, the numbers that are reported to shareholders.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, said in a statement opposing the Trump administration's weakening of the CAMT that the Trump administration's guidance "offers corporations a 'rainbow of choices' in how they calculate their share of partnership book income for minimum tax purposes, several of which deviate significantly from the statutory intent of tying corporate minimum tax liability to book income rather than taxable income."
"The weakened rules, combined with the administration’s hollowing out of IRS enforcement (which make it less likely that corporations, complex partnerships, and their owners will pay what they legally owe) mean corporations are racking up large tax cuts that weren’t enacted by Congress," the group added. "The corporate minimum tax was initially estimated to raise $222 billion over ten years, but the actual revenue will likely be far lower in part due to special giveaways already granted by the administration."
Wyden's effort to overturn the Trump administration's unilateral erosion of the CAMT—which comes on top of the massive tax cuts for corporations that congressional Republicans approved last summer—also drew support from the conservative Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, whose president, Maya MacGuineas, said in a Tuesday statement that "we ought to be strengthening the tax base and improving tax enforcement, not opening up new loopholes that undermine the intent of the law."
"The current Congressional Review Act measure would help restore the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax to its intended design," said MacGuineas. "It would be a small first step—a baby step really—toward beginning to get our fiscal house in order."
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'Wyden Siren' Sounds Anew as Senator's Cryptic Letter Hints at CIA Wrongdoing
"When Wyden sends a cryptic letter or asks a pointed question suggesting something concerning is happening behind the classification curtain, something concerning is absolutely happening," said one observer.
Feb 05, 2026
Sen. Ron Wyden "only talks like this when the spies do something *real* bad."
That's how journalist Spencer Ackerman reacted Thursday to a letter from the Oregon Democrat to Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe expressing alarm over unspecified CIA activities, as observers noted Wyden's history of heads-up previews of government wrongdoing.
“I write to alert you to a classified letter I sent you earlier today, in which I express deep concerns about CIA activities,” Wyden, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in the letter. “Thank you for your attention to this important matter.”
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner “shares many of the concerns expressed by Sen. Wyden in his letter, and in fact he has expressed them to... Ratcliffe himself," according to a spokesperson for the Virginia Democrat.
This is how Sen. Ron Wyden clues the public into activity that he finds extremely alarming. He does a press release about a letter he sent to the director of the CIA that basically says, 'I want to make sure you saw the classified letter I sent early today.' www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/do...
[image or embed]
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill.bsky.social) February 4, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Wyden told HuffPost Thursday that “the reason I sent the public letter is that is all that I’m allowed to say publicly, and I’m gonna leave it at that.”
“I said what I did for a specific reason," he added. "I wrote it for a specific reason. That’s all I can say.”
Wyden has a storied history of issuing cryptic warnings about classified government or intelligence misdeeds before they are disclosed to the public, going back to the Obama administration's secret reinterpretation of the PATRIOT Act in 2011.
The senator also warned about a withheld 2015 Department of Justice legal opinion on cybersecurity, Section 702 surveillance during the first Trump administration, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) use of bulk administrative subpoenas to collect millions of Americans’ financial records during the Biden administration, and more.
Techdirt blog editor Mike Masnick calls it the "Wyden Siren": "The pattern repeats. Wyden asks a specific question about surveillance. The intelligence community answers a slightly different question in a way that technically isn’t lying but is designed to mislead. Wyden calls them out. Eventually, the truth comes out, and it’s always worse than people assumed."
"The track record here is essentially perfect," Masnick added. "When Wyden sends a cryptic letter or asks a pointed question suggesting something concerning is happening behind the classification curtain, something concerning is absolutely happening behind the classification curtain."
Masnick continued:
So what’s happening at the CIA that has Wyden sending a two-sentence letter that amounts to “I legally cannot tell you what’s wrong, but something is very wrong?"
We don’t know yet. That’s the whole point of classification—it keeps the public in the dark about what their government is doing in their name. But Wyden’s letter is the equivalent of a fire alarm. He’s seen something. He can’t say what. But he wants there to be a record that he raised the concern.
"Given the current administration’s approach to, well, everything, the possibilities are unfortunately vast," Masnick said. "Is it about domestic surveillance? Something about current [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] Tulsi Gabbard? International operations gone sideways? Some new interpretation of the CIA’s authorities that would make Americans’ hair stand on end if they knew about it? We’re left guessing, just like we were guessing about the PATRIOT Act’s secret interpretation back in 2011."
"But here’s what we do know: Ron Wyden has been doing this for at least 15 years," Masnick added. "And every single time, he’s been vindicated. The secret programs were real. The abuses were real. The gap between what the public thought was happening and what was actually happening was real."
"The Wyden Siren is blaring," he added. "Pay attention."
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Senators Demand Answers on Equifax Plan to 'Profiteer' Off GOP Medicaid Work Requirements
"Corporate consultants and vendors are getting to make a killing off of Medicaid work requirements' administration machinery while our patients will lose healthcare and suffer," said one advocate.
Feb 05, 2026
Three of the US Senate's top critics of corporate greed and anticompetitive behavior are investigating a scheme by credit report firm Equifax that they say will allow the company to profit from Republican policies that are set to rip away healthcare coverage and food assistance from millions of Americans.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote to Equifax CEO Mark Begor on Tuesday with several questions about the company's anticipated profits from provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that imposed work requirements on recipients of Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
Begor told investors last summer that the policy presented a "massive" business opportunity for Equifax, as a product owned by the company called the Work Number is used by many states to instantly verify the wages and work hours of Medicaid applicants.
At least 99 million workers across the country are covered by Equifax's database, which the company has filled with data through exclusive contracts with employers and payroll firms. Equifax has frequently imposed steep price hikes on the product and has been accused of having a monopoly on providing income data to state agencies.
North Carolina's Medicaid program was hit with a 24% price increase in 2022 and a 36% hike in 2024.
"We have very little leverage and recourse to back out," state Medicaid director Jay Ludlam told the New York Times in November.
Luke Farrell, a former employee of the US Digital Service under the Biden administration, told the Times that Equifax owns "a product that has become a core piece of the safety net. I’ve never seen another vendor do such price hikes across public benefits.”
With the new work requirements set to go into effect in January 2027, states will be required to check the database more frequently.
The OBBBA's $1 trillion in cuts to SNAP and Medicaid are projected to cause "over 5 million people to lose their health insurance and over 3 million people to pay higher grocery prices within the next few years," wrote the senators this week.
"But for Equifax, these new threats to Americans’ food assistance and health insurance coverage 'represent the chance to become a lot richer,'" they wrote, quoting the Times' article from November about Equifax's plan to price-gouge states.
The senators continued:
Because Equifax is already dominant in this market, the law’s new red tape requirements allow the company to consolidate power even further, using extractive contracts to price-gouge states, squeeze competitors, and drive up profits. In fact, Equifax is laying the groundwork to cash in by proactively building out a platform called “TotalVerify,” which is specifically marketed as a tool to help “Prepare Your Agency For H.R.1.” Equifax also pitched the platform as a “single-source” for states and government agencies to be able to verify employment, income, incarceration status, consumer address, and phone number history and claims to “help state and government agencies manage the complexities of SNAP and Medicaid programs.” Given that Equifax’s tight grip on this business has “border[ed] on a monopoly,” Equifax stands to gain even more as OBBBA’s red-tape requirements take effect nationwide.
The lawmakers noted that judging from history, the work requirements are unlikely to "be effective at anything but increasing red tape," as the vast majority of Medicaid and SNAP recipients who are eligible to work already do and states have already run "failed" experiments with Medicaid work requirements.
In 2018, Arkansas' program resulted in 18,000 low-income people losing coverage in under a year, with people who had no home internet access and those who qualified for an exemption from the work requirement most likely to lose their benefits.
"Now, President Trump and Republicans in Congress have expanded this policy in a move that will ensure more Americans get tangled up in red tape and lose essential healthcare coverage and food assistance as a result," wrote Warren, Wyden, and Sanders. "That these requirements could allow Equifax to profiteer off of this ‘solution’ [makes] them even more egregious."
Adam Gaffney, former president of Physicians for a National Health Program, summarized the senators' objections to Equifax's price-gouging practices: "Corporate consultants and vendors are getting to make a killing off of Medicaid work requirements' administration machinery while our patients will lose healthcare and suffer. Meanwhile taxpayers will fund the bureaucratic lard."
The senators demanded to know Equifax's per-query costs for each state contract for the Work Number, the number of OBBBA-related contracts it expects to bid for in 2026 and 2027, the company's lobbying expenditures over the past five years for federal, state, and local governments, and whether Equifax plans to retain a clause in its contracts that allows it the “categorical right” to change prices with 30 days’ notice.
"Equifax’s long history of anti-competitive behavior," said the senators, "raises serious concerns about the company’s potential moves to price gouge states and taxpayers."
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