At the COG Board of Directors meeting on June 11, U.S. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia offered his perspective on the current presidential administration’s economic impacts on the region. While acknowledging the severity of the Medicaid cuts proposed in President Trump’s budget reconciliation bill, he also urged members of Congress to make the bill’s overlooked effects on the healthcare marketplace clear. An average middle-class family would see their costs rise significantly due to reduced subsidies, he said. In Virginia, he estimated 303,000 people would be affected.
Warner then addressed cuts to food assistance, which would adversely affect 204,000 people in his state. Additionally, a potential $300 million responsibility for food benefits would shift to the state budget.
He pointed out that the bill’s proposal to increase the difficulty in claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit, which provides a tax break to low-to-moderate income earners, has received almost no attention.
The senator criticized the Department of Government Efficiency’s workforce reduction efforts, predicting they will ultimately cost taxpayers money. He urged COG members to assist with better documentation of the full impact of the reductions in force, including contractors and other impacted industries. Similarly, he emphasized the importance of data collection to accurately track statistics like inflation and labor.
Following Senator Warner, Matt Chase, CEO and Executive Director of the National Association of Counties (NACo), provided insights into how these concerns are being felt on the local level.
NACo is tracking executive orders, which have touched issues like climate, elections, immigration, and equity. He said that what started with federal funding freezes now looks like continually changing language in the terms and conditions of federal awards, making it more difficult to qualify or ensure compliance.
One prominent issue is that of immigration and sanctuary jurisdictions. There are many statutes to keep up with, and the criteria for which jurisdictions are considered sanctuaries is unclear. With court-ordered releases and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer requests, law enforcement face conflicting instructions. Moreover, Chase cautioned that the threat of removing federal offices from counties considered sanctuary jurisdictions could have a huge impact.
Turning his focus to President Trump’s budget cuts, he listed threats to the tax advantage on municipal bonds, Medicaid cuts, the loss of federal funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, and the phasing out of the Federal Emergency Management Agency as particular points of concern.
Chase sees NACo’s role as one of advocacy for county governments, and he is seeing their members put under pressure from the state and federal levels, handed roles and responsibilities that will not go away.
“I would encourage COG to think regionally. We are going into an era of scarcity, and we are going to have to be smart about where we dedicate resources,” he stressed.
An underlying theme of the board meeting was the importance of storytelling as a way to humanize data. Public trust in governments—at all levels—is low, and framing issues only in terms of government agencies will not resonate. Instead, officials agreed that outreach should focus on the impact on people’s everyday lives.
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