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Dear Friend,
Summer is starting to wind down, the days are getting shorter, and kids are preparing to head back to school. The school year hasn’t officially started yet, but there’s already been a lesson learned: Prices for school supplies are through the roof.
As Telegram readers know, the Democrats one party reign in Washington has consisted of one shopping spree after another – causing inflation to skyrocket to a 40-year high as a result.
And now parents are paying the price.
This year families will end up paying 40% more for school supplies than they did back in 2019 – adding up to a whopping $864.
Many Americans are already struggling to make ends meet and the extra added costs are just too much for their kitchen table budgets to handle. According to the USA Today, nearly 65% of parents said that they won’t be able to afford their kids’ back-to-school supplies this year. (But more on that – and how to stretch your dollar – later.)
On Wednesday, Biden decided to wrap up his two-week break and return to work. Well, for a couple of days at least.
Unfortunately for the American taxpayer, Biden’s quick jaunt back to the White House may cost them $500 billion over the next ten years. That’s because the President announced this week that taxpayers will now be on the hook for millions in student loan debt that they never borrowed. In other words, blue-collar manufacturing workers in Wisconsin could soon be forced to pay off the student loans of six-figure white-collar couples in New York making as much as $250,000 a year.
As with most of President Biden’s plans, economists are already sounding the alarm that his student loan socialism scheme may cause inflation, and tuition, to continue to rise.
From pouring money into an inflation-wracked economy, to attempting to spend their way out of skyrocketing prices, and even raising taxes during a recession, it’s clear that many of my colleagues in Congress were absent the day they taught Economics 101 in school.
Thanks again for starting off your weekend with us! We hope you enjoy this week’s edition of the Tiffany Telegram – we’ll be back in two weeks with our next edition.
Sincerely,
Tom Tiffany
Member of Congress
Wishing all students, teachers, and administrators a successful school year!
Back-to-school resources
As kids head back-to-school this fall, I want to make sure parents have the resources available to them for affordable school supplies. With rising inflation, almost 50% of parents with school-aged kids say that back-to-school shopping will force them to take on debt. To help parents who may be looking for some school supplies or for anyone who is looking to donate supplies, you can direct them to some of the following organizations:
Another great telephone town hall in the books
Thank you to everyone who joined my telephone town hall on Wednesday with Marathon County Sheriff Scott Parks. Sheriff Parks and I benefited from hearing from constituents and discussing solutions to rampant crime and rising fentanyl overdoses. Just last week, Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services announced that fentanyl deaths in Wisconsin are up 97% since 2019 – causing a public health advisory to be issued. This is a serious concern, and it goes to show that we must get serious about backing our law enforcement officers, supporting tough-on-crime prosecutors, and securing our southern border. The crime wave that is skyrocketing in many major cities and bleeding into rural communities needs to be stopped, and my Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act will help do just that (more on that later). If you missed this telephone town hall, you can sign-up for the next one here and listen to a recording of this past week’s here. I hope to hear from you on the next telephone town hall! Below are the poll results from Wednesday’s telephone town hall.
Student loan socialism
As I mentioned earlier, President Biden announced his newest spending scheme – this time dressed up as “student loan forgiveness.” In case you are wondering, no, it won’t magically erase all student debt with the stroke of a pen. As you probably already guessed based on the President’s track record, what it really means is shifting debts incurred by one group of Americans to another – this time to the tune of $500 billion. And what about those who already paid off their loans, worked to pay their way through school, or never attended college at all, you might ask? Well, they will now be forced to pay off the student loan tabs of individuals making up to $125,000 a year and couples making as much as $250,000. In addition to saddling hardworking Americans with debt obligations that they never signed up for, it could also send inflation – and tuition rates – soaring. I do not believe the President has the authority to unilaterally force the American people into assuming the debt of student loans they never signed up for (and for what it’s worth, neither does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi). That’s why earlier this month I signed on to a bill introduced by my colleague Rep. Warren Davidson (OH-08) clarifying that President Biden must get the approval of Congress before sticking taxpayers with another huge bill. You can read more about that bill here.
Energy security is national security
On Thursday, I sent a letter to President Biden’s EPA administrator Michael Regan regarding the proposed Nemadji Trail Energy Center (NTEC) in Superior. As you may have heard, the EPA recently released comments regarding a supplemental environmental assessment that was done by the USDA on the project, and the EPA was very critical of the project as planned. Unfortunately, the EPA does not believe that this project does enough to curb “greenhouse gases and climate change.” Like many of you, I was surprised by this conclusion given that the plant would produce clean and affordable energy for customers across our region. At a time when our state is at risk of rolling blackouts, it is mind-boggling that a federal agency would take steps to delay families access to reliable, affordable energy. Sadly, the EPA is facing pressure from radical environmental groups who believe that any new energy project should be completely powered by unreliable and intermittent “green” energy – something that will leave ratepayers facing a one-two punch of higher utility bills and the looming prospect of power outages. NTEC is critical to the livelihoods and well-being of all of our residents and businesses – and as we have repeatedly seen over the past few years, energy security is a matter of national security. I hope the EPA reconsiders its position and does everything it can to help move this vital project forward to approval and completion.
Crime wave continues
It seems like not a day goes by that we don’t hear about heinous crimes being committed in major cities across the country. You can read about a couple recent such cases here and here. Not only is this surge in crime affecting our communities, but it is also spilling onto college campuses and universities. This is happening in part to dangerous calls by some in Congress to defund the police and compounded by rogue prosecutors who refuse to hold criminals accountable. Their insistence on so-called “bail reform” and “prosecutorial discretion” that favors criminals have consistently shown that it’s the wrong approach for our country. These rogue prosecutors only enforce the laws that they like, while ignoring those they disagree with. The results have been shocking, but not surprising. Recruitment and retention of police officers in many jurisdictions has suffered, putting those who do serve in greater danger. Taken together, all of this has mixed a toxic cocktail – and law-abiding Americans are fed up. They want prosecutors to do their jobs. They want the police to police. They want dangerous criminals off the streets, and behind bars. That is why I introduced the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act with my colleague Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11), a common-sense measure that would require prosecutors to report how often they follow through on holding criminals charged with serious violent crimes accountable. It would also mandate disclosures on how often prosecutors secure convictions, whether those charged were already on probation or parole, and how many were released without bail.
Federal Bureau of Censorship?
We’ve told you in the past about some of the troubling steps social media platforms have taken over the past two years to silence certain viewpoints, with Silicon Valley tech giants unilaterally deciding what we can see, say, and share online. This week we learned that they may not have acted alone, and that the push to silence American voices may have originated with the FBI. During an interview on Thursday, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg appeared to concede that the bombshell New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop “fit the pattern” of content that the FBI allegedly warned tech companies to suppress. Internal communications from Twitter also revealed this month that the Biden White House pressed the company to deplatform Alex Berenson (Mr. Berenson, a former New York Times journalist, has questioned claims that the Covid-19 vaccine could stop virus transmission and infection). On Wednesday, even Congress was muzzled when Facebook censored a post shared by House Republicans critical of President Biden’s reckless, multi-billion-dollar student loan cancellation plan. This isn’t just disturbing, it is wrong. I am committed to protecting the bedrock principle of free expression on the web for all Americans. That’s why I joined my colleague Rep. Paul Gosar (AZ-04) in sponsoring the Stop the Censorship Act of 2022, which would take aim at the largely unchecked power of a handful of tech companies to control online speech. I am also committed to getting to the bottom of the alleged role of the Justice Department and FBI in shutting down online debate.
Recent Legislation
Sending criminal aliens home
This week, I introduced a bill called the Alien Criminal Expulsion Act or “ACE Act.” This legislation would halt the issuance of visas to foreign nationals from what are called “recalcitrant countries.” This term is used to describe foreign governments that prevent us from sending those who commit criminal acts or overstay their visas back to their home country. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that one of the world’s worst offenders when it comes to this problem is Communist China. For years, China’s rulers have refused to take back their scofflaws – in essence using America as a dumping ground for their criminal aliens. That is unacceptable, and the ACE Act would put a stop to it. After all, it makes no sense for us to continue handing out visas to citizens of China when we know that we can’t remove them if they break our laws or ignore the terms of their visas. Current law already directs the Biden administration to impose limited visa sanctions on “recalcitrant countries” like China. Unfortunately, however, as has been the case with so many provisions of our immigration law, President Biden has chosen to ignore it. My bill would both enhance these mandatory visa restrictions and ratchet up the pressure to hold China – and other countries that flout our rules – accountable. You can read more about this issue here.
Opening a new terrorist loophole?
Last month, we told you about an eyebrow-raising new Biden administration plan to relax rules that block Afghans who have worked for the Taliban or supported foreign terror groups from entering our country. It seems almost unbelievable that any American leader would think scrapping these rules is a good idea – but that’s exactly what the Biden administration has done. That’s why I introduced the Stopping Taliban Operatives from Penetrating or “STOP Act,” which would overturn this controversial Biden administration directive. Since the fall of Kabul last year, President Biden has repeatedly assured the American people that the tens of thousands of Afghans being released into our communities were fully vetted and worked directly with U.S. personnel on sensitive military, diplomatic and intelligence operations during the war. We now know that was a lie. We also know that the chaotic White House-led evacuation has already resulted in at least 50 Afghans with “potentially significant security concerns” making their way into the U.S. – and that’s just the ones we know about. The Biden administration is now going even further, opening a new loophole that could create a pipeline into American neighborhoods for individuals who were on the Taliban payroll or provided support to known terrorist organizations. That’s not just dishonest, it’s reckless. It is time to get serious about national security, and the
STOP Act is one way to do it.
District Update
Marathon County residents: Be on the lookout for phone scams
The Marathon County Sheriff's Office announced that they are investigating a telephone scam. The scammers will claim to be from the Sheriff’s Office, will provide the recipient’s first and last name, and then inform the person on the line that they have business to conduct with the Sheriff’s Office. The scammer will then instruct the recipient to call 715-680-3057, ext. 700, with the requested personal information. If you believe you received a call, such as this one, you can verify the number for the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office here to ensure it was them.
Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Month
Earlier this week I enjoyed a tour of the Northwoods Surgery Center in Woodruff where I learned about all the amazing work they are doing for our communities. With August being Ambulatory Surgery Center Month, I want to emphasize the vital role these centers play in quality healthcare services throughout the district. Ambulatory Surgery Centers are dedicated to performing high-quality surgeries that are also cost-effective, so they can be accessible to everyone in the community. Thank you to all the hard-working doctors, nurses, and staff that help provide wonderful care to our communities!
Thank you to the team at Northwoods Surgical Center for giving me a behind-the-scenes look at how Ambulatory Surgery Centers are helping patients throughout WI-07!
All around the 7th District this August recess
Last week, I had a great visit touring the Red Cliff Fish Company and the Red Cliff Tribal Fish Hatchery near Lake Superior to get a first-hand look at conservation and economic development efforts.
I also had a great tour of the Washburn Iron Works last week, and I even got to hear from a Telegram subscriber during the tour (Patrick Hoeling pictured above). Thank you to everyone at Washburn Iron Works for their informative tour and all their hard work!
This week, I joined the Center of the American Experiment and Congressman Pete Stauber (MN-08) to discuss solutions for reliable and affordable energy. America produces the cleanest energy in the world, and we must unleash what is right under our feet.
Resources
As many families struggle to find baby formula, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has compiled resources to help. For resources on where to locate baby formula in our community and for tips from HHS, click here. They also have a social media toolkit in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Haitian Creole here.
While many begin to travel internationally again, the Department of State is available to assist with passport services. We recommend to apply at least six months before planned travel as routine service may take up to about 18 weeks. For more information, please visit travel.state.gov.
The USDA continues to make resources and assistance available to agricultural producers and working families to ensure access, safety and stability for food markets and supplies.
If a friend forwarded you this newsletter, and you would like to receive it in the future, you can subscribe here for weekly updates and connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
As always, you are welcome to visit my website or to contact my offices in Washington, DC or Wisconsin, which remain open for service, if you have any questions or need assistance.
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