Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., arrives to speak during the Democratic Party of Oregon’s election night party at the Portland Hilton on Nov. 3, 2026.
Jenny Kane / OPB
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden said Democrats will hit the ground running in January and plan to use their newfound power to attempt to walk back major cuts to healthcare and social safety net programs.
But overhauling President Trump’s signature policy achievement — the tax and spending bill known as H.R. 1 — would be a tall order and could face a veto from the president.
Wyden, a 30-year veteran of the Senate, will be in the middle of that fight as the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He will take over the chairmanship in January after Democrats won a 54-seat majority in the Senate last week.
The committee has jurisdiction over taxation, tariffs and safety net programs including Medicaid, Medicare and SNAP (food stamps).
Wyden took questions from members of the Oregon press Monday morning. He said he would support stopping the Trump administration’s tariffs, including those against Canada, and investigate the big banks that he accused of propping up the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“My agenda is gonna be affordability for us and accountability for Republicans and special interests,” Wyden said.
Democrats plan to act quickly, he said, on two top priority healthcare issues: reversing the cuts Republicans made to Medicaid, and extending subsidies that reduced the cost of buying health insurance for individuals and small businesses.
Reversing healthcare cuts
Wyden said Democrats plan to introduce legislation “immediately” directed at restoring more generous subsidies for health plans and lifting a work requirement that will start rolling out nationwide on Jan. 1 for some low-income adults on Medicaid.
In Oregon, the work requirement applies to around 560,000 adults. It will take effect on Jan.1 for people newly signing up for coverage. It goes into effect on a rolling basis for people who are already on the Oregon Health Plan, who will need to meet the work requirement the next time their eligibility is up for renewal.
Oregon is also facing a $420 million deficit in the 2027-2029 biennial budget as a result of those stricter federal funding rules.
“We’re going to go after all those cuts and stop as many of them as we can at the beginning of the year,” Wyden said.
Wyden didn’t specify how Democrats would pay for their proposals to restore health insurance subsidies and free healthcare for millions of poor and working-class Americans, but floated the idea of increasing the effective tax rate for ultra-wealthy individuals.
Last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies for ten more years would cost $350 billion and lead to 3.8 million more people with health insurance.
Citing the inefficiency and high cost of healthcare in the U.S., Wyden also affirmed his support for a single-payer system where the government pays for universal coverage, often shorthanded as “Medicare for All.”
Other Democrats, Wyden said, prefer maintaining more of the current system where employers, individuals and the government share responsibility for health insurance while expanding a public option.
Stop tariffs
Throughout his second term, President Trump has sought to use tariffs to strong-arm other countries for his political agenda. The tariffs have had major economic impacts in states like Oregon, which is heavily dependent on global trade that powers about one in four jobs statewide.
Companies in the state in industries ranging from heavy machinery to computer chips to apparel design rely on imported parts. Those same companies often sell their finished products locally, regionally, and export them to the global market.
In recent decades, major trading partners like Canada and Mexico have purchased fertilizer, grains and computer chips from farmers and companies that are key to Oregon’s economy. The Trump administration’s tariffs have rocked those industries.
“We are going to stop Trump’s tariffs that are so flawed and are basically just vehicles for crookery, and that’ll be a top priority,” Wyden said. “And we’re also going to make an effort to end the tariffs with Canada because that’s damaging to both sides.”
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down some of the Trump administration’s most punishing tariffs in early 2026, but a handful of import taxes implemented by the Trump administration still remain on the books.
Subpoena banks with Epstein ties
Wyden also said he plans to use the committee’s subpoena power to investigate banks that may have enabled Jeffrey Epstein, a sex offender whose crimes have roiled many institutions, including the Trump administration.
The senator said the committee would try to understand why institutions failed to stop financing Epstein sooner.
“If the Wall Street banks had done nothing except follow the existing laws — no changes, just the existing laws — we could have stopped Epstein years and years earlier,” Wyden said. “They knew what was going on.”
