On June 30, 2025, Kansas Senator Roger Marshall voted against a motion to strike every provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would result in "increased likelihood of rural hospitals being forced to close, convert, or reduce or stop providing services," and the next day he voted for the law, which passed 50-50 with the Vice President's tie-breaking vote. KFF estimates the law cuts federal Medicaid spending in rural Kansas by $1.08 billion over 10 years; Marshall said the law's rural health fund was "more than enough" to offset the losses.
Marshall also voted to confirm Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, under whom Kansas lost 32 percent of its USDA staff, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and trade representative Jamieson Greer, whose 50 percent steel tariffs raised costs for the Salina farm-equipment maker Great Plains Manufacturing. He voted against ending the tariff emergency in a 49-49 vote as China retaliated against U.S. farm goods; Kansas sorghum, "with 90% of the exports going to China," lost most of that market in 2025.
Roger Marshall's Votes and Statements on Farms, Rural Hospitals and Tariffs in Kansas
- Marshall Voted Against Protecting Rural Hospitals From the Medicaid Cuts in June 2025. On June 30, 2025, Roger Marshall voted no on Senator Ed Markey's motion to strike any provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would result in "increased likelihood of rural hospitals being forced to close, convert, or reduce or stop providing services, including emergency care, mental and behavioral health care, and labor and delivery services." It failed 49-51. The same day he voted against motions to protect hospital labor and delivery care (roll call 340) and nursing homes (roll call 338). KFF estimates the law cuts federal Medicaid spending in rural areas by $137 billion over 10 years, against a $50 billion rural health fund, and by $1.08 billion in rural Kansas.
- Marshall Cast a Deciding Vote for the Law That Cuts Rural Medicaid and Tilts Farm Subsidies Toward Southern Crops and Large Farms. On July 1, 2025, Marshall voted yes on H.R. 1, which passed 50-50 with the Vice President's tie-breaking vote, so it would have failed without his vote. The law raised crop reference prices at a cost the Congressional Budget Office put at $50.5 billion over the next ten fiscal years, money that goes only to farms in programs covering just 27% of US farm acres. The new reference prices for peanuts, rice and seed cotton are disproportionately higher than for the other major crops, and farmdoc daily found "Corn and soybeans continue to lag these Southern crops significantly." The law also lets large farm businesses multiply their payment limits, a change farmdoc daily says "will harm most the younger farmers" by pushing up land prices and rents.
- Marshall Cast a Deciding Vote Against a Budget Measure to Prevent Medicaid Cuts That Could Close Rural Hospitals in April 2025. On April 5, 2025, Marshall voted no on Senator Tammy Baldwin's amendment to the budget resolution creating a reserve fund relating to preventing a reduction in Medicaid funding that could lead to rural hospital closures. It failed 49-50, so a yes vote from Marshall would have adopted it. Marshall then voted to adopt the budget resolution, whose instructions produced the 2025 law's Medicaid and SNAP cuts. In Kansas, 67 out of 100 rural Kansas hospitals are at risk of closing, according to an analysis Kansas Public Radio reported in October 2025, before most of the cuts begin.
- Marshall Voted Against Removing Cuts to Rural Programs and Food Aid From the 2025 Budget Plan. On February 21, 2025, Marshall voted no on an amendment to strike reconciliation instructions requiring damaging cuts to programs critical to rural Americans and food assistance; it failed 47-53. On April 4, 2025 he voted against striking the Agriculture Committee's cut instructions from the second budget plan (roll call 173). Those instructions led to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's SNAP changes, and one year later 24,000 Kansans statewide have lost SNAP benefits, according to Kansas Appleseed, money that rural grocers and the farmers who supply them depend on.
- Marshall Voted to Confirm Brooke Rollins, Under Whom Kansas Lost a Third of Its USDA Staff. On February 13, 2025, Marshall voted to confirm Brooke Rollins as Secretary of Agriculture, and on June 10, 2025 he voted to confirm Stephen Vaden as her deputy. In the central U.S., Kansas lost 32 percent of its USDA staff measured from September 2024, and farmers are waiting longer for help applying for financial assistance, Harvest Public Media reported. Nationally, 42 offices starting 2026 with no staff were among the Farm Service Agency's county offices, and in March 2025 the department cancelled about $1 billion of funding to the LFPA program and the Local Food for Schools program, which bought food from local farms for food banks and schools.
- Marshall Voted to Confirm the Officials Who Ran the Steel Tariffs That Raised Farm Equipment Costs. Marshall voted to confirm Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce on February 18, 2025 (roll call 57) and Jamieson Greer as U.S. Trade Representative on February 26, 2025 (roll call 94). In June 2025 the President doubled steel and aluminum tariffs to 50 percent "After considering current information newly provided by the Secretary" of Commerce. In Kansas, the hardest-hit import category is ag & construction equipment at $245 million in tariffs since January 2025, and the Kansas Farmers Union says farmers also faced rising costs for equipment due to tariffs on aluminum and steel. In March 2025 China imposed levies on $21 billion worth of U.S. agricultural and food products in response to U.S. tariffs.
- Marshall Voted Against a Budget Measure to Keep Tariffs From Raising Grocery Prices in April 2025. On April 4, 2025, Marshall voted no on an amendment creating a reserve fund relating to preventing Trump's tariffs from increasing the cost of groceries and everyday goods for families. It failed 46-53. The Farm Bureau says the federal aid paid since then does not fully cover farmers’ losses over the last few years.
- Marshall Cast a Deciding Vote Against Ending the Tariff Emergency in April 2025 as China Retaliated Against U.S. Farm Goods. On April 30, 2025, Marshall voted no on S.J.Res. 49, the resolution to end the national emergency used to impose the global tariffs; it was defeated 49-49, so a yes vote from Marshall would have passed it, and he then voted to table a motion to reconsider. He also voted against three resolutions in October 2025 to end the Brazil, Canada and global emergencies (roll call 594, 598, 600). In March 2025 China said it will impose additional tariffs of up to 15% on imports of U.S. farm products; North Dakota State University estimated U.S. farm shipments to China from March 2025 to February 2026 were almost $15 billion less than they would have been in the absence of the tariffs. Kansas sorghum farmers export much of their crop "with 90% of the exports going to China," and by September 2025 "the price is hovering around $3 per bushel, or about $200 per acre." The Supreme Court struck down the emergency tariffs on February 20, 2026, after a year of lost sales.
- Marshall Voted to Confirm Markwayne Mullin, Whose Immigration Agents Disrupted Southwest Kansas Beef Plants in September 2026. On March 23, 2026, Marshall voted to confirm Markwayne Mullin as Secretary of Homeland Security. After agents arrived in Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal in September 2026, Marshall said "there have been mass disruptions to local communities and businesses". The enforcement coincided with a nearly 16% drop in fed-cattle slaughter on Sept. 24 and delayed thousands of fed cattle, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue, DTN reported, and southwest Kansas beef plants shortened or called off shifts last week, the Kansas Reflector reported; these disruptions were temporary.
- Marshall Called the Tariffs Short-Term Pain for Long-Term Gain as Farm Losses Mounted. On December 9, 2025, Marshall told CNN, "These tariffs have created some short-term pain, but we also think they're creating long-term gain". The American Farm Bureau Federation has estimated that row-crop farmers have lost nearly $30 billion in the 2025 crop year, and in Kansas "the price is hovering around $3 per bushel" for sorghum after China, its main buyer, stopped buying.
- Marshall Called the Rural Health Fund "More Than Enough"; KFF Puts Rural Kansas's Medicaid Cut at $1.08 Billion. In an interview the Emporia Gazette published on July 10, 2025, Marshall was asked whether the law's rural health fund would offset the Medicaid losses and said: "Yeah, I really do. I think it's more than enough." KFF estimates the law cuts federal Medicaid spending in rural Kansas alone by $1.08 billion over 10 years, while the fund lasts five years and Kansas's first-year award was $221 million.
- Marshall Said the Tariffs Are Working at a Salina Farm-Equipment Maker; Its Finance Chief Said Tariffs Raised Its Costs. At the October 21, 2026 Senate debate, Marshall cited Great Plains Manufacturing in Salina, a Kubota subsidiary that makes farm equipment, and said: "We're seeing a manufacturing renaissance because we're bringing these jobs back home. So the tariffs are working." Tim Henry, the company's chief financial officer, told the Kansas Reflector: "But that growth was not because of tariffs." He said tariffs on steel and imported components were leading to higher costs for the business, the dealers it sells to and the farmers who buy its equipment, and the newspaper reported that "Steel prices have exceeded $1,000 per ton for the past six months."
What the Farm and Rural Cuts Roger Marshall Voted For Mean for Kansas
- Sorghum. Kansas sorghum farmers grew one of their biggest crops in years in 2025, but China's retaliatory tariffs closed a major market for the state's biggest crop, Kansas Public Radio reported; "But almost all of the China market has been lost," the Kansas Reflector reported.
- Rural hospitals. KFF puts rural Kansas's 10-year cut in federal Medicaid spending at $1.08 billion, and Kansas has more rural hospitals at risk of closure than any other state, according to the analysis Kansas Public Radio reported.
- USDA and federal offices. Federal job cuts reduced Missouri’s federal workforce by 13% and Kansas’ by 15%, KCUR reported, and Kansas lost 32 percent of its USDA staff, the people who process farm loans and conservation contracts.
- Meatpacking (temporary). The four southwest Kansas beef plants in Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal slowed or shut during the September 2026 immigration enforcement, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue for cattle feeders, DTN reported.
- Farm bankruptcies (context). Kansas had 11 Chapter 12 farm bankruptcy filings in 2025, up 10% from 2024, in the American Farm Bureau Federation's count, and the Kansas Farmers Union said "Last year, 700 farms in Kansas closed according to a USDA study."
Frequently Asked Questions About Roger Marshall on Agriculture and rural communities
What is Roger Marshall's record on agriculture and rural communities under Trump?
Roger Marshall voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which KFF estimates cuts rural Kansas Medicaid spending by $1.08 billion over 10 years, voted against a motion to protect rural hospitals from those cuts and called the law's rural fund "more than enough." He voted against ending the tariff emergencies whose tariffs set off China's retaliation, which cost Kansas sorghum most of its China market, and voted to confirm Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, under whom Kansas lost 32 percent of its USDA staff.
Did Roger Marshall vote to protect rural hospitals?
No. Roger Marshall voted no on June 30, 2025 on a motion to strike provisions that would result in "increased likelihood of rural hospitals being forced to close, convert, or reduce or stop providing services" (roll call 333), and in April 2025 he cast one of the votes that defeated a 49-50 budget amendment on rural hospital closures. Kansas has more rural hospitals at risk of closure than any other state, according to the analysis Kansas Public Radio reported.
How did Roger Marshall vote on the tariffs that hurt Kansas farmers?
Roger Marshall voted against the resolutions to end the tariff emergencies in April and October 2025, including the 49-49 vote on April 30, 2025 that his yes vote would have passed. China responded with tariffs of up to 15% on imports of U.S. farm products, and Marshall told CNN that December that the tariffs had created "some short-term pain".
What happened at the southwest Kansas meatpacking plants in 2026?
In September 2026, immigration enforcement by the Homeland Security Department under Markwayne Mullin, whom Roger Marshall voted to confirm, reached Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal, and fed-cattle slaughter nationally fell nearly 16% on September 24. Marshall himself said there had been "mass disruptions to local communities and businesses".
Last updated: 2026-10-25