I specifically you spoke to it a little bit just a second ago but what
conversations have you had with Senator Johnson about the bill as it's heading
towards the Senate? Yeah so you know I've been following closely his comments
saying that he will only vote for something that does not actually add to
the deficit and debt which by the way is why we came up with an expedited
process called budget reconciliation the idea was that you could by a simple
majority vote in the Senate pass legislation to reduce the debt it would
require the typical 60 votes to pass legislation that would contribute to the
debt but that was fundamentally altered in in a couple in the last couple of
decades and especially when it is used for the purpose of tax rewriting of
the tax code it has been contributing to our debt as it did in Trump's first
term in 2017. I remember when we were debating that and it looked like it would
add about three trillion I think it might have ended up adding even more than
that and again tax breaks that disproportionately impact and benefit
the wealthy and big corporations so I was following Senator Johnson's
comments on opposing the bill and frankly the last conversation I had with
him last week was rather light-hearted I said I saw he was going to be a no on
the bill and I welcomed that news even if it was for very different reasons
that then I would be opposing the legislation but you know on my side I
have been holding roundtable discussion similar to this one on the VA but on
Medicaid on also on food security and various USDA and other departmental
policies that help people respond to food insecurity and I believe that the
impact that the bill would have as passed by the House would be devastating on
the most vulnerable communities add mightily to the deficit and debt and
again why so that they can pay for more tax cuts for the very wealthy and big
corporations and we're speaking to Wisconsin DHS this week about Medicaid
and food share cuts and how that could impact Wisconsin I yeah state Republicans
may not backfill some of those services and benefits what is your reaction to
the cuts that are proposed as they are now and yeah what they will do to
yeah the health care Medicaid cuts are estimated to lead to about 220,000
Wisconsinites losing their insurance that would be either their Medicaid
insurance or their insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace that's
a massive disruption and frankly just in terms of impact you know not only
will people who need health care not have it and but also all of us will see
costs go up if people are forced to go to the emergency room because they don't
have health care to maintain their health with annual checkups and
preventative care so it's not going to achieve the goals on the food stamp
program side of things really this is the Republican effort in the Congress to
either see those programs cut to the tune that they're talking or have the
burden shifted to the states and the states have varying capacities to be
able to fill in that that hole and so you don't combine this is going to mean
suffering for Wisconsinites most of whom are working families just trying to
get ahead
you mentioned earlier that being on the HHS oversight committee you're sort of
getting stonewalled a bit more than a bit more by the VA secretary no by the
HHS I'm sorry by HHS and they're not they're not telling you about you know
the cuts that are happening whether research grants or these scientists
themselves can you talk a little bit more about sure what you have been hearing
yeah so I'd say a combination of things one is that what Secretary Kennedy who
I've had before one or other of my committees twice in the last two weeks
this help committee two weeks ago the health and human services appropriations
subcommittee last week and when can you know I asked him questions that I had
not gotten satisfactory or any answers to when I had written the department and
in response you know I don't know sometimes which is worse but but he
outright lied and either he's purposely misinforming the Congress or he doesn't
know the answers to the questions but I'm not sure which one is worse it's very
very distressing in that case and you may have followed my questioning because it
got a lot of attention was on the the lead in the schools in at MPS and eighteen
hundred students in displaced from their schools because of that crisis and I
said he has fired everybody who works at the childhood led mitigation branch of
the CDC everybody and he said to me you know we have a team in Milwaukee and then
when they came back around and and you know with evidence that they didn't have
a team he accused me of misrepresenting the situation so we've had quite the
back and forth but you know this is not the way to do business I asked I have
an oversight role as a senator and when I write a letter I should get a response
and that response should be thorough and timely and truthful and that right now
HHS is just not answering the letters and it was only because Secretary Kennedy
was sent up to Capitol Hill to finally take questions in the fifth month of
this administration that we had that exchange with regard to VA since this
was a VA roundtable I've written several letters to the secretary of the VA
secretary Collins and I do not believe we've gotten any substantive responses to
the letters the letters we sent had to do with the firings of personnel and the
ramifications and I believe there was one other and I'm not remembering what it
is right now but we can we can follow back up but it seems to be a pattern
throughout this administration I don't know if they are literally instructed
not to answer congressional inquiries or whether there's another reason but
we're not getting responses there's no sort of back and forth which there has
been in every other administration including the first Trump administration
and they answered our letters