- Now to Washington, where the U.S.
Senate passed a bill Thursday that puts Congress on schedule
to pass a tax measure by the end of the year.
The bill sets in motion a $1.5 trillion tax cut.
It lands in the House of Representatives
as soon as next week.
Earlier this week, House Speaker Paul Ryan was in Madison,
where he said, "There's an urgent need for tax code
changes."
- We think the tax rates are far too high.
We think the tax code is far too riddled with loopholes.
We think the tax code is rigged.
We think it's basically a system of all these carve-outs and
loopholes and special interest groups which artificially raise
people's tax rates.
- In response to the GOP tax plan and other moves in
Washington, we talked with a Democratic member of Wisconsin
Congressional's delegation this week,
Congressman Ron Kind of La Crosse joined us in our studios
midweek.
Congressman Kind, thanks very much for being here.
- My pleasure.
- We wanted to start by asking your position on the tax plan
being put forward.
- It's been 31 years since we've taken a serious run
at the federal tax code.
It's long overdue. I'd like to simplify it.
Like to make it more competitive.
Make it fair to our families back home here,
small businesses, family farmers.
It's way too complicated with special interest tax loopholes
that have been included through the years with powerful groups
in Washington.
But we need to do this in a fiscally responsible manner too.
No big budget deficits blowing up.
So we have to pay for it.
That's where it gets complicated pretty quickly.
- Because there is an analysis that suggests that over ten
years would be causing a deficit.
So how do you offset that?
- It's hard.
That's why it's been 31 years since we've had significant
reform of the federal tax code.
It's one of the issues I speak to small business owners in
Wisconsin about a lot, the complexity of the code,
the compliance, how much time they waste just making sure they
don't run afoul of the IRS.
So for the sake of that and for people's peace of mind overall,
simplify, simplify it and make it more competitive.
But I don't want to see just more trickle-down tax cuts at
the very top, expecting to benefit everyone else and not
paying for it so that we leave a legacy of debt.
Inevitably that leads to huge cuts to Medicare and Social
Security in the future.
So that can't be the tradeoff here.
- Speaker Ryan does say that it is not designed to favor just
the super wealthy, but it certainly does benefit them.
Who do you think the winners and losers are in this current plan?
- As soon as we get more details-- and there's been a
lack of details so far.
This is a moving target and details do matter in something
like this.
But it has to be, I think, distributionally fair to working
families and not just more trickle-down at the top.
We've gone that route before.
It's led to every-increasing income inequality in our
country.
And it hasn't produced the economic bump that they keep
trying to sell it for.
- So you don't think that these kind of tax cuts
invigorate the economy?
- Well, it's not going to pay for itself.
Unfortunately there's a philosophy in Washington
believing tax cuts alone will promote economic growth and
additional revenues to pay for it.
We've never seen that in the past.
There's no economic data that supports that.
So we need to be careful we don't fall into that trap.
- Now, at the same time that Republicans are pushing the tax
cuts, the president is slicing parts of the Affordable Care
Act, including payments to insurance companies for
low-income care.
He also declares Obamacare a disaster.
This week I know there's some talk about some kind of
bipartisan plan that is kind of on again and off again.
What's your response to these actions to dismantle Obamacare?
- The president right now because he wasn't able to get
repeal and replace enacted into law is doing everything he can
to create chaos in the health insurance market.
That's unfortunate cause you're playing with people's lives.
The analysis that we saw with his elimination of cost-sharing
reductions payments will increase uninsured by over $2
million and increase premiums for everyone else.
That's taking us back to the old system,
where you have more uninsured, rising costs,
businesses large and small being less competitive because of the
cost of health care.
It's not solving problems.
We have to stop playing politics with people's lives.
We ought to recognize what's working,
fix what isn't in the health care system and stay focused on
health care costs and what we can do to bring them down to
make it more affordable to everyone.
- Is this possible?
- We need to do it because chaos benefits no one,
Republicans, Democrats, independents.
We're all in this together.
We all need access to affordable and quality health care in our
lives.
For us to sustain a growing, vibrant economy,
we've got to get the health care system fixed so it is
affordable.
- How would you fix it?
- Well, there's things going on under the Affordable Care Act.
I know the president doesn't want to hear this,
but delivery system reform by working with our health care
providers so we have a more integrated, coordinated,
patient-centered health care system.
And then the item I've been especially focused on,
payment reform.
So we're paying for the value of the outcome of care that's given
and no longer the volume of services that are rendered.
- Isn't that part of the Affordable Care Act already?
- It is, and we've seen per-capita spending on health
care at a 50-year low.
If you're an employer - I mean employee in an
employer-sponsored plan, those premiums have been relatively
steady and stable over the last eight years.
Clearly there were problems in the small group and individual
market, especially for those who aren't receiving
any subsidy payments.
They're getting hammered right now.
But that's roughly 5%, 6% of the population.
We can focus on them to provide relief.
- How have your constituents weighed in on what's happening
with health care?
- Tremendous amount of confusion and angst which is
unfortunate.
Many of them in the insurance marketplace are wondering if
they're going to be able to continue to be there,
whether they can afford the plans that are being offered.
In rural Wisconsin, it's hard to attract more plans for the
competitiveness because they don't know what the rules are
going to be from month to month, yet alone year to year.
That's unfair to them.
The best thing we can do is, as you mentioned,
the bipartisan work that's taking place in the Senate,
short-term market stabilization, focus on the small group market
and the raising cost.
And let's do something about drug prices.
That's one of the big cost drivers
in the health care system.
We're not even having hearings in Congress over that.
- As for immigrant families in your district,
the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
was recently terminated.
What do you think should happen now?
- The president has given us six months-- this Congress to
fix this and I hope we do sooner rather than later cause
it's patently unfair to do this to these students who are
as American as anyone else's children.
To threaten to round them up and kick them out and send them to a
country that they've never been to and they have no ties to.
These are very bright, hardworking kids.
I've been having DACA meetings throughout my Congressional
district to try to reassure them that I'm going to do everything
in my power to make sure that's not done to them.
We're just shooting ourselves in the foot economically if we're
going to get rid of this talent that exists right in our
communities today.
- Do you think Congress can come up with a solution?
- I hope so.
I hope there's enough compassion with my colleagues that we don't
resort to what the president is calling for now and that's
kicking them out, even though they did nothing wrong.
They were brought here when they were really young children.
Many of them are serving in our military,
willing to sacrifice their lives for the future of our country.
You would think there's a compassionate middle ground to
be had here.
- Ron Kind, thanks very much.
- Thank you.