By Mark Brodie | KJZZ
Changes appear to be coming to the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” now that it’s in the Senate. The U.S. House narrowly approved the measure last month.
NPR is reporting some of those adjustments are likely to be in the areas of taxes, Medicaid cuts and the debt limit.
That is just one of a number of issues federal lawmakers are dealing with right now.
Democratic Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton joined The Show to discuss some of them, starting with the budget reconciliation bill and whether the Senate changes will make the bill better in his mind or not.
Full conversation
GREG STANTON: Well, there are many, many problems with the so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill’ that came into the House of Representatives. And on some of the issues, the Senate is moving in the right direction. Other issues are moving in the wrong direction. Certainly on the massive cuts that were proposed to Medicaid. On our side, I mean, that would take up to 16 million Americans off of health care, the ability to see a primary care physician — hundreds of thousands here in Arizona. Those cuts are getting worse on the Senate side. And that's going to be totally unacceptable to the American people. That is moving in the wrong direction. And it's very, very disappointing.
Now, on the clean energy tax credits, which is another big portion of the bill … there’s thousands of good jobs in Arizona that have been created under the clean energy tax credit that we voted for in the Inflation Reduction Act. As you know, the Republicans wanted to eliminate all of it on our side of the aisle. And they went in a very bad direction on that. Looks like the Senate may loosen that up a little bit and delay some of the cuts to those clean energy tax credits. I think they should go a lot further than that, because the clean energy tax credits are critically important for job creation and to allow the United States to meet its climate change goals. I know with the Republicans in charge that’s not a priority, but it should be.
MARK BRODIE: Let me ask you about another issue that has been getting a lot of attention, both here in Arizona and throughout the West recently, which is, of course, immigration and activity by ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There's been a lot of talk about potential activity or raids, here in the Phoenix area, similar to what we've seen in Los Angeles and other places. I'm curious what you are hearing about the possibility of that happening.
STANTON: Sure. Well, it looks like the president has made a decision that he's going to go after the largest cities, most of whom are led by Democratic mayors. I guess they make some kind of a political point. But I don't know what political point mass deportation makes when we know the smartest public policy we can do is to secure the border and engage in immigration reform. Smart immigration reform that actually helps to grow our economy.
It looks like the president even saw how self-defeating mass deportation was when he himself tweeted out that they should stop doing it in critically important fields like agriculture. People are putting food on our table or in the restaurant industry or in the hotel and motel industry, as well. I guess in the last day or so, maybe he went back the other way. I don't know, it's a lot of whiplash in this regard, but the truth is that the mass deportation policies, including, by the way, bringing in the National Guard or the Marines to deal with the protests, virtually all of which are peaceful. And if it's ever not peaceful, that should be dealt with by local law enforcement.
But to try to federalize and criminalize these efforts is really bad policy. And the American people reacted very strongly, too. That's why you see support for mass deportation is significantly decreasing in America.
BRODIE: You mentioned climate change just a moment ago. I want to ask you about another issue that I know members of Congress are working on. That is LIHEAP. Traditionally, this is mostly the money that has mostly gone to East Coast and Midwestern cities to pay for heating.
But recently there's been a lot more attention on getting some of that money to places dealing with extreme heat like Phoenix. Does it seem as though that program is A) going to survive, and B) going to some sort of equalization of that money to pay for cooling as well as heating?
STANTON: Yeah. Well, first off, extreme heat is a real issue.
As you know, just in the last summer, we had like 70 days in a row above 110 extreme heat. Not just regular heat, extreme heat. This is a real issue. And of course extreme heat and drought and forest fire. There's a direct line from climate change to these serious, serious issues that we're dealing with here in Arizona.
LIHEAP is one way to help deal with it. This helps people that can't afford to pay for air conditioning, just like in the cold weather cities, it helps pay for heating during the winter. The same fund is used to help pay for air conditioning and that can be life — it is life saving, in Arizona.
A lot of the folks are seniors on fixed income that need this level of support. And the truth is, Arizona gets screwed under LIHEAP funding formulas. Because we've grown so much here in Arizona. The fastest growing state in the country. But the funding formulas hasn't kept up with growth. So not only are we underfunded under the existing program because of the inability to keep up with population changes in America, but now, the Trump administration has fired virtually every single person who worked in the LIHEAP program.
And so we don't even know what the future of the program is because of this unilateral and illegal decision to sever all of the employees from the program at a time that we are entering the hottest months of the year, the deadly months of the year here in Arizona. It's a very unsettling and uncertain circumstance. It's totally unacceptable that they have put the future of LIHEAPat risk like this.
BRODIE: Have you been able to get any information about the future of the program given those terminations?
STANTON: No, because the truth is that these are illegal terminations and we have to fight every time the president overreaches his authority, he thinks that he can somehow dismantle the Department of Education or dismantle the LIHEAP program and just do it unilaterally on a whim.
That is illegal. Because Congress voted. We created the program. We voted to fund that program. And the president does not have the unilateral right to undo the program. But it puts us in kind of no man's land in the meantime, because we have to litigate this over and over and over again. But we will.
BRODIE: One of the other issues that's being litigated is that of research funding cuts to universities. The issue of whether or not certain universities can welcome international students to their student bodies. Given the prominence of ASU in the Valley and in your district, I'm curious what you are hearing from folks about what the impacts if those policies stand, could be not just to ASU, but to the region?
STANTON: Well, we must stand up and be loud about this. The universities across the United States of America are crown jewels. We have the best universities in the world. Young students and graduate students are knocking down the door to come to the United States to study at these universities.
That is a strategic advantage for the United States of America. And is there anything more self-defeating and, frankly, dumber we can do than, to cut research funding, things like cancer research, Alzheimer's research, other incredibly important research that benefits mankind here in the United States and around the world because the president wants to send a message or adopt kind of right wing policies for these, universities.
Are you kidding me? That is a self-defeating of a thing that we can do. We should want these students from around the world to come to our universities and study in, you know, engineering, math and science and technology.
And, oh, by the way, when they graduate from these universities, assuming they pass a background check, which they have to do in order to come here, we ought to staple a green card to their diploma.
So that they can help grow the American economy instead. I can't tell you the message we are sending around the globe. This really hurts America's leadership in the globe. The fact that we are telling students from around the globe not to come to American universities. It's completely wrong, completely self-defeating.
BRODIE: All right, we'll have to leave it there. Arizona Congressman Greg Stanton. Congressman, thanks so much. I really appreciate it.
STANTON: Thank you so much. Have a great one.