Rep. Roger Marshall has concerns with President Donald Trump’s $4.1 trillion budget proposal to Congress that was introduced this week.
Marshall, who represents Manhattan and Kansas’ 1st District in Washington, spoke with KMAN from the nation’s capitol Tuesday afternoon. The freshman Republican said that while he appreciates the lean look of the budget proposal, he’s concerned with the cuts it would make to agriculture.
“First of all, I want to talk about what we agree upon,” Marshall said. “I’m excited that President Trump is trying to figure out a way to balance a budget, over a 10-year time span, to stop borrowing money from our grandchildren is a great idea.
“Certainly, it did not help agriculture a lot. Specifically, we’re very concerned about some the cuts he’s suggesting for crop insurance and farm programs, so we got some work to do here, it looks like.”
Trump’s budget cuts $4.3 trillion over 10 years, according to a Monday report by the New York Times. A large percentage of those cuts are targeted at Medicaid and programs designed to assist the poor. Budget increases are targeted at defense and border security — including $1.6 billion for a border wall.
The proposal cuts $616 billion from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, $272 billion from welfare programs, $72 billion from Social Security’s disability program, $143 billion from student loan programs and $38 billion from Farm Bill programs.
Politicians from both sides of the aisle have claimed the budget proposal is dead on a arrival. Marshall said he considers such decrees the norm.
“From what I’ve been told up here, every president’s budget is dead on arrival, so that’s nothing new,” he said.
The proposal puts a cap on crop insurance premium subsidies and eliminates commodity payments and crop insurance for farmers with adjusted gross income above $500,000 per year.
Earlier this year, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) told KMAN he was concerned about Trump’s executive order that pulled the United States out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, which was a trade agreement also supported by the Kansas Farm Bureau.
Nonetheless, Marshall — who is a member of the House Agriculture Committee — said he’s confident newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue has a strong voice in the White House.
Marshall said Perdue was key in Trump’s softer approach to the North American Free Trade Agreement. As a candidate, Trump often said he wanted to scrap NAFTA and start from scratch.
“We did get to meet with (Secretary Perdue) last week and it was a great meeting — very optimistic,” Marshall said. “Everyone needs to realize when President Trump was threatening to bow out of NAFTA, Secretary Perdue was able to run over to the White House and show the president a map of the states that elected him president — and of course that would be the ‘fly-over states,’ those agriculture states — and when the president realized the impact of NAFTA, you saw the president pivot pretty quickly and say, ‘Well wait a second, maybe I am overreacting with this.’
“So I do think we have a strong voice there in Secretary Perdue. Certainly, I’m much more optimistic today than I was two months ago. So, we’ll be okay.”
Addressing proposed cuts to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Marshall said Congress is committed to helping the sick, but the poor wasn’t clearly included in his assessment.
“Certainly we’re going to keep prioritizing Medicaid for those who need it the most, and that would be people with disabilities, infants, children and the elderly,” he said. “So I think that Congress on both sides are very committed to making sure that those people get adequate funding.”
Marshall has never been shy about his Christian faith. When asked how the president’s budget proposal looks through that lens, the Great Bend obstetrician said it still agrees with those beliefs.
“It’s interesting,” he said. “I think that God calls us to live within our means as well. I’m a big Dave Ramsey fan and certainly I was taught Christian values by my parents to pay cash for a car and not borrow money and those types of principals.
“I think our constant battle here is to prioritize things, so to me the emphasis will always be on growing the economy and giving people a hand up, rather than a handout. So I think if we make the economy stronger, there’s going to be less people that need welfare.”
Marshall’s full interview can be listened to below:
