Read the full Capital Chronicle interview with U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz

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13-06-2025

U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz sat for a recent phone interview with the Capital Chronicle. (Photo courtesy of the Malheur Enterprise)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Senior reporter Alex Baumhardt recently conducted a wide-ranging 45-minute phone interview with U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, Oregon's sole Republican in Congress. Baumhardt published an article with highlights. Here, we're publishing the full transcript, along with annotations.
The call was restarted after a connection issue. This transcript begins after Baumhardt asked Bentz about the abrupt departure of the superintendent of Crater Lake National Park.
Rep. Cliff Bentz: I do not have whatever he's been saying about why he resigned, or the numbers that he says have been reduced. All I have available are the number of folks across the entire scope of the National Park Service. I don't have the total number of people that work for the National Park Service, but we'll find that number out. There have been 1,000 roughly laid off. But I don't know from what group or how many total are left. But what are you hearing?
Alex Baumhardt: I think the Department of Interior data shows between May, I want to say it was May 12, and then the last fiscal year, they've seen a 16% drop across the Park Service. And then the National Parks Conservation Alliance had said their impression was a lot of that was from these sort of incentivized early retirements, delayed or, you know, buyouts, essentially people taking the incentivized buyout and then the instruction to not fill vacant positions, right?
Bentz: Well, I don't have that detail as to the National Park Service, so I'll find out and see what the situation is.
Baumhardt: Regardless, I guess, of the numbers — if we take seriously the former superintendent's concerns that staffing is an issue and it was untenable, I guess, what does that raise for you? As you know, it's one of our biggest parks, it's in your district, what do you — where did it leave you?
Bentz: Well, first of all, for some reason, it sticks in my mind that they were going to be closing the park down for refurbishment for two years (1). Given this issue has been raised, we will absolutely look into it. The total number of employees, my staff tell me, is 20,000 across the nation, and they were going to reduce it by 1,000 — so that seems a big number — but in relation to the total number working for the department, it's manageable. I have to see the specific details that you have that I don't have. The person's concern may be well founded. It may not. Until I know the facts better. I'm not going to take a position on it, but now that you've raised an issue, we'll look into it.
(1) Crater Lake National Park was not scheduled to be closed for two years. The Cleetwood Cove Trail that leads down to the lake was scheduled to be closed for maintenance for two years.
Baumhardt: So, to begin with, I told Alexia we crowdsourced some questions from readers. I think we got, like, three dozen questions. Obviously, the bulk of them are about the tax bill. Medicaid was a big part of it. But to start, I just wanted to ask, you know, in Oregon, I hear legislators here, often they describe the budget as a statement of values: 'We invested $10 million of taxpayer money in this because we want clean water, or we value public schools.' So, when you look at this tax bill that you voted for, what are the values that you and the members of your party are espousing with it? What would you say are the values this bill says?
Bentz: OK, so the most important thing that I was focused on is our economy and making sure that we don't damage the economy, while at the same time trying to reduce the deficit. Because the deficit has been hugely important to me since the day I got here, and even before that. The focus on our economy is reflected in the tax portion of the bill, which is designed to try to avoid what would happen if we fail to extend the Trump tax cuts, which would be a loss of some 7 million jobs, somewhere between 6 to 7 million jobs (2), and dramatic increases in taxes across the board. But the true damage would be done to the people at the lower end of the spectrum. So my primary concern was the economy. And it is not surprising, having spent 12 years in the Oregon Legislature, that there are economists who do their best to guess at what's going to happen over the next 10 years — because I saw, I watched our Oregon economists struggle with that issue every year, and of course, they're never, ever going to get it right, despite their very, very best efforts — and that's what's happening with the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO. They are always going to come in, in this particular space with an incredibly conservative guess as to what our economy is going to be doing over the next 10 years. I think they came in at a 1.8% guess. When in point of fact, history shows 2.3% over any 10-year period you want to look at. And I'm not surprised they did that, but it gives everybody a huge talking point saying how the economy is not going to grow. We have studies that indicate that the growth rate could be over 4%.
(2) Those figures come from the Council of Economic Advisers, a three-member, president-appointed agency within the Executive Branch that recommends economic policies
Baumhardt: I want to cut you off. I'm sorry. Just because, I want to get back to the central question, which was values. What does this show Americans about the values you hold?
Bentz: Well it better show that I want them to be able to keep their jobs, and in fact, get jobs. Because we're going to impose work requirements, which are hugely supported across the nation, I think 72% to 75% want people working if they're getting free stuff (3). And so, you know what, if they're going to be working, they better have jobs. And so that means my goal is to support a bill that provides every opportunity for people to get work, because they're going to need to have jobs. We're going to need that kind of working approach if we're going to make this country what it is now and what I hope it will be in the future, which is a successful economic entity. A strong economic entity. That's one of the most important things. The other is, I want to maintain the essential programs that we absolutely have to have, and that would include Medicaid, of course. It includes Social Security, it includes Medicare. These programs are essential, and we better figure out how to make sure they are serving those for whom they were created, or we're going to be in deep trouble, and we've got way too many people that are absolutely dependent on those programs.
(3) In three separate polls done by Axios-Ipsos, KFF and Paragon between 2023 and 2025 anywhere from 61% to 84% of people polled said they support a work requirement for Medicaid.
Baumhardt: I'm going to stop you there. Because in the absence of hard numbers, I'm not going to go there. I appreciate it, but in the absence of real data about the — and I've actually asked for this a few times — I don't want to speculate on that, but I do want to get to my next question, which is…
Bentz: Stop. Stop. You mean you don't want to speculate about what?
Baumhardt: I don't want to speculate about — I asked this in the town hall, and I followed up in an email, and I never got an answer: you've given conflicting data about the number of people that are supposedly on Medicaid that are not working, that are fraudulent, that are taking advantage of it, that have an income threshold higher than what's allowed. And I've gotten conflicting numbers, and then I've gotten no correction on it. And so, for the sake of time, unless you have very hard numbers, and a very specific source, I don't want to waste our time on it.
Bentz: OK, well let me give you those numbers. And I'll give you the source. I've got my staff right here, and they'll provide them. The number of people that were added to the Medicaid rolls since 2021 — we had 1,059,146 folks in Oregon on Medicaid and that grew to 1,139,642 in 2024. And the source of that is… (Bentz turns to staff) do we have it also from the? Do we have the backup? Oh, no? We've reached out to the Oregon Health Authority, and not gotten those numbers yet. So these numbers are from Paragon (4). Is that correct? So, we'll share with you Paragon's contact info, if you'd like.
(4) Paragon is a conservative health policy think tank.
Baumhardt: OK, so that's less than 100,000 people that were added.
Bentz: Yeah, the growth rate is 7.6%.
Baumhardt: That were added between 2024 and 2025?
Bentz: Between 2021 and 2024.
CONTACT US
Baumhardt: OK, so what does that say about fraud?
Bentz: Well, so I usually use the word 'abuse.' Fraud and abuse — waste, fraud and abuse, anyway — the undocumented immigrant number that is estimated. Again, this is Paragon, Paragon is the source is: in Oregon, roughly 23,800 that are, we think, going to be deemed ineligible by virtue of being on Oregon's Medicaid program and receiving the federal benefit, not the Oregon benefit.
Baumhardt: But that's … 23,000 is nowhere near 7%. I'm sorry, that's — so 100,000 people were added over four years, and you're talking 23,000 potentially undocumented, or close to 24,000. That still leaves….
Bentz: The number in 2024 is 1,139,000 of that number, it is anticipated that 23,800 are undocumented.
Baumhardt: OK, so if even a quarter of that 7% growth, so 2.5% was from the addition of undocumented people that now have health insurance, that still leaves the bulk of the growth in people who aren't.
Bentz: So, I don't know why you're going on the growth phase. I don't know why you're going down that trail, but let me give you the three numbers that are going to be affected in the bill that I voted for. The three that are going to be affected are: the undocumented immigrants, the ineligible recipients that are making too much money or otherwise ineligible for the program, and then the able-bodied adults, those are the three.
Baumhardt: So, I think it's the latter two there that I don't have data from you about that keep getting brought up.
Bentz: I'll give you the ineligible recipient number as we understand it.
Baumhardt: Sure. But then I need a source. And to your point, if we're going to talk about speculative forecasting, extrapolating expectations based on the data we have — and you're going to say the Congressional Budget Office is off — if this is anything other than, like, really hard, audited data, I just… I'm not going to … I'm curious. I just want you to know I'm skeptical, especially because we've gotten conflicting numbers from you.
Bentz: I'm looking at the CBO pie chart, which we're more than happy to send you a copy. Of the 7.6 million in total across the United States, and then what we've been trying to do is make sure we had a general idea, not specific, but a general idea of the 7.6 million, how many in Oregon….
Baumhardt: What are the 7.6 million?
Bentz: 1.4 million illegal immigrants, 4.8 million able bodied adults choosing not to work, .2 million unrealized — and this is CBO — anticipated growth, and 1.2 million recipients who are ineligible.
Baumhardt: Because of income.
Bentz: Well, I don't have the definition of ineligible, but I'm guessing that's what that means.
Baumhardt: OK, so this is CBO saying there are 4.8 million able-bodied adults on Medicaid who are abusing it.
Bentz: 4.8 million able bodied adults choosing not to work (5). With work requirements put in place, they estimate that .8 million people out of the 7.6 will choose not to.
(5) Officials from the Congressional Budget Office have said new work requirements could reduce Medicaid coverage by 5.2 million and increase the uninsured by 4.8 million. Republicans have taken this to mean that those 4.8 million that would lose coverage would lose it because they are currently refusing to work. That is a misleading interpretation.
Baumhardt: OK, so that's less than half a percentage of all Medicaid users? Is that the best use of, I guess, I'm just wondering, like, is that really where we're throwing all our bones on saving the taxpayers money? That's .07% of all people who use Medicaid (6).
(6) 4.8 million is in fact 5% of all Medicaid enrollees. There were 78,444,837 people enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as of January 2025. 7.6 million would be about 10% of all enrolled.
Bentz: You probably need me to explain, because I certainly wasn't aware of it until I started running these numbers — and that is the amount that's paid on the average for each one of the people in the system. And that number, it's oddly, maybe not, it's higher for the Medicaid group than it is for the ACA lower rung — but it's about $10,000 a year. So, if you take $10,000, times the undocumented immigrant portion of 23,800, please do that — and what is the what is the number? (turns to staff) I'll get it for you. It's a surprisingly large number.
Baumhardt: $238 million
Bentz: Just for the undocumented immigrants, that's a big number.
Baumhardt: So, here's my question…
Bentz: If you drop down to the ineligible recipients, it's 20,000 … so that's, what is that?
Baumhardt: We're the only industrialized, wealthy nation on earth that negotiates this stuff, in large part….
Bentz: Now wait a minute, I see where this is going. Let me just say one thing. You must believe in law and order.
Baumhardt: I know, but here's the thing, when you go to a clinic, right — somebody said in your town hall: 'Working or not, you get sick. Citizenship or not, you get sick, you're going to go to a clinic.' When you talk about this costing $10,000 to insure someone — somebody is going to pay. Life and death, you're going to go to a hospital, you're going to go to a doctor. And I think what I'm hearing from doctors and medical clinics is: 'You're not saving money. You're asking us to absorb the costs. We're not going to turn someone away. And in fact, long term, you're going to make it so hard for people to get this—'
Bentz: This is supposed to be an interview, not an interrogation or an argument.
Baumhardt: OK, well, then I can move on to my next question.
Bentz: I appreciate your thinking, and I'm very happy you're focusing on this. But would you like to hear what I have to say?
Baumhardt: Yeah, and then I can move on to the next question.
Bentz: OK, the reason I said you must not be interested, forgive me for putting it that way, but maybe I should phrase it better. People who are not supportive of enforcing the eligibility requirements must think that we should have coverage for everyone, and I think that's where you were going — that we don't need to care about whether they're eligible or not. We just are going to pay regardless of what their circumstance may be when they enter the clinic. That's your argument. But that's not the way the law is written right now, before this bill passes. Our law says you have to be eligible for this program. The fact that people have chosen not to enforce that eligibility means they're allowing people to break the law. Why would we do such a thing? Why would we have these kinds of standards if we're not going to enforce them? Answer that question, please.
Baumhardt: I think I'll take a line from you and say: I'm not being interviewed, and this is not an interrogation. So I'll pass on that for the sake of time, but I appreciate the question, and I will think about it.
Bentz: OK, so one last thing. There were three sets of folks that the CBO acknowledges would not be any longer under the umbrella of the Medicaid system. The first, we've talked about, undocumented immigrants. The second, ineligible recipients. The third, able-bodied adults choosing not to work. That's a big number. In Oregon, it's about 71,000 people (7) But one thing you should know about that number is the way Oregon is set up, you only get money if those people present at a clinic or a hospital. Otherwise they don't cost anything for anybody, because they're not going to the hospital or the clinic. So to say that, that amount of money is somehow going to be dropped out of the system is incorrect. It would only be applicable in that kind of argument, should those people actually go to a clinic. And of the 71,000, roughly 30% would normally go to the clinic (8). So if you're going to run the numbers to try to figure out what the impact might be on hospitals or other groups, you have to go through these numbers pretty carefully. So now let's go to the next question.
(7) (8) It is unclear where Bentz got this number.
Baumhardt: OK, my next question is, what are your critiques of this tax bill?
Bentz: OK, so it's way more than a tax bill. Do you mean the entire bill?
Baumhardt: Yeah, the entire bill.
Bentz: So my, my critique is it does not do enough to reduce overall spending. It also adds in a significant number of new tax breaks that are, thankfully they've been modified to be shorter than the full 10 years, so that has reduced their overall cost…
Baumhardt: Like which ones?
Bentz: Those kind of conversations are going on now… Also, I worked closely, very closely, with Governor Kitzhaber to try to help me understand how Medicaid worked. He was extraordinarily brave to help me, a Republican, try to understand better what we could do at the national level to incorporate that which Oregon did 12 years ago under his guidance. I think his approach was dramatically ahead of his time, and an excellent approach that would drive up the quality of healthcare while limiting and basically imposing a budget upon the program. I had hoped that something of that nature would make its way into this bill. We did not have the support for the Oregon approach that I hoped I would be able to commit. I'm a brand new member of the committee, so at some point in the future, perhaps that conversation will be continued. But so you know, that Dr Kitzhaber is not supportive of what's in this bill when it comes to Medicaid. I am. And, but I do not want him, in any way, to suffer negative consequences for having the courage, the bravery and the expertise to help me understand better these programs.
Baumhardt: Why did you… Can I ask? Because I had talked to him, and he said you, basically, you ignored his advice. And that was down to the work requirements; it was down to the idea of not covering people regardless of citizenship. Why did you ignore his advice?
Bentz: Why are you using that word?
Baumhardt: He said it. He said he told you it was a disaster. He said, 'I warned him over and over again, the impact of this was not going to be good, especially for people in his part of the state.'
Bentz: I don't blame the governor for choosing to use that word, but I did just the opposite of ignoring his advice. In fact, I want to tell you the steps I took as a brand new member of the committee working on this bill to bring his concepts into play. But his concepts did not enjoy the support of a significant number of my colleagues. And one thing you learn here is that you don't get your way all the time, but I certainly did not ignore him. So you can, you can cross that word out, at least from my standpoint, he can take whatever position he likes, and I will say nothing bad about the governor. He is a really good guy, and he tried his best to help.
Baumhardt: OK, he said… I mean, I talked to him on the phone, and then I sent a fact check email, and he said in red writing: 'There is nothing in this bill that is even remotely defensible.'
Bentz: Well, he's a doctor.
Baumhardt: What does that change?
Bentz: Well, he is going to be on the side of the patient at all times. So, he took his oath, so promising when he became a doctor… of course he's going to say that. Because anything that does not provide coverage for everybody, he's going to be concerned about. Also he's done so much thinking in this space. But here's the deal, he had the courage to step up and try to help, and I appreciate that. His support for the bill or not, that's up to him. But you know what? I have nothing bad to say about Dr. Kitzhaber. He's a good guy, and I, I thank him from the bottom my heart for trying to help. Good for him. When I reached out to him, he responded in a really, really positive way. And I appreciate it. Turns out that, that what he suggested was not accepted by the group I'm working with that's… but at least he tried, good for him. And we'll move on. What's the next question?
Baumhardt: So my next question is about some of these — and maybe that's what you meant by some of the tax provisions in it that you weren't happy about, but you tell me. So this bill had a bunch of clean energy incentives under the inflation Reduction Act that were taken out. And I know that this has been contentious within House and Senate Republicans, because they're mostly Republican districts, actually, that have benefited from a lot of those (9). But The Oregonian reported that private companies committed, since the IRA passed, $10.8 billion in solar, wind and energy storage projects in your district — that was just in the last three years. About 9.8 billion of that is still tied up in pending projects, so they're incomplete, or they've been committed but haven't broken ground (10). That includes Sunstone Solar in Morrow county that would be Oregon's largest solar and storage project that's on 10,000 acres. Why vote to end incentives that spurred billions of dollars in investment in your district?
(9) Analysis from E2, a nonprofit business and environmental interest group finds nearly 60 percent of the announced clean energy projects since the IRA – representing 85 percent of the investments and 68 percent of the jobs – are in Republican congressional districts. 'This despite the fact that no Republican voted for the legislation.' (10) Rural Oregon's clean energy investments at risk as Republicans pass Trump's budget bill (Gosia Wozniacka, May 27, 2025, The Oregonian/OregonLive)
Bentz: So we are… We are currently going 2 trillion in the hole each year. And these incentives are all tax-driven incentives, which allow folks to avoid paying taxes in return for investing in a certain type of activity, in this case. So the case you're talking about — the generation of electricity — we had to make some really tough choices. We decided that saving families the $1,700 a year that they'll save by extending the Trump tax cuts or eliminating taxes on tips, over time and car loans is in there. Those are limited. Expanding the child tax credit up to $2,500 where it would fall back from $2,000 to $1,000 if we don't extend those cuts (11), all of those things and many more, many more, will do a far better job of helping the people in my district than will the generation of that electricity at terrific cost. I will tell you that the original CBO score for the tax credits was somewhere around $500 to $600 billion. It has swelled way beyond that. Some anticipated it might go to $1.9 trillion if we didn't reign it in (12). You must remember the Business Energy Tax Credit — the BETC — I spent five years trying to drive a stake through that thing in the Oregon Legislature, and we finally got it stopped, because there is so much wasted money in a tax credit device. What you end up doing is — you're trying to encourage certain types of activity, but you're doing it a real sloppy and, and what I say, unfocused way, and that's because the tax credit is usually transferable, and generally you got to take a big 20% haircut when you sell the tax credit because cash, because these entities are set up in such a way as that they don't have any necessary income to offset. So anyways, the bottom line was: we wanted to help middle income folk as best we could. And this was one of the, this is one of the things that fell by the way. I also would say that when you, when you throw open the door to a tax creditprogram with no top to it: Big trouble. And that's what happened with the BETSY (13), and that's why it was so hard to slow it down in Oregon all those years ago. Thank goodness we got it stopped. But this is but this, this this program… or there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of activity in my area for that… that I… It seems to me that we've already exceeded at the federal level the amount the CBO said that this thing would cost. So to say that we cut it back, suggests that, well, a couple of things — one that CBO is seldom right, but the other is, we spent a lot in that space already, so I'll just stop there.
(11) Changes to the tax credit under the Republican bill as proposed also include limiting it to households where both parents have Social Security numbers, meaning a U.S. citizen child with mixed-status parents would not qualify.
(12) The Congressional Budget Office anticipated about $391 billion in spending on the energy and climate tax credits between 2022 and 2023. By 2024, it anticipated it will cost about twice that by 2031 — closer to $800 billion.
(13) Read more in this 2018 audit of the program by the Oregon Secretary of State's Office: Problems with the Terminated Business Energy Tax Credit Program Provide Valuable Lessons for Future Incentive Programs.
Baumhardt: OK. And then another question related to, well, I guess, semi-related, is land. The bill that you had voted on originally included a provision to sell or to transfer 500,000 acres of public land in Nevada and Utah. Your colleague, Ryan Zinke, fought to get that killed, largely under pressure from hunting and fishing groups. So here's a question for some of those groups here: Do you support selling federal public lands to private interests in the West, given your vote, and what would you tell Oregon hunters and anglers about that?
Bentz: I'd tell them to look very, very carefully at the acres that were involved, and they would discover that about 350,000 of that, maybe even closer to 400,000, is an exchange. A land exchange. So what's happening is, you see, trading out land that probably isn't close to a city where hunters will never go, for land that's further away, that hunters always would love to go. So to say that it's being disposed of without understanding how the nature of the disposition is unfortunate. My good friend Congressman Zinke, I don't blame him for taking that particular position here. You know he's in Montana, and all of that land is extraordinarily necessary for all of the movie stars and whatnot that have moved up there. But in my part of the world, I'm anxious to prevent huge transfers of public land, because it's important to the economy of my area. And we have not only hunting, but we have ranching. And so I'm not a big supporter at all of the transfer of public land. I will tell you, though, that there are really good reasons many times in the West, where there are literally tens and hundreds of millions of acres of public land, to transfer a small portion of it so that we can actually grow and perhaps address, oh I don't know, housing issues? Since everybody knows that we are desperately short of housing. Why in the world would we try to preserve land for hunting when people are living under a tree someplace? So the bottom line is, there are occasions where you have to move land over. But I think I'm a little, I'm a little surprised that Congressman Zinke was so opposed, because when a big chunk of that land, that 500,000 acres, or 400, whatever it was, was actually just the land exchange, not a permanent disposition.
Baumhardt: Gotcha. The bend bulletin reported that Trump cuts to the National Weather Service office in Pendleton have ended overnight weather forecasts for Central Oregon (14). This could result in a loss of emergency weather updates for much of Oregon and Washington, which that office covered. Does that concern you?
(14) Trump cuts to halt overnight weather forecasts for Central Oregon (Morgan Owen, May 19, 2025, The Bulletin)
Bentz: No one has come to me with that concern, staff or otherwise, but now that you've raised it, we'll look into it.
Baumhardt: OK, you're a lawyer. Congress has not, let's see… Impounded money, already allocated by Congress, Donald Trump has stopped from being released He's spoken in defiance of judicial review. I'm just wondering, as a lawyer, how does all of that sit with you — as a Congress member who's sort of seeing the money that's in the purse of your body, being wielded by a president, and the defiance of judicial review.
Bentz: I think what your question is, is what do I think of impoundment, I think is your question?
Baumhardt: No, I guess, what is Trump's defiance of judicial review? How does that sit with you, given you're a lawyer?
Bentz: Well, I think the better way for you to put it would be, what do I think of folks who take full advantage of the entire scope of the legal system? And I would say, 'Well, if you have enough money to do it, good on you.' The entire scope of the legal system involves all levels of appeal, and so there's no reason that you have to agree with the way laws were enforced if they have not yet been appropriately refined by the court. And goodness knows, the President is a very experienced litigator, and if he bumps into a judge that he doesn't appreciate the opinion of, he has every opportunity and right to appeal it. And so I think he's if he was, if he was truly not obeying the courts, he wouldn't waste his time on an appeal now, would he?
Baumhardt: Well, what about, what about defying the Supreme Court orders? The Supreme Court months ago, he defied an order they made to think it was Abrego, the man who was deported to a Salvadoran prison without due process that was ordered returned. There was — and I think there's a number of them, and I apologize I don't have them in front of me — but surely you've read stories about the defiance of these judges orders, and that's gone up to the Supreme Court level (15).
(15) Three— including the Supreme Court and a federal appeals court — told the Trump administration to 'facilitate' the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Trump had insisted he could not.
Bentz: Well, I think every American understands that the value of this country is built on laws, and I would really want to see your specific information suggesting that the President has ignored the Supreme Court. I would not ignore the Supreme Court. That's not how our system works. But I'm not in any way agreeing with you that he has.
Baumhardt: OK, yeah, I apologize. I should have that in front of me, but, it was — I think there was a lot of the reporting around it was sort of like this being an inception point for a constitutional crisis when you have a president who defies the Supreme Court (16)
(16) In February, for instance, the New York Times reported on legal scholars warning that Trump's actions were part of a constitutional crisis.
Bentz: There is much to be said in that space, but it's always a really good idea to have your facts and your law in front of you while you're debating it. Otherwise you leave it open to an awful lot of misinterpretation. So I'll just say, give me the facts, give me the law and we'll talk about it.
Baumhardt: Gotcha. So you've talked in interviews a lot and in the past about the deficit. You'd said you'd never vote for anything that would raise or that would bring up the deficit. So two questions here. The CBO analysis says this bill could add $3.6 trillion to the national deficit over the next decade, and it includes a provision that would raise the debt ceiling by about $4 trillion. So why did you vote for it, given what you'd said in the past about the deficit?
Bentz: Certainly, I'm certainly all in favor of reducing the deficit. I think it's one of the biggest dangers facing this nation, not the biggest, but certainly, certainly one of them. Raising the debt ceiling is necessary by virtue of spending done long before I got here. A significant portion of it during the Biden administration, which raised the deficit by — I think — $5.5 trillion (17). And so the fact of the matter is we have to raise the debt ceiling to avoid defaulting on debt incurred way before I got here, and we are not going to default. We are not going to default. And so that is the reason why the debt ceiling must be raised, as far as voting for the big bill that has a score by the CBO, some $3 trillion in increased deficit over the next 10 years, you have to net out all of the actions that we are currently taking into taking into account — including the understanding that the CBO is, I think, necessarily conservative in its estimate. But the numbers that we are looking at show a growth rate dramatically in excess of 1.8% over the next 10 years, which would reduce significantly, if not eliminate that guess by the CBO. I also, I know this is not brought up often, but it should be, and you should look at the CBO letter, which we're happy to give you a copy of, to Wyden and Merkley. (To staff): Would you send her that that walkthrough and explains the impact of tariffs on the deficit? It's really very interesting.
(17). Analysis by the nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank Committee for a Responsible Government found Biden's debt impact was $4.3 billion between 2021 and 2024. That was about half of that of Trump during his first presidency. Both presidents increased spending, especially to respond to the pandemic.
Baumhardt: I want to come back to this idea of the deficit, and in the bill itself, you know, Medicaid being one part of it. There's a 2021 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research — that's a nonprofit, nonpartisan, DC based research tank — they had economists from the IRS and Carnegie Mellon and the London School of Economics go through all of this IRS data about audits, specifically of people in the top 1% of earners. And I bring this up because it's actually been spoken about much more broadly lately. Matthew Desmond, the Princeton sociologist, has talked a lot about it. The finding was, if you had — their analysis looked at this 1% —average rate of evasion that these audits found was about 36% every year, 36% of the taxes owed not being paid by the wealthiest 1% — the analysis found that if you collected all of the unpaid federal income taxes, just federal income taxes from that group, you could raise $175 billion a year (18). So when we talk about fraud, waste and theft, I'm wondering why the position of the Republican Party is not to look at that group? That would be double the $88 billion that these Medicaid changes would bring each year, right? And that's fairness, right? We all have to pay our federal income taxes. Or not all of us, right? Jeff Bezos pays less income tax than I do (19). But, um, how do you respond to that, the criticism that you guys are looking at the everyman instead of the people that are sort of running away with the money?
(18) Tax Evasion At The Top Of The Income Distribution: Theory And Evidence, National Bureau Of Economic Research, March 2021
(19) In 2007 and 2011 Jeff Bezos did not pay any federal income taxes, according to reporting and analysis of IRS data from ProPublica. A number of billionaires, including Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros also paid no income tax over several years. Bezos even claimed and received a $4,000 tax credit for his children in light of the low income reported.
Bentz: I'm going to answer your question, but you left the opening there and it is too difficult for me to avoid responding to you on Jeff Bezos, I would just ask you, how many people you employ?
Baumhardt: No, that's fair. I don't employ anybody. But I still pay my income taxes, and actually, Congressman Bentz, if we're talking about law and order, do you not think that it's very important to be following tax law?
Bentz: Are you saying that Bezos is not paying his taxes, that he's a tax cheat? Tax fraud? Is that what you're saying?
Baumhardt: Well this is a man with an extraordinary amount of wealth and income and earnings who got a tax credit.
Bentz: I believe that takes us directly into the fact that he is in a business of taking risk and using, employing, I don't know tens of thousands of people. But let me move away from that. Your question is, what should we do in the space of audits and making sure people pay their taxes? Let me assure you, I am totally in favor, in favor of everybody paying their share of the tax, their legally required share of the tax.
Baumhardt: So where does that show up in this bill?
Bentz: I met last week with a CPA in Medford, a really good guy, and we were going through things that I work with many, many times in the tax space, and there is absolutely a need to make sure that we enforce our tax laws. When I got done with that meeting, I came back to my office and I sat down with my staff, and we discussed how best to approach this exact issue, to make sure that we were doing the best job we can when it comes to people paying their taxes. And the reason is there is nothing worse in a tax based system like ours, voluntary tax based system, than people cheating. Nothing worse than getting away with it. Because then people who do pay their tax, like you, go: 'Why am I paying my tax when other people aren't paying theirs?' Right? And I hate to draw the analogy, but it's kind of like the story I heard this morning about the lady who has three children and two jobs, and she's working her butt off, and other people are sitting around collecting free Medicaid and free SNAP benefits and not working at all. And she took her glove off, the way the story was told, and waved it at the people outside the factory where she was working so hard, that were not working, just getting government benefits. But I put people that are cheating on their taxes in the same boat.
Baumhardt: Will you send me that story?
Bentz: It was told this morning in the in the EMC meeting by the chair of EMC. He was, he was going through an explanation of why it, why the work requirement for Medicaid and SNAP benefits made so much sense.
Baumhardt: OK, hard to take an anecdote from…
Bentz: I want something to be clear in this part of the conversation. I do not support tax cheats. I have already been trying to figure out how best to approach this, even to the extent of working through and finding out how much more money has been collected over the past couple of years by the IRS in audits, because it's gone up significantly. So I'm going to be looking into that. That's not my committee, that's Ways and Means, but I'll be looking into it.
Baumhardt: Is there anything in this bill that you can point to, that you can say: 'That addresses this.'
Bentz: Not that I can … but the Ways and Means …. that portion … I'm not saying it's not there — and I read the bill at considerable speed, to say the least. So I'm not going to say it's not there, but I do not remember it.
Baumhardt: OK. This one came in an email: A plaque commemorating the 140 law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was made at the behest of Congress in 2022, approved by Congress, including 39 Republicans. That was three years ago. According to The Washington Post (20), it's sitting in a maintenance closet, unable to go up at the Capitol until congressional Republicans give the green light. What if anything? Have you done, or will you do to make sure that that plaque goes up?
(21) GOP won't install Jan. 6 plaque honoring law enforcement, Democrats say (Washington Post, May 23, 2025)
Bentz: Well, I think it's safe to say that you're the first one to raise that issue, and we'll check it out.
Baumhardt: I'm wondering this is just to go back to Medicaid for a second
Bentz: Hold on, my staff is scribbling… which one of you is going to check that out? OK, I just delegated, then we'll call you back.
Baumhardt: OK, that's great. Thank you. My last question about Medicaid is just specifically to understand, to get a better understanding of how much people in DC know about this, about how the Oregon Health Plan works. Do you know what the income threshold is for an adult receiving the Oregon Health Plan? This is just a single adult in Oregon. They cannot make over this amount of money per month to get it.
Bentz: I think I want to say that it increased from the original federal poverty rate up to something like two or three times.
Baumhardt: But do you know where that leaves it like on a monetary level? For an Oregonian?
Bentz: I want to say, we talked about this just three days ago, right? It was $15,000? I get confused over single and married. But anyway, what's the, what's the question?
Baumhardt: Well, I guess I'm wondering, you know, you have a significant number of people in your district that rely on Medicaid. You have the highest poverty level congressional district, It's actually higher than Oregon's, and it's higher than the United States's (22) The threshold for a single adult is you cannot make more than $16.70 an hour pre tax, in order, if you're working full time to get the Oregon Health Care Plan, which means if you make $18 an hour pre-tax, you don't qualify. For an adult with a kid, you can't make more than $24.86 an hour, pre-tax. And I guess I'm wondering, when it comes to these thin lines about waste, fraud and abuse, when it comes to provisions in here that require more staffing, more paperwork to prove more income, does that seem fair to you? I don't know the last time you made $16.70 an hour, but does that seem fair that if you make $2 more than that, you're going to be on the market. Your average premium as an individual is going to be over $1,300 a year. So you're going to work 82 hours a year, 82 hours a year just to afford your insurance premium. At $16.70 an hour. Does that seem fair?
(22) U.S. Census Bureau data and Ford Family Foundation Oregon by the Numbers.
Bentz: Just so you know, the benefit cliff that you are describing was a big part of conversations and trying to figure out how to better design a system that encourages people to move from the Oregon Health Plan, Medicaid space, over into the lowest rung of the ACA. And the challenge, the challenge for anybody in that space is that there's been many folks who've decided to impose types of conditions and whatnot that must be included in the lowest tier of ACA insurance coverage, and as a result, that drives that cost up, thus increasing the space or the cost of that lowest rung of the ACA. And so what you try to do is try to figure out — how in the world do we make sure that the type of coverage that is offered to the ACA is of similar value as that which is provided for quote-unquote 'free coverage.' I would just, I would just say that these areas need a lot of work, and I worked on them in the Oregon Legislature. Several of my colleagues worked really hard trying to address the so-called benefit cliff because we want to encourage people to move up the ladder and not just forever be stuck on these programs. So it's an excellent issue that you raised. It's not completely resolved, but we are working on it.
Baumhardt: A little switch of gear here.
Bentz: OK.
Baumhardt: What do you see as the power that President Donald Trump holds over the Republican Party, and do you feel free to go against his wishes and priorities? And have you voted against any of his big priorities?
Bentz: In the three and a half months that he's been in charge?
Baumhardt: Sure, and in the last administration, I guess I'm wondering, what do you see?
Bentz: But the reason that I don't think that so much of it as a — hold is probably the wrong word — I think the word I would use is that which he stands for when it comes to trying to help lower- and middle-income people. Stuff, the stuff that I stand for. And when it, when it comes to him doing stuff that brings our nation back to a position of power in the world, we agree with that. It's not so much a hold as there's many, many of the things that he stands for, I stand for. So where you have a consistent foundation and agreement on your approach to many of these problems, those are important things. I think it's safe to say that the house is going to look really carefully at that which the executive branch suggests, and we'll weigh it and figure out whether or not it makes sense. I'll tell you one thing that many people ignore, and I think it was in the outline of questions here that I was hoping you were going to get to, is this interworking of this place. And I'll tell you — 12 years I was in the Oregon Legislature — I was never one day in the majority, not even one day. And as a result, when I got here and found that I had all Republican control across the scope of the three branches of government, it's been a huge and welcome change. We have a great relationship with the White House, and so if we see a problem, we talk to the White House first, and we say, 'Hey, you know, this is not going to work.' For example, on some of the cuts that were coming through, they didn't work. We called and they got fixed. And so, having that kind of relationship is new for me, but very welcome. There's the House, Senate and the executive branch. The executive branch forges the course with the Senate, and we're going to do our job.
Baumhardt: Is there anything that you can think of that should have been asked, that wasn't asked, or that you wish you could tell Oregonians, I guess. And, anything as specific as possible, maybe, about your role in this bill, or what you fought most for that's specific to them, that maybe doesn't get so much play in the media.
Bentz: It's an 1,100-page bill. There is an enormous amount in it. I was involved in a lot of it, because I'm on two committees. So, I was heavily involved in the natural resource committee, heavily involved in that Medicaid piece. And then, since I have a background in tax, I was involved more than others in, at least going to the various meetings on the tax pieces, a lot of them. I'll just say that there's a lot of really, really, really good things in this bill that I think people are going to be very, very happy for — particularly small business. They're going to very much want this bill. There's some great things in it for the folks involved in the timber industry that will hopefully get us back into the woods and start reducing the volume of fuel that's causing or allowing so many fires to be so bad. You talk about, how do I work with other people to try to get things done? And what I don't like in the bill? There are a number of things I don't like. This so called SALT arrangement (23). I thought it worked out quite well in O-17 (2017). And so, there's been a lot of gritting of teeth as certain of my colleagues have wanted to increase that. I understand why my colleagues wanted to do it, and Oregon is one of those states that will benefit from an increase in SALT — state and local taxes. But to me, I thought we had reached a pretty good point of equilibrium back in 17 but it just shows you there were many, many, many discussions about all of these issues. This was not a top-down thing at all. I'm anxiously awaiting — to your question about what else we should mention — this bill has to come through the Senate, and much of what we're discussing is squarely on the table in the Senate. And so we'll have to wait and see what happens, and there may be other opportunities for us to address some of the things that I'm not terribly happy about that are in the bill, but I really appreciate you taking the time and look forward to our next conversation.
(23) The SALT deduction, or State And Local Taxes deduction, allows taxpayers to deduct all or a portion of their state or local taxes from their federal taxes. The Republican tax and spending bill would raise the limit for this deduction from $10,000 to $50,000.