Latest news with #Bentz
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bentz defends Republican tax and spending bill, despite costs and cuts impacting his district
Oregon Rep. Cliff Bentz, center, voted for a proposal to cut Medicaid funding. The state's lone Republican congresman said the tax bill he and House Republicans put forward will make people "very happy." () Oregon's lone Republican Congressman, Cliff Bentz, represents more than 705,000 Oregonians — about 16% of the state's population — who will feel disproportionately the cuts in the Republican tax and spending bill currently being considered by the U.S. Senate and that passed the U.S. House in May. Bentz's 2nd Congressional District spans two-thirds of the state east of the Willamette Valley and is home to mostly rural communities with higher average rates of poverty, food insecurity, unemployment and Medicaid enrollment than the rest of the state and nation. The bill, which Bentz voted for, would cut spending on Medicaid and on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, funding meant to ensure low-income Americans have food. In a 45-minute phone interview with the Capital Chronicle last Friday, Bentz defended the Republican tax and spending bill, adding that middle and low-income families, small businesses and the timber industry would be particularly pleased. '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,' he said, pointing to the bill's lowering or ending taxes on certain wages, such as overtime and tips, and costs, such as car loans. He dismissed questions about the possible impacts Medicaid cuts could have on rural medical clinics that cannot turn patients away regardless of insurance, saying 'If I may, this is supposed to be an interview, not an interrogation or an argument.' Instead, Bentz said, the bill reflects fiscal responsibility. '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,' he said. In fact, according to analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill if implemented would add trillions to the national deficit and the national debt. That growing debt would be driven not just by spending but by extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed during President Donald Trump's first term that brought the federal corporate income tax rate and income tax rates on the wealthiest Americans to historic lows. A year after the act passed — for the first time in history — America's billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than the bottom half of American households, according to analysis by economists at the University of California at Berkeley. Bentz said without extending the 2017 tax cuts, the average American family would see their income taxes rise by about $1,700 and up to 7 million jobs could be lost. Those figures come from the Council of Economic Advisers, a three-member, president-appointed agency within the Executive Branch that recommends economic policies. The Capital Chronicle received nearly three dozen questions for Bentz submitted by readers. The bulk of those questions, and the interview, covered provisions of the bill that would impact access to health insurance under Medicaid, cuts to federal jobs and clean energy tax credits, tax cuts for the wealthy and the power President Donald Trump has over the Republican Party. An annotated and full transcript of the interview can be read here. To reduce federal spending, Republicans have focused on adding new work and citizenship requirements to Medicaid eligibility that could result in about 7.6 million people losing coverage over the next decade, or a bit less than 10% of everyone in the country who relies on Medicaid, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It would result in $76 billion to $88 billion a year not being spent on the program, according to Bentz's analysis of Congressional Budget Office data. The group of 7.6 million includes immigrants at risk of deportations and people who might be receiving Medicaid despite higher than reported income. But the bulk of the 7.6 million — more than 60% — are what Bentz calls the 'able-bodied adults choosing not to work.' Analysis of 2024 U.S. Census Bureau surveys finds they are mostly in school, are parents, caretakers or disabled Americans. Bentz, who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee responsible for the Medicaid cuts proposed in the bill, said that he consulted closely with former Democratic Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, a doctor, for weeks on the bill, and called him 'a genius' in a recent interview on Oregon Public Broadcasting. But Kitzhaber told the Capital Chronicle that there was 'nothing morally defensible in the bill' following a May 22 virtual town hall Bentz hosted the day the Republican tax and spending bill passed the House. 'We advised him on how the program works, and I warned him over and over again that the impact of this was not going to be good, especially for people in his part of the state,' Kitzhaber said. About one in three Oregonians relies on Medicaid for their health insurance. But in the 20 counties in Bentz's district, the numbers are even higher. In Malheur, Klamath and Josephine counties, more than 40% of residents rely on Medicaid, according to the Oregon Health Authority. In Jefferson County, where Bentz is from, half of all residents are covered by Medicaid. Bentz said he couldn't work all of Kitzhaber's recommendations into the bill, including his warnings that it would be overburdensome to rural clinics to take health insurance away from people who will seek medical care they cannot pay for, anyway. Bentz said he understands why Kitzhaber would bemoan it: 'Well, he's a doctor.' 'He is going to be on the side of the patient at all times,' Bentz said. 'Anything that does not provide coverage for everybody, he's going to be concerned about it.' Bentz says he's been worried about the U.S. budget deficit, or the gap between how much revenue the federal government brings in against how much it spends, since before joining Congress in 2021. Bentz has been quoted in the past saying he won't vote for a bill that raises the deficit. The Republican tax bill would raise the national deficit by $3.6 trillion over the next decade and would add $2.4 trillion of debt to the nation's $35 trillion debt, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. It would also raise the debt ceiling — a legal limit to the amount of money the federal government can borrow — by $4 trillion. Asked why Bentz voted for it given his past statements, he said he had to. '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,' he said. Indeed, during Trump's first term from January 2017 to December 2020, the growth in the U.S.'s annual deficit was the third-largest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to reporting by ProPublica and The Washington Post. Even before the COVID pandemic hit in late 2019, Trump was on track to add close to $10 trillion to the nation's debt by 2025 — $3 trillion more than his predecessor, former President Barack Obama. The version of the Republican tax bill that Bentz voted for before it got to the Senate included a provision that would have transferred and privatized 500,000 acres of public land in Nevada and Utah. Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, of Montana's 1st Congressional District, ended up getting the provision killed following pressure from hunting and fishing groups in his state. Bentz said he does not support selling off public land to the private sector, but that he does support trading it for the right purposes. He said most of the 500,000 acres slated for transfer in the bill were going to be made in a trade, not a handover. He said he was surprised Zinke caved and that he believes some of the 'movie stars and whatnot who have moved up there,' to Montana, played a role in getting Zinke to axe the transfer. '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,' he said. 'Why in the world would we try to preserve land for hunting when people are living under a tree someplace?' Reporting in the Oregonian found Bentz's district has about $10 billion in committed investment in solar, wind and energy projects spurred by tax incentives and investments in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Among them is Sunstone Solar, which would be Oregon's largest approved solar and storage project on 10,000 acres of farmland in Morrow County. Many of the projects committed so far are incomplete or haven't broken ground. Bentz, who did not vote for the bill in 2022, said he was not worried about losing those projects, and that he thought the clean energy tax credits were bad policy. '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,' he said. Bentz, a career lawyer before becoming a politician, said he is not concerned about Trump or his advisers' defiance and disinterest in judicial review. He said Trump's continued appeals to higher and higher courts when he loses in lawsuits brought against him and his policies are his legal right, and if he 'bumps into a judge that he doesn't appreciate the opinion of, he has every opportunity and right to appeal it.' Bentz said he believes Trump is simply using the full scope of the legal system to his advantage, and that he would not support Trump defying the Supreme Court. 'I would not support anyone ignoring the Supreme Court. That's not how our system works,' Bentz said. As for whether Republicans will fall into line on all of Trump's orders, Bentz said it's not because of pressure, but because they agree with what the president stands for. He said having power in the majority is a new experience for him after 12 years in the Oregon Legislature, led by Democrats. '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,' he said. Bentz said he was unaware of constituent concerns about several topics but will 'look into' issues. On the well-publicized departure of the superintendent of Oregon's only national park because of staffing concerns: 'The person's (former Crater Lake National Park Superintendent Kevin Heatley) 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.' On federal cuts to the National Weather Service office in Pendleton that ended overnight weather forecasts for Central Oregon, as reported by The Bulletin in Bend: 'No one has come to me with that concern, staff or otherwise, but now that you've raised it, we'll look into it.' And in response to a question from a reader who wanted to know whether Bentz would do anything to ensure the display of a plaque made with taxpayer money to commemorate the 140 law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol and the lawmakers in it from insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021: 'I think it's safe to say that you're the first one to raise that issue. We'll check it out.' A May 23 article in The Washington Post found the plaque sitting in a utility room in the Capitol basement three years after Congress approved it because the current House Republicans haven't instructed the Architect of the Capitol to install it. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
A pioneering graduate at Alvernia University
Faith Bentz has always liked figuring out how to solve problems. It's a trait that from an early age drew her to studying math. And in high school it pushed her toward classes like physics. 'Being able to find a definite answer is so cool,' she said of her love of the subjects. Her desire to find answers didn't end when Bentz graduated from Gov. Mifflin High School. It's something that has continued to guide her, first to Alvernia University and in the very near future to Brentwood Industries. Four years ago, Bentz followed her parents to their alma mater Alvernia University. There, she became part of the school's first class of students to enroll in Alvernia's brand-new engineering program. The decision, the 22-year-old from Shillington said, was not necessarily an easy one. Knowing she would be joining a program just being created meant that what her college career would look like wasn't exactly clear. 'It was kind of a little scary,' she said. 'I was signing up for classes that didn't have a professor yet. We were kind of going into it blind.' Bentz didn't have upperclassmen to lean on, to ask questions about professors or courses. But she did have something unique — a voice. Bentz said she and some of her classmates actually got a chance to help shape the new engineering program, sitting in on online interviews of potential professors and providing feedback to university officials. She said she also had the benefit of being part of a small group of engineering students at a small school, something that created a very personal college environment. 'All of our professors got to know all of us,' she said. 'And the students, we were very tight-knit. There were lots of late nights in the library where I would look around and it was all engineering students. 'We made a point to sit together at graduation, 12 of us,' she added. 'I just love the community I found here.' Bentz dove head-on into that community, keeping her schedule quite busy during her tenure at Alvernia. She was a member of the Disciple Makers Bible study group, she was a peer tutor in math and physics and she was an O'Pake Fellow of Engineering. Through her fellowship she got a chance to work as a consultant for a local feed mill, recommending systems to help with temperature control. But not everything was easy during Bentz's time at Alvernia. Like most college students, she faced struggles. Along with being a part of a new program and the challenges that created, Bentz said she also faced hurdles being a woman in the traditionally male-dominated field of engineering. Many of those hurdles, she said, were in her own mind. 'I had to work on my confidence, I think a lot of women deal with self-doubt or imposter syndrome,' she said. 'I'm looking around and not seeing people who look like me. But you just have to believe in yourself and do what you love.' Bentz said she hopes her success in a STEM field helps show younger girls what's possible. 'I really hope I can be an inspiration to young girls,' she said. And that goal won't end with her graduation from Alvernia — it will continue as she pursues a career in mechanical engineering at Brentwood Industries. Bentz worked as an intern at the Reading company, and will start a full-time job there as a product development engineer this summer. Her new job will see her help to develop product fills for cooling towers — yet another problem for her to solve.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Oregon's U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz insists Republicans ‘not cutting' Medicaid, SNAP
Rep. Cliff Bentz is Oregon's sole Republican member of Congress. (Photo courtesy of Malheur Enterprise) Oregon's lone Republican representative in Congress defended the party's decision to attach new work and citizenship requirements to Medicaid eligibility at a virtual town hall Wednesday night and said there is a 'travesty' of able-bodied, non-working Americans. U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, who represents Oregon's 2nd Congressional District covering much of eastern Oregon, answered fewer than a dozen questions submitted online or over the phone during the hourlong event. Bentz said he chose to meet with constituents virtually so that he could reach more of them at once, and because some in the crowd at his in-person town halls earlier in the year were 'borderline abusive.' Bentz started off by explaining what he sees as wins in the Republican budget proposal, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives early Thursday morning. Bentz said he personally worked on much of the 1,100-page bill. The wins, he said, include income tax cuts and ending taxes on social security benefits; more federal spending on border walls, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, increasing wages and bonuses for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, ending tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act that 'let climate activists set the standards for American energy' and what he said was President Donald Trump's plan to 'completely overhaul' air traffic control systems in the U.S. But the most common theme among the questions posed by constituents related to the bill was about the fate of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps low-income people and families afford food, and Medicaid, which funds healthcare for low-income people, kids in low-income families and some people with disabilities. One in three Oregonians is covered by Medicaid through the Oregon Health Plan, including half of all kids in the state and 70% of kids in Bentz's district. More than 730,000 Oregonians rely on SNAP. The bill passed by U.S. House Republicans would lead to $300 billion in cuts to SNAP, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and $625 billion of federal funding cuts for Medicaid over 10 years, under the latest estimate by the Congressional Budget Office. Medicaid cuts would be done in part by requiring those who rely on the state-federal health program and who are between the ages of 19 and 65, to work, participate in community service or attend an educational program at least 80 hours a month. It would also strip Medicaid funding that some states, such as Oregon, use to offer the program to people regardless of immigration status. Bentz told listeners at the beginning of the event that 4.8 million able-bodied adults are receiving Medicaid benefits and choosing not to work, then later claimed that 21 million Americans are 'not actively seeking work, even though they're capable.' Bentz did not cite any sources for these numbers or respond to an email from the Capital Chronicle asking for the source data. 'It's a travesty the number of folks that are not working in the United States,' Bentz told his online and call-in audience. One, a retired doctor from Medford, told Bentz he was concerned about the future of rural hospitals — already operating on thin margins — if Medicaid coverage is harder for Oregonians to get. He told Bentz it will leave hospitals and clinics covering the costs when an uninsured patient walks in. 'You know, working in the hospital, if somebody gets sick, regardless of failure to pay, they're going to be taken care of,' he said. 'Working or not, people still get sick.' In response, Bentz doubled down on the notion that Republicans are not cutting Medicaid, just imposing more requirements to access it. 'I'm not happy when people start saying 'You're going to cut Medicaid,' because that's not true,' he said. 'What we're doing is imposing an obligation for those who can work, to work.' Bentz said he frequently consulted with John Kitzhaber, former Democratic Oregon governor and doctor, on the Medicaid portion of the bill, and said Kitzhaber put together a work group for Bentz to correspond with about Medicaid. 'I reached out to him four months ago and said, 'Hey, I'm on this subcommittee. Would you be so kind as to assist me in better understanding how we can best approach Medicaid?' And to his credit, he's worked with me. I've spoken to him almost once a week over the past three months,' Bentz said. Kitzhaber confirmed this on a call with the Capital Chronicle but said the bill that Republicans passed Thursday is 'immoral' and called it 'a disaster.' 'We advised him on how the program works, and I warned him over and over again that the impact of this was not going to be good, especially for people in his part of the state,' Kitzhaber said. He took issue with Republicans dangling work requirements for Medicaid as a new and effective cost-saving measure, because they obfuscate from the reality that most people on Medicaid are already working. 'The fact is, most of those people are working. Some of them have reasons for not working. Some of them are enrolled in community colleges around the state, including east of the mountains. It's a solution looking for a problem and it's a way to rationalize huge tax breaks for corporations and people at the top of the income scale,' he said. Kitzhaber said predicating health care coverage on citizenship is particularly cruel. 'I mean, that is a page out of the Trump playbook. It is the politics of blame. It is the politics of hate,' he said. In response to a constituent question about wildfire prevention, Bentz said the Republican spending bill contains a provision that would allow timber companies a 20-year lease in federal forests to 'help manage these forests.' He said any reporting that the Forest Service won't have the firefighters they need this summer is wrong. 'There's been some who have been saying that because of reductions by DOGE and others, that somehow we're not going to have the people to fight the fire. I just want to assure people that the Forest Service reductions have been extremely modest,' he said. One caller asked Bentz about prescription drug prices rising, telling him a medicine she takes recently went from $11.98 per month to $40 per month. Bentz said it's because of drug companies and pharmacy benefit managers, who will be reined in under a provision of the budget bill. 'We have a parcel fix for that in this great big bill,' Bentz said. 'I didn't read it off but it's there, and it should have some impact in reducing the cost of drugs.' He said Trump's negotiating strategy to reduce prescription costs — as the president has promised, by 30% to 80% — is to 'make foreign countries pay more so we can pay less.' Bentz said it is likely that Democrats would attack tax cuts in the bill as disproportionately benefiting wealthy Americans. Indeed, the latest report from the Congressional Budget Office found the package tilted benefits toward the wealthy, projecting it would decrease resources for low-income families over the next decade while increasing resources for top earners. 'The primary thing that you're going to hear from AOC (Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, representing New York's 14th District), and every one of my fellow congresspeople from Oregon, because they are all Democrats, would be that this is a tax bill for the wealthy,' he said. He said the top 1% of Americans pay 40% of the income tax, a popular line among Republicans. 'Wealthy people are paying huge amounts of tax,' he said. 'What they don't pay in tax they invest back in the business.' The top 1% of Americans pay the larger share of income tax because they receive about half of all taxable income in the U.S. each year, according to analysis from the nonprofit, New York-based Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a centrist policy and research group that supports reducing the national debt and federal spending. Revenue from income taxes is also just one-half of all the tax revenue the federal government collects each year. When payments for all federal taxes — income tax, payroll tax, business taxes, etc. — are spread across all income groups, analysis shows the top 1% pay 25% of federal taxes while the bottom 80% pay 31% of federal taxes, according to the analysis. The bottom 80% are made up of households earning less than $176,000 per year. The bulk of income earned by the 1% is not labor income, but income from investments and business, according to the analysis. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
We're rural Oregon doctors. Medicaid cuts will disproportionately hurt rural Oregonians
Oregon Rep. Cliff Bentz, center, voted for a proposal to cut Medicaid funding. (Photo by) The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, including Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Oregon, voted Wednesday to potentially slash Medicaid coverage and vital rural health care funding. After significant pushback by constituents, more draconian cuts to Medicaid were avoided for now, and some Republicans are claiming the proposals still in play don't cut Medicaid. However, as Bentz and other Oregon Congress members consider their vote, we doctors and health care providers who serve rural Oregon would like to set the record straight. We provide health care across rural Oregon and know Medicaid and health care workforce funding are lifelines for Oregonians, especially in rural communities whose care infrastructure is fundamentally reliant on federal support. Across the Eastern and Southern Oregon counties that make up Bentz's district, nearly half of the population relies on Medicaid coverage for health care. If as projected, nearly 9 million Americans — more than twice the population of Oregon — lose Medicaid coverage through these cuts in order to achieve more than $900 billion in budget 'savings', with additional cuts in rural funding looming, the consequences will be catastrophic nationally. Here at home, according to estimates from the Oregon governor's office, as many as 30-40% of Oregon's children, families and individuals may be disenrolled from Medicaid as a result. Rural community health centers and hospitals face the very real threat of closure. Cuts like these will shatter health care access in rural areas, decimate local economies and eliminate essential jobs, leaving more Oregonians without insurance. To be clear: Any reduction in federal support for critical health care access, benefits or the health care workforce in Oregon, especially in our rural communities, is unacceptable. As health care professionals, we know the consequences of denying coverage and access are stark: essential health care is delayed for weeks, even months. A simple infection, easily treated, can escalate into a life-threatening emergency. Crucial cancer screenings are postponed, allowing small tumors to spread undetected. Instead of local care, individuals are forced to travel hours for necessary services. The proposal in front of the House contains strategies misaligned with access and coverage, such as raising administrative barriers to coverage by instituting 'work requirements' and requiring more frequent reapplications for coverage. We know that programs in Arkansas and Georgia failed to effectively implement similar strategies cost-effectively, and people lost access to care. Spreading a similar strategy nationwide will be harmful, particularly in rural communities which lack adequate opportunities for good jobs. Another proposed scheme is forcing low-income patients with Medicaid to pay part of the cost of their care. This has been tried before in Oregon and other states, and the results reliably lead to poorer health outcomes, people avoiding necessary care and a lack of any reliable cost savings. These proposals are the opposite of common sense. Decreases in access and coverage always result in higher costs for all Oregonians, including those with private insurance in urban areas. These choices are about lives, not ideology. Just like in surgery, if we use blunt, outdated instruments that we know through experience don't work to make cuts in health care, we will fail and cause damage to real people. We would call that malpractice. We envision a better future for Oregon and our nation, one that transcends shortsighted cuts and divisive rhetoric. We acknowledge the need for improvements in American health care, and know these changes must be strategic and carefully implemented — eliminating harmful bureaucracy and enhancing good care, ultimately saving money by ensuring better care for more people. Oregon leads the country in innovative approaches to care delivery models. We have demonstrated that we can save lives and taxpayer dollars by expanding access to quality care for more people, not fewer. Federal and state investments in home-grown models like Coordinated Care Organizations , improving primary care and comprehensive maternity care have yielded remarkable results: expanding health coverage, improving care quality, and generating billions of dollars in savings for the federal government and U.S. taxpayers. Instead of depriving rural communities of essential health access and resources, we should scale proven strategies nationwide and support further innovation in health care, so it works better for everyone. We urge Bentz and our other federal legislators to lead with vision, drawing upon evidence-based, successful models to expand coverage and access for communities across the nation. Prioritize sound practice and responsible economics by preserving and building upon what we know works, not spreading what we have already seen fail. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Letter: Preserve the Clean Energy Tax Credit
While the idea of reducing unneeded or wasteful programs in the interest of growing the economy has obvious value, there are important federal programs that should be protected. One such program is the Clean Energy Tax Credit passed in 2022, that has been providing strong economic benefit to communities nationwide. Please join me in urging Rep. Cliff Bentz to call for these tax credits to be maintained. The clean energy tax credits help fund renewable energy projects in Eastern Oregon that allow our own communities to take important steps toward energy independence. In Bentz's 2nd Congressional District alone, there are at least 19 new projects that have been approved and several more waiting for approval. Construction and operation of these projects will result in substantial injections of money into Eastern Oregon communities and thousands of new jobs created. To find out more about renewable energy projects in Oregon, go to Twenty-one Republican representatives wrote a letter to the speaker of the House opposing the repeal of these credits, noting the large economic stimulus of clean energy projects in their districts. I am hoping Rep. Bentz will follow their lead. Kay Firor Cove
