Arizona Republican calls budget blueprint passed by House part of a ‘crazy, insane dance’

PHOENIX – U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, an Arizona Republican, said Thursday the budget blueprint passed by the House this week is just an early step in a complex process.

“This is what we call a reconciliation budget. It’s this crazy, insane dance we have to go through to build a box for all the committees to fill,” Schweikert told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News.

It’s done this way so the Senate can pass the plan without having to meet the 60-vote filibuster threshold, Schweikert explained.

The House approved it by a narrow 217-215 margin on Tuesday, with Schweikert on the yes side. The budget blueprint for President Donald Trump’s agenda includes $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts.

A series of temporary individual and small business tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration are scheduled expire at the end of the year. Congress will now have to decide which ones can be extended as part of the budget process, Schweikert said.

“It comes back to us in Ways and Means and the other committees, and we have to figure out what we can actually cover and what we can’t,” he said.

The budget blueprint doesn’t specify which programs have to be trimmed to fund the tax cuts Trump is seeking. Instead, it directs committees to devise a way to cut to programs within their scope by a certain amount.

For example, the Energy and Commerce Committee would have to find savings of $880 billion over 10 years under the budget blueprint.

Rep. David Schweikert says massive Medicaid cuts aren’t inevitable

Energy and Commerce handles spending for Medicaid, a joint federal and state program that helps some people with limited income and resources cover health care costs.

Over 2 million Arizonans use the state’s Medicaid program, which is known as the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS.

Critics of the budget blueprint argue that there is no way Energy and Commerce can complete its cuts without slashing Medicaid spending.

But Schweikert, a noted budget hawk, thinks there are more places to make cuts than people realize. For example, he floated the idea that large savings can be made through modernizing technology.

“We actually believe we have a model that shows that we can find 4% [savings] in their committee on just things that are archaic, systems where they haven’t adopted technology, where they’re still sending faxes,” he said.

However, U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton, an Arizona Democrat, doesn’t think Republicans are being forthright. He said a half-million Arizonans will lose access to health care under the plan.

“They’re being disingenuous by suggesting that that is not the case, because they don’t want to actually have to deal with the real ramifications of this decision,” Stanton told Arizona’s Morning News on Wednesday.

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