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We're lucky to be joined now by one of those members of Congress who is currently out of session but joins us now from Capitol Hill. That's Congressman Brian's Style, Republican representing Wisconsin's first district. Congressman. It's good to see you, and thanks so much for joining. I've loved your opinion on this. The Senate majority leader suggesting it's time for the House to come back into session. Do you think that's a good idea.
Well, it's time for the Senate to pass the clean cr We're in this situation because the Senate Democratic leadership under Chuck Schumer refuses to vote for a clean CR. This used to be a non controversial vote here on Capitol Hill. In fact, Democrats have voted time and again in favor of clean crs, most recently in the spring. What changed is the politics for Democrats in the United States Senate. So the House has done our job, We're all waiting for the Senate to do their job. Chuck
Schumer is beholden to his radical base. A lot of us are frustrated. It's time for us to move on because there's really important negotiations in front of us, including fiscally your twenty six appropriations, as well as other priority policy priorities that you mentioned Congress.
But it's good to see Kevin Hassett had suggested yesterday, maybe there's capitulation this week and this whole thing comes to an end. But every time the Senate votes on this, it's the same two Democrats an independent who break ranks here. So I mean, at some point we could be bumping up against November twenty first, what do we do then? Do you wait forever for Senate Democrats? We just stay shut down until Chuck Schumer changes his tune.
Well, the consequences of the Schumer shutdown continue to build. President Trump has done a great job taking some extraordinary actions to make sure that the consequences aren't felt by our troops, for example, But many of these are one time actions, and so the consequences will continue to build.
The pressure will build, and I do believe at some point the Senate will come to the table and recognize that their action to close the federal government and put at risk, for example, payment to our troops, the men and women wearing the United States military uniform, was the wrong bet the sooner we come out of the shutdown and begin the substantive negotiations on fiscally your twenty six approaches as well as other policy priorities, the better off we are.
Well the White House has come to the table on some of these really critical issues, like military pay, pay for the Coastguard, also finding that supplementary funding for that key federal nutrition assistance program that helps women and children. But Congressmen, we hear from Democrats that they want President Trump to come to the negotiating table when it comes to the policy stances at stake here, particularly related to healthcare.
We know he had this luncheon today with Senate Republicans, but do you think President Trump should be getting more involved as this shutdown drags on?
Well, I think again, the challenge here is we put forward a clean CR now, as you not weeks ago passed in the House. We're three weeks into a shutdown. We should be three weeks into the CR utilizing the time that we're burning right now to negotiate those policy priorities. Many of these have year end deadlines, appropriate conversations for us to be having, but we should be doing that in the context of an open and operational government. Again, the House did our job. The Senate is running into
filibuster challenges. Center Fetterman is even calling now and saying, maybe we have to overcome that because a minority of United States Senators are standing in the way, under the leadership of Chuck Schumer, from reopening the federal government.
You've seen what's going on with the premiums here, Congressman, and I know that you're careful not to conflate this debate with that of government funding. But we saw a couple of states this morning in Georgia, where I know Congressoman Marjorie Taylor Green has been making some noise here, Obamacare premiums could rise as much as four times. They could quadruple in main plans. We'll see premiums up in average of twenty four percent. In Michigan, could surpass eighteen percent,
and that's before factoring in the expiration. What would it mean for people looking at their subsidies rise in Wisconsin.
Well, I think what we see as the data continues to come in that the Affordable Care Act was anything but affordable for the American people. The program the Democrats put in place, and again the Democrats set the sunset date themselves. This was a Democrat decision to sunset it at the end of the year. But what we continue to see is challenges inside the structure of the program. There is plenty of evidence of the waste, fraud, and
abuse inside this Democrat created program. There's a Treasury report that came out under President Biden that identifies as significant flaws inside these premium credits that go back to insurance companies as to why it's structurally unsound. So at an absolute minimum, we would need to make meaningful and substantive reform in the program. But again, these are the conversations and the debates that we should be having right now
on Capitol Hill. Instead, we're shut down all because Chuck Schumer and Democrats in the Senate refused to open the government with a clean cr to allow these negotiations and debates to take place.
Well, Congressman Joe just outlined one of the potential impacts for constituents. Another has to do with economic assistance for farmers. A senior Administration official tells me that's currently been delayed because of this ongoing shut down. I looked up the stats the USDA estimates Wisconsin farmers produced one point three billion dollars worth of soybeans each year. This is, of course at the center of this issue, as China hasn't
imported any US soybeans so far this harvest season. I'm wondering if you're in any discussions with the administration on what this aid package might look like. Are they talking with Congress on this and any update on when it could be ruled out.
I had a long conversation with two soybean farmers from Wisconsin yesterday talking about this exact challenge. The short term fix may be that type of a subsidy, but the long term fix is getting trade agreements in place and having China once again purchasing US soy The US soy exports are heavily dependent on the Chinese markets. The broader
trade negotiations that we're having is causing concern. I'm of the view that we have a huge opportunity here to work with our allies, hold China accountable, and then strike the trade deal. I think President Trump's in a position to do that. The short term fix may be providing some level of assistance. The long term fix is striking these trade agreements to the benefit of American workers and farmers.
Congressman, we appreciate the insights. As always, that's Brian's style, Republican Congressman from Wisconsin who chairs the House Admin Committee, and always a pleasure to have the chairman with us as part of our conversation.