Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-21-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

05-21-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Clauser Drilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Well, a day later back than I thought I was going to be. But here I be on Wheels Up Wednesday. Join the conversation at 770-563-3770 KMEDY. And my email is bill at Bill Meyer Show.com.

We'll talk about some emails of the day, and get some various things. And yeah, I was supposed just to take on Monday, take Monday off, and come back on Tuesday. And then I ended up getting that creeping crud on Friday or so. By the end of Friday, that seemed to have been afflicting so many people here. And I worked really hard on getting a little bit better. I'm hoping

I can make it the whole three hours. It's one of those things if I end up going into some insane coughing fit that can't be solved. There's always that opportunity, that possibility that it can go there. And then I might have to switch it over to Chris DeGaul, who's my fill-in choice when I end up not being here. So hopefully, let's pray that it all holds up there. And Monday, I did have a court appearance in Josephine County up at the Daily Courier, and I haven't talked much about that because you don't talk about it when people are suing you. And a GrantsPass News publisher ended up suing me, John West, and a whole bunch of other people back in the day in December for defamation. And the case was dismissed yesterday, or on Monday rather, it was dismissed and so that

ended up going away. So that's about all I'm going to say about it. I think you can pretty much understand it. And I'm not a fan of that situation, but that's just the way it goes. Stuff happens from time to time. But like I said, the case was dismissed. OK, all right. It's 12 minutes after 6 as far as elections from last night.

Kind of a mixed bag here. Looks like we'll see some changes over at Medford 549C. And Sandra McHenry appears to be running away with the position two school board situation. 8,000 votes, more than 8,000 votes. She looks like she's comfortably headed for that. Eric Johnson looks to be beating Cynthia Wright and Tareen Saunders. Tareen Saunders was the GOP pick, didn't get a whole lot of traffic, unfortunately. Eric Johnson at 5,700 votes, looks like he's

going to beat Cynthia Wright, the current board member, quite handily. In fact, she appears to be the only of the Stanford children, and of course I've told you, Stanford children is really standing for the Democratic Party status quo, in my opinion, when you see that Stanford children in the Oregon group and that unfortunately they ended up fooling a lot of people, I guess, or a lot of people want that status quo, I think in the Medford 549C school district. Hey, I appreciate when there are Republicans wanting to vote and run in there. Oh, by the way, the other one I forgot to mention though, Angela Zabkowski. And she is also a Stand for Children endorseee

along with the Medford Education Association. I'm telling you. You know, you're wondering why schools don't change and you put people who are put in there and backed by the individuals that really don't want the schools to change much because they're in bed with the teachers union and the democratic agenda. So that appears to be pretty much what's going to be happening in Medford 549C. I appreciate the Republicans that were running, you know, the Breed Loves, the Anchorburgs, the Logan Vons, Donovan Donnelly, various other people. But you know, we're unfortunately at this point until there's able to be, you're able

to unite against maybe one reform candidate instead of having a couple beating each other up against the entrenched interest in the Medford 549C school district. Nothing else will probably change. And God bless the people that are willing to at least run for the school boards, but still at this point in time, I'm kind of down that road where Noah Robinson is when he was talking with me a couple of weeks ago in which, listen, you want to do everything you can to get the schools, the public schools to be better because so many of the people are, so many kids are trapped

in them right now, not having parents who are able or willing to do the home schooling or do something different. And we'd like them to be better. But if you're really going to save your own children right now, you have to do your best to get them out of the system for right now, because nothing that's happening on the board that we're seeing is indicative of any movement for any kind of reform.

So that's sort of the way I'm looking. I kind of agree with him. It's like, yeah, I'd like to say that you're going to be able to move the deal. But if you have the Oregon Department of Education still in charge of most of what's going on, and you have the teachers union endorsing your school board members, which is just kind of like a circular political deal, what kind of change are you

going to get from getting people on the school board that the teachers union wants? And that's when's when people would ask me, how do you vote on these people, Bill? I don't know these people. Have you read the voters pamphlet? Read the voters pamphlet. The clues are all there. If you're endorsed by the Medford Education Association

or Stand for Children, forget about it. You're going for the same people. You're going for the same people that have led us to where we are right now with the schools not being in such great shape. And of course the same thing, oh we always need to have more people, more teachers, more money. And you know, wash, rinse, repeat. We're kind of just doing the same thing over again. As far as Jackson County Fire District 5, I was kind of curious about that. I was hoping Chris Luz would have pulled it out over in position three, but they went for Alfredo.

And you know, this is once again, I'm not a fan of, I like Chris Luz in there because he was a civilian. I am so tired of this conditioning that we have to have firefighters on fire boards. No, we don't put teachers on school boards. The job is just so important and you just can't have regular people trying to understand how, well then obviously you're not explaining it really well. If everybody that has to be on a fire board has to be a fire expert. Okay? Remember this is about getting good people, having a good board chair, and looking out for the taxpayers, but people kind of forget that

sometimes. Well of course we should have firefighters on the fire board. Well what do you think firefighters on fire boards, a firefighter from another district is going to do? You think they're going to want to be economical with the application of hiring fire laddies and lassies? Bet you not! Just saying. You know, it's like putting foxes in charge of guarding the hen. And it's just natural.

You know, naturally a bureaucracy wants to grow itself more. But hey, the voters spoke. And of course the voters, in my opinion, didn't think it through. That's just me. But you know, everybody's vote is their own vote. Let's see, Central Point School District 6, April Deagle looks to be winning that race. Position 2, Zone 1, Jolie Wallace running unopposed. And of course, Jolie is just fine in that particular position. We're happy about that. All right, already covered Medford 549C.

Let's see, what else? Oh, the Jackson County Library District. Maria Tarance, a Republican, ostensibly, did get the win. I'm told, though, by people like Charlene Princeton that Jenny James was the better choice, the independent, and that Marta may be woke. Well, if Marta is a woke Republican, we'll sure find out if we're getting back into the stolen land kind of conversations.

We'll see about that. Patty Jensen wins over Karen Spoonce over at Jackson County Library District. So that's sort of the main competitive ones that I mentioned here. Josephine County, let's see. Gary Richardson. Boy, that was a squeaker. Not a squeaker. By about 3% or so, Gary Richardson looks to be going over there in Grants Pass School

District number 7, position 3, over Judy Christensen. And hopefully that will hold for Gary. Gary's a good guy, we know that. Margie Wilkie ended up losing, it appears, to Quinn Pearson. Cassie Wilkins over Tom Sheckles in Grants Pass School District 7, director position 5. Cameron Camp over Nigel Hruska by about 30 percent or so. Mariah Rossi beating Bill Urtel in a Three River School District Director

Zone 3. So Rick Nelson appears to... boy that's a tight one. Rick Nelson 33-74. Karen Godfrey 3306. 68 votes support. Don't tell me your votes don't count in some of these districts. You bet your vote counts on something like that. 68 votes. So that may not be decided here for a while because remember, you can have up to a week or so for the ballots to come in.

So other stuff may come in and let's see Roy Hauser wins over on Josephine County rural fire district position 4 seems to be a good choice 35 42 Ralph Weidling Josephine County rural fire district position 5 a couple of good GOP choices and I think that pretty much covers most of the competitive races that were going on. And all of the fire district or the fire bonds seem to be passing by about 8 or 9% at last check. So that is the latest.

Coming up this morning, we are going to have Eric Peters at a different time. Different time. It's going to be at 7.10 this morning because we have US Congressman Cliff Bentz supposed to check in with the show at 6 30 if he does it. Well, heck, I'm going to call Eric, but Cliff Bentz is pretty good at calling and a lot of the conversation I think will no doubt be on that big beautiful bill. I know there are a number of Congress Critters that are balking on this one. Some are holding because they want more cuts. Some are holding back because they want more Greece. I just don't know

how... I think what bothers me most about this is looking for big increases of spending in the military and also in homeland security. Now, they're talking about this with the great Golden Dome and everything else. You're trying to tell me that there is no waste in the military, folks? Really? Is anyone seriously going to think that we're supposed to cut everything else and then people are going to be okay? Did people vote for the big golden bill to hand out more money to the military industrial complex? That might be a question we posed to you this morning but yeah they're talking about the big increases big increases and I don't know we can I don't know how that's gonna fly it's gonna fly and the tax breaks for the poor from what I can tell from the big

beautiful bill are front-loaded, which means they expire relatively soon But tax breaks for businesses and higher income people appear to be permanent That's what now, of course the bill keeps getting changed and there are little little details about that We'll talk with Cliff. It's probably involved in this and A big part of what Cliff is going to talk about out that has to do with Oregon Health Plan, which is known as Medicaid. That is the big one because Medicaid under Biden just ended up getting expanded insanely over his four years. Well, I don't know if we can really call it over Biden's four years or if it's over whoever was running the auto pen for Joe Biden over for four years. Ended up pushing huge increases in Medicaid, which is the Oregon health plan in here. And so it's going to have to be cut back. And then when people hear

about that, oh, we're going to end up cutting health care, we're going to be cutting, then, you know, you have all those, you know, those kinds of people, you know, yelling, yeah, yeah, don't take my health care away. Yeah, yeah, don't take my health care away. Of course, they probably shouldn't have been given it in the first place. And yeah, there should be some work requirements in that you're not just a bump on a log and expect everybody else to pay for your. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I get it. But we'll talk with Cliff about that and anything else.

And I'm always happy to take your calls too. 623-770-5633-770KMED. This is the Bill Meyer Show. The purchase of another gutter manufacturing machine has spurred speculation at the offices of Fontana Roofing. Yes, we'll custom fabricate them on-site in your choice of 30 colors. It includes heavy-duty hangers, zinc-plated screws and complete downspouts. Great, talk to you soon. Another quote? Yep, they're deciding between copper, steel or aluminum. All will last decades. Even when they're occasionally

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For a location near you, visit groverelectric.com. When you shop Grover, your worries are over. 100 days of Donald Trump. The president takes a victory lap. This is the best, they say, 100 day start of any president in history. But not everyone's celebrating. So much bias.

A bunch of incompetent white dudes. So much racism. The earliest days ofent white dudes. So much racism. The earliest days of Nazi Germany. It keeps me up at night. Are Americans on board? Totally excited. The first hundred days has been a breath of fresh air. Everybody I know is excited.

The border! The border! Join the debate. The change is undeniable. On News Talk 1063, KMED. Hi, I'm Matt Stone with Stone Heating and Air, and I'm on KMED. 626 I appreciate you being here 7705633770 KMED. Governor Tina Kotec supporting taking a billion of your kicker for wildfire costs. Yeah that was the latest that broke out the other day. She became the latest official to signal support for withholding next year's income ticker

a ticker tax rather to cover wildfire costs. Boy, I'll tell you, you know, anything, anything but actually prioritize spending in the state, right? We don't want to do any prioritizing in the state. We don't want to take any money away from the tranny and the LGBTQ agendas and the other hard left agendas. And so we're just going to take whatever potential, whatever potential reasonableness on your income tax bill might come and grab that.

Governor Kotech Monday saying, we need to find some resources to do that to cover wildfire costs. I do think this conversation on a one-time basis of supporting rural Oregon by potentially using a portion of the kicker tax break would be a beneficial approach. It would only be one time. Are you buying that? It would only be one time that we would use just this little bit of money from the kicker because, you know, once again, I know the kicker is in the Constitution and we Democrats don't like this because it actually puts a limitation on the money coming in to us. But yeah, you would like that. So out of the $1.64 billion tax refund, she would want to take a billion of that for wildfire suppression and prevention,

which probably means paying the professional burners, the ones that go out there and burn the landscape. This would be very helpful, she says, arguing that the money would represent a transfer of wealth from urban to rural Oregon, a potential selling point for Republicans. Oh, OK. So that's how they buy the Republicans off on this one. We'll reach across the aisle.

We'll buy the Republicans off. Most of the folks who are going to be paying that are folks who do not live in fire-prone areas. Ah, okay. So then once they run out of this, then they have to tax the fire-prone areas? I don't know. I really don't know. But we will find out more for sure, okay? 28 minutes after 6, we'll catch up on the rest of the news here in just a moment, and hopefully we'll be talking with Congressman Cliff Betz in a bit too. This is Bob at Father and Son Jewelry. We're here at the Internet and Cell Phone Service not provided by Dish.

The Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. 632 and joining me right now, we appreciate Congressman Cliff Betz. Congressman, welcome back. It's been a while since we had a chance to chat and I guess right now everything's about the big beautiful bill, huh? Good morning, sir. Well, Bill, thanks for having me on your show. I must say, yes, everything is about the bill and we've been spending literally the last four months one way or another on the bill and I'm surrounded today in my office here in Washington, D.C., with notebook after notebook filled with materials concerning the bill. There's a lot going on in it.

Okay. Do you want to give us the highlights? And, of course, Democrats, we tend to call this low lights, but we want to be fair about how this is looking overall. One of the concerns that I have is some reporting that says that the tax relief for some of the poorer people ends up expiring at the end of Trump's term while tax cuts for or tax relief for higher income people and business ends up being made permanent. Could you speak to that reporting that I've been seeing on that? Yeah, so I'll get you the answer to that but the understanding that I have is that the tax provisions which are

extensive extend for ten years at least and then some are permanent but we will we will find out. I've got staff here and they will they will get that answer and I'll actually have this the person I have here go out of the room and get the answer and come back with it so the your question was does some of the tax relief for low income people expire in four years and we'll find out the answer but my understanding is that's not correct find out I'll find out. Yeah, well like I said, you know, you can read a report and it looks like a credible source and just thought, hey, I'm going to at least ask. So we'll see what happens. Well, the table of

content alone for the bill, 12 pages long, and so, but there were 11 committees, each one of which was charged with addressing a number of things. One, of course, the big one, was to try to reduce spending. And then there were other things that are allowed in this kind of a bill, a reconciliation bill that helped the economy. So the first one is the Committee on Agriculture and it addressed in its reduction discussions how to make sure that the waste, fraud, and abuse terms that we'll hear over

and over again were addressed in the SNAP program. I just want to say, Bill, the state of Oregon has done a terrible, terrible job in protecting this program for the people it was designed to benefit. And as a result, Oregon on its ratings of how well or how badly it's done is third from the bottom of how poorly it's done. It's lost, its error rate alone cost $244 million, I believe in one year. And it's an incredibly important program. I want to emphasize this, but it's not the kind of program that we should be treating so cavalierly when it comes to managing the program.

So the next is the Committee on Armed Services, and we're putting a bunch of money into the Department of Defense, much of it, or a serious portion of it, in putting together low-cost weapon production. much of it, or a serious portion of it, in putting together low-cost weapon productions, the drones that you hear so much about are being managed. And the question is, how in the world do we make sure that we're ready to fight a war, such as that which we see going on in Ukraine. And so that shift is addressed in this bill. The Committee on Education and Workforce, of course,

for years there's been abuse in the student loan area and that's being addressed in this bill. But we want to make sure, and this bill does it, that people who need loans get them. And we also want to make sure that people who don't need them aren't using that program. So, this bill addresses that. On the Energy and Commerce, which is a committee that I have... I had the great privilege of joining as a member of that committee

back in January and we talk of... We do a bunch of things on energy, a bunch of things on the environment, we're doing a bunch of the stuff that was in the so-called Reflation Adjustment Act. And we talk about spectrum sales. We, as you know, our cell phones and everything else run on a spectrum, and that spectrum is leased out, different portions of it, and we are going to be leasing more of it out and that will raise between 80 and 150 billion dollars over the next 10 years. Something that's not talked about by my Democrat colleagues because they don't want to admit

that we'll actually be raising money in this bill through the sale of those kinds of federal assets. We also in Energy and Commerce did a lot of stuff in the Medicaid space, spent literally dozens of knots. Yeah, that's what I wanted to focus on, if it's okay for a while, because the Joe Biden administration or whoever was running the Joe Biden administration with the auto pen or whatever it is, we just don't know these days. But that's another story, we're not even going to dig into it. They expanded Medicaid, which is the Oregon

Health Plan, insanely. There was just a huge, huge expansion in that over the last three or four years. We talked with Herman Berchegger and other people and they were saying it was totally unsustainable. Is that being nipped back into something more akin to where it was in 2020, 2021? What do we know right now? Right, so you are correct. There was a plan by the Democrats to,

they want to expand the entire Medicaid program to cover basically everybody in the United States. It's one of those challenges that they've had in mind. And the idea, and it got under the cover of COVID, was to expand the ACA, the Obama Care, some people call it, to include a lot more people. And they did that supposedly on a temporary basis and then extended that expansion to the end of this year. And that's called, what they call the expansion population.

And so, what they did in order to get even more people on the program was to make very, very loose or lack the eligibility requirements in which the whole program was set up to protect pregnant folks, disabled people, children. I mean, the whole idea was to have a program back in 1965, when Lyndon Johnson put this together, that would cover these people. It's an essential, absolutely necessary program. Let's keep that really, really clear. But over time, because of the Democrats' desire to inappropriately expand it, they've ignored those original

criteria and this bill is doing its best to make sure this program is protected for the people who need it. And so, there are going to be carefully designed provisions that say, let's make sure that people using this essential program are those for whom it was designed and that's exactly what we're doing in this bill. Does that mean removing people who are able-bodied, let's say we're working, you know, from this and returning it more to truly like really poor people who are on the Oregon Health Plan? So they won't be removed. That's a huge myth that's being promulgated by the Democrats.

What's going to be happening is there will be an employment requirement, a job requirement that's going to be required of certain able-bodied people in the expansion population. If you can work, you should be working. And what will happen is some people just don't wanna work. And so they will no longer be eligible. We're not throwing them off.

No, no, no. If they wanna go get a job, then guess what? They stay on, assuming that they fall within the requirements of the act. And so those are income requirements. But no, no one's getting thrown off as long as they are eligible. Now, people-

But if you're able to work though, you're going to have to work in order to be eligible for the healthcare part of this then, right? If you're able to work and you fall within the able-bodied definition, and if you're in an account, there are a number of exemptions that you might fall within. For example, if the unemployment rate is over a certain level, then you don't have to have a job because we're not going to force you to get a job, but there are none.

And in that regard, this bill, the other provisions of it, particularly the natural resource portion, open up, if you will, activities in the forest. And we're doing our best to have more jobs. The best idea under this bill is to drive up the employment opportunities so that people who don't have jobs will have them. And so this is another extremely important part of the bill. But it's discouraging but predictable, I suppose, that the Democrats would come running in and saying that we're throwing people off and in the point of fact we're not. I do want to make it clear.

People here that are here illegally are not qualified for the system or not. They don't meet the criteria and if they're on, they will be taken off because the law doesn't allow for it. And so those are the kind of things that will be happening. Is there anything in this reconciliation bill, Congressman Cliff Congressman Cliff Benz by the way with me, is there anything in this which sweetens the plot for states to help the federal government with immigration law enforcement and given that many states like Oregon, Washington, California have been really big at throwing the brakes on this. Any thoughts?

So there are a number of provisions that were put into the bill by the Judiciary Committee that address immigration. Many of them have to do with people paying for an annual fee, for example, for asylum of $100 or and other things like that, the purpose of which is to generate funds to try to help pay for enforcement of immigration laws. Exactly what's being done for the state, I'm not aware of any arrangement where suddenly money will be given to a state, particularly like Oregon, which is a sanctuary state. I think it unlikely that we'll be doing anything there

other than saying, hey, you need to help us make sure that our immigration laws are being enforced. I think Oregon is doing just the opposite, sadly. Yeah, no doubt about that. Congressman, something else I was going to ask you, what about the politics here? It appears, now, from what I've read, I'm just talking about what I've read, all right? So you can please correct me. That's why I'm glad you're here. It appears now from what I've read, I'm just talking about what I've read, alright, so you can please correct me, that's why I'm here glad you're here, that the only programs that are making out with with any sort of sizable increases is the is the military. And it's not exactly like the military budget was small before and now to have this going over a trillion dollars or so in a country that's borrowing, was it six trillion dollars in borrowing two

trillion of every four, is this the time to be doing that when you're telling everybody else, hey, we're going to start cutting down on some of this discretionary spending? I mean, I'm talking about the way the politics will play on this. Well I am sure that there is money that we could save in the Defense Department space. I'm sure of it. In this case though what we're doing is saying hey there are many challenges that are becoming more and more apparent as we observe the Ukraine-Russia war. And one of those challenges is indeed making sure that we know how this drone warfare works,

because it's apparent that that war has changed into a drone war. That's what it is. And we are not ready for that kind of a war. We simply are not. And so we can't, we don't have a luxury of sitting around and waiting until something bad happens and then trying to gear up for these kinds of things. And that would also be true for our posture vis-a-vis China. We have to be ready.

And there's many things going on in that space, all of which make you worried. And I would love to be able to be spending less, but we don't have that luxury. We simply don't. And so the challenge, of course, is making sure that the money we are spending is being spent well. And there's a constant effort to make sure that that's the case. Congressman Cliff Bantz, wanted to shift gears on you here a little bit. Is there anything in the works right now for protecting the infrastructure of our electrical dams? I know that you've been a big proponent of making sure that protecting these dams out on the Snake River.

We already had the situation stupidly happen on the the Klamath and I know you've been working really hard to make sure that this kind of garbage doesn't happen again. Anything? Well thanks for asking and just before we leave the the Klamath situation I just want to mention to folks that at the very end of last year we were able to pass a bill, my bill in fact, that protects the farmers and ranchers under the Klamath Irrigation Project from being sent a great big bill, some people estimate as much as $100 million, to repair the two dams that remain on the Klamath.

These dams are extremely important for all kinds of reasons. One's at the mouth of the lake and the other's a little distance further down. And these dams are terrifically important, but guess what? They were not required to have fish passage because there used to be four dams below them, which now have been removed. The hope by everybody is that eventually there will be fish runs that come back. That was the whole reason that those four lower dams were taken out. But when they do, then the law requires that there be fish passage and other things. Well, it shouldn't be on the farmers and the ranchers who were opposed, for the most part, in the... You know, remove those four lower dams to have to pay for this. So my bill got passed, and I want to say I had the support of Senator

Wyden, which I appreciate. And we got assigned by the president, by President Ben, President Biden. I just want to mention that we haven't been a little take some steps to protect the people and you know on the climate uh... it's against uh... the consequences of that uh... post am being removed as far as protecting the dams that remain up on the snake river otherwise this bill that we're working about that all of what i was talking about this morning and working on

the great big good beautiful bill contains uh... recisions that is clawbacks of money that had been allocated under the Inflation Reduction Act to fund the, I think it was $400 million for solar farms, money given to tribes that that was going to quote, replace in quote, the electricity from the four dams that people wanted to take out that money's to the extent still been available is is that being clawed back

uh... and the details are difficult because the exact way that that was being funded by the tribes a little bit unclear so in my meetings we we have been saying hey how we have we've been able to head that off so that people can argue that somehow that electricity that replaced by by solar by solar farms held by the tribes and then leased to BPA, Bonneville Power Administration. So yes, we're doing stuff to try to protect those dams. And of course, there's other things there. By the way, Bill, I need to mention that secure rural schools, that provision that's so important to counties since we've been held out of the forest for

so long, that money is paid by the federal government to try to offset the damage done to counties such as Jackson County, Josephine County, Clampton, many of my counties. That is in this great big beautiful bill. That funding, hugely important. And it's set up for basically three years, last year, this year, and next year. So let's keep our fingers crossed that it stays in there and we get that money because it's absolutely essential. Congressman, how do you see President Trump's executive order about opening up about half of these federal lands for

renewed logging? Is that something realistic and does it require the senators that say out on the West Coast to be okay with that. How does that actually look to you as a congressman? So, it well it looks really great to me. The executive order says exactly what should happen. The better news though is in the natural resource portion of this great big beautiful bill there are provisions which would get us back into the forest. And not to the extent that we would like, but still to a much greater extent than that which has been the case. For example, Bruce Westerman, the chair of our Natural Resource Committee, and by the way, I asked for a waiver so I could stay on that committee even though I'm also on

Energy and Commerce, and I was able to help Chair Westerman include in this great, big, beautiful bill a provision that would give 20-year leases to different people to manage and improve the condition and quality of our forests. I mean, there's some really good things in this bill that will get us back into the woods. And I'm so happy for it. What would the actual estimated deficit be with the big beautiful bill? Have they put that out yet? Do they have it figured out? Yeah, so there's any number of guesses as to what the increase in the deficit would be over the next 10 years

if this bill passes. And there are two of those. There literally are hundreds of variables. But some have said that this bill would increase the deficit by $3 trillion over ten years. Others have said it would not increase the deficit that much, if at all. The variables are the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, scores the amount of value that the various things in this bill create for the economy. And the CBO takes what I would call the most conservative position you have ever seen. And the CBO has never been right, ever, because it's a guess, right? Who can be right is, you know,

looking 10 years into the future. But the guess on the CBO side of things is somewhere around an increase of $3 trillion over what I'll call baseline. Now, they are ignoring what we believe would be the impact in growth, economic growth, of the tax changes or extension of the tax bill, they are ignoring any number of things that we think are going to dramatically increase the jobs. Yeah, there's also the possibility of increased economic activity, but that's a guessing game too, as you would figure, right? Taking the best guess. Sure. But I would say that the White House's Council on Economic Advisers has said that this bill will increase real economic growth up to 5.2 percent and that that 7.4 million full-time

American jobs would be saved, opposed to 6 million lost if we didn't do this, that the tax rates that we keep down are dramatically beneficial to low-income people, middle-income people, and higher-income people. But the point here has to be that by extending what we did, what was done back in 2017, dramatically protects low-income people. And that's not being talked about enough, it should be. All right. Well, Congressman, I'm hoping that Congress and everybody, including the President, keep looking at the bond market because I noticed that the UK is now the number one owner of our US debt, and China's been backing out away to the exits, apparently. And it matters who's willing to buy the debt. You know that, right? And so everyone has to proceed relatively carefully here. Well, you are absolutely right.

The balancing act that you have to engage in here is on the one hand trying to reduce the deficit. And we have done that by $1.5 trillion in the various portions of the bill that we've been talking about. But on the other hand, you have to make sure the economy keeps going. And that's why the tax extension of the Tax Act is so incredibly important.

So I agree with you, though. The deficit is huge, a huge issue, and the question is, how do we best approach it? But you are right. How we approach the deficit is a real question. I want to mention one last thing. Everything we've been talking about is in the House. This bill, if we get it out of the House, and we hope to do that today or tomorrow, and it goes to the Senate, the bill may not be recognizable when it comes out of the Senate. We hope that's not the case, and we've repeatedly asked the Speaker to make sure it's not,

but the Senate's going to do what the Senate's going to do, and we'll soon find out what that is. Oh boy, get the popcorn. Watch for the drama here, Congressman. I appreciate you coming on and thanks so much for taking a few minutes with us. Okay? Thank you. I really appreciate it. Take care. Congressman Cliff Betts, it is 6.53 at KMED and 99.3 KBXG. I appreciate you waking up here on the Bill Meyers Show. Attention property owners and pro-landscape of Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. Eric Peters will join me here in about 10 minutes. A special Wheels Up Wednesday time, given that the Congresswoman was available at 630. And, well, you know, in the Congress, in the Congress level, you kind of make the time, shift things around there.

Some emails of the day, and those are sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson and Central Point Family Dentistry, centralpointfamilydentistry.com. Being a patient at Central Point Family Dentistry has its perks. Now I am one, okay, so that is. Whatever dental hygiene products are recommended and sold, they're sold to you at cost. Electric toothbrushes, Waterpik, I'm using my Waterpik every day.

Working on that pocket on one of my back molars, okay. Dry mouth products, prescription toothpaste, they do this all. They really don't just want to just sell you dentistry. They want to make sure and take care of your teeth and good people there. Good people. Sit there and they'll talk to you really friendly. Of course, I love it when your hygienist has your mouth open and then they're, what do

you think about this? You're drooling, you know, but love them. CentralPoint FamilyDentistry.com. I give an email of the day to John Ball. ha ha ha ha ha, you're drooling, you know, but love them. Snap4PointFamilyDentistry.com. I give an email of the day to John Ball. John Ball wrote me the other day, he says, hey Bill, the Biden cancer thing is a cover-up. Say goodnight, Joe.

Dr. Jill couldn't even help her husband diagnose early. The simplest of cancers for men to detect, a simple blood test for PSA is all it takes to begin the process. To let it progress to the bones, as they are saying, is criminal without notification to the citizens of the United States. Joe goes back to the basement. Joe dies before he can say too much to the media or to some hack reporter.

I guess it's better than hanging himself in a jail cell with bedsheets." Yeah, that's another one, Joe. Yeah, that's our John, I should say. I know some people are really upset that Bongino and Cash Patel are saying that he killed himself, that Epstein killed himself. I know that, yeah, I know, yeah, I know the cameras were off and the guards were off duty, but that's what the evidence says. All right. He also continues, by the way, that I am a prostate cancer survivor and fighter and now going to go a few more rounds with the cancer again.

It just infuriates me that they are using this cancer to knock up poor Joe. As you say, sarcasm. It's so easy to catch with regular screening. They were saying urinary issues. What a cover-up. The dude's dead. That's what John says. All right, John, appreciate your writing this morning. Randy says, hey Bill, Joe Biden's usefulness is over and now he's a liability. Suddenly the perfect excuse for Joe's departure from the plan of the peers. I think Biden's handlers want him 86 for 6 to keep him from doing something incriminating. The more he talks the

worse it gets. It's a pretty common email I've been getting over the last few days here. Patrick writes, Bill we have to rephrase some of the Joe Biden memes. Rewarding best Biden ever becomes best Biden never. When you read them both out loud, they sound identical. And Winnie writes here this morning, Good morning, Bill. I heard Congressman Benz just say, Pregnant folks while discussing Medicaid within the big beautiful bill. Do we need to remind him pregnancy is in women, not in people in general?

Clean up this false narrative, Mr. Benz, please. Okay, Winnie. I think that was just what I would like to say, nicknaming a Freudian slurp. Okay? We'll see, Winnie. But I appreciate you emailing Bill at BillMeyersShow.com. This is KMED and KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford. KBXG, Grants Pass. We're going to check town hall news here in just a moment. Wheels Up Wednesday continues with Eric Peters.