JANUARY 19, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A9
NARROW,
continued from Page A1
The legislators also spoke to
healthcare issues such as fund-
ing for the Children’s Health
Insurance Program (CHIP) and
the funding of rural medical
centers as well as a resolution
for the 800,000 non-residents
registered under the Deferred
Action for Childhood Arriv-
als (DACA) program but, in
all three cases, the issues were
tied to the passage of a fed-
eral spending bill. Congress
and President Trump had until
Friday, Jan. 19, to come to an
agreement or risk a govern-
ment shutdown.
Schrader, who voted for
CHIP funding in committee
and on the fl oor, said the rumor
is that CHIP funding would be
included in the budget deal.
“But if DACA is not in-
cluded, that’s a big deal. You
may fi nd Democrats voting
against a budget deal that in-
cludes CHIP because of other
factors,” Schrader said.
Pressed on whether a DACA
deal was something they were
willing to shut down the gov-
ernment over, Merkley put the
ball back in the Republicans’
court.
“If there is a shut down,
it’s not because Democrats are
doing it. It’s because President
(Donald) Trump is shutting it
down. He said if it takes shut-
ting government down to get a
wall, then he wants to do that.
Anything the Democrats have
put forward has been moder-
ate, reasonable positions. There
are no extreme requests here,”
Merkley said.
“It’s the Republicans job to
do the budget and if they can’t
get the votes within their party,
they have to reach out and ac-
commodate Democrat con-
cerns. And they had diffi culty
getting their own votes within
the party,” added Schrader.
Merkley emphasized the
need for funding federally-
qualifi ed health centers as one
of his main budget priorities.
“We’ve added about 30
front doors to the health care
system throughout Oregon in
rural and urban areas. I want
to make sure that is part of the
deal for the budget,” he said.
Both legislators supported
border security, but not a con-
tiguous wall across the coun-
try’s southern border.
“In the 2013 immigration
bill that was passed in the Sen-
ate, there were a lot of funds in
it for border security – more
than is being talked about now.
But, at the heart of that, was
spending it in the most cost-
effective ways,” Merkley said.
“Drugs come in as part of car-
go containers and they come in
through tunnels. Plus, you can
throw drugs over the top of the
wall.”
Sensors, detection-and-re-
sponse systems and fencing in
places where it might makes
sense were a more cost-effec-
tive approach, he said, “but let’s
not abuse the federal treasury.”
Schrader said the most re-
cent fi gures he’d seen from
the Department of Homeland
Security suggest a net drop in
the number of undocumented
immigrants coming over the
southern border.
(Editor’s note: Schrader asked
us to fact-check him on this point,
but Keizertimes could fi nd no
readily available recent statistics.
The one source we did fi nd was a
study by the Pew Research Center
from 2015 showing that 140,000
more Mexicans left the United
States between 2009 and 2014
than arrived.)
Given the seemingly con-
stant state of upheaval in the
nation’s capital, the legislators
were asked how diffi cult it was
to operate in the maelstrom.
Merkley suggested rapidly
moving targets were the main
problem.
“It occurred Thursday. The
Senate Ds and Rs worked out
a deal on DACA and called
up the president to go over it
fully expecting he would say,
‘yes,’ because it fi t with the
conciliatory tone the previ-
ous day with a gathering on
the Hill,” Merkley said. “The
Senators went over to the Hill
and were surprised to fi nd Sen.
(Tom) Cotton in the room, he
is against any sort of immigra-
tion reform. And the president
was totally uninterested in a
compromise and working out
a deal.”
Schrader said it was a mat-
ter of the Republicans tripping
over themselves.
“Republicans spend too
much time worrying about
what the president wants. He’ll
sign anything that’s brought to
him and pretend it’s his idea. I
don’t think it’s diffi cult, but the
Republicans are making it dif-
fi cult,” Schrader said. “It’s the
same with tax reform, the same
with healthcare, the same with
infrastructure, he has no plan.
He’ll sign what’s put in front of
him and make it his idea.”
Merkley said the tax reform
package that passed along par-
ty lines and was signed into
law at the end of 2017 was go-
ing to hamper efforts in many
areas.
needs to write the Pledge of
Allegiance 1,000 times on a
chalkboard – and focus on the
word indivisible. He wants to
continue being the divider-in-
chief rather than representing
a country that is united and
indivisible despite extreme di-
versity in terms of where we
come from,” Merkley said.
“It’s horrible. It’s not the
way people think or act in
this country. Our state in par-
ticular is known for its civility.
We need to get back to that
and we need to represent the
best in people, not the worst,”
Schrader added.
“It’s hard to get your hands
around just how much money
moved. If you take the main
components of the tax bill
benefi ting the wealthiest it’s
$3.2 trillion. Some of that is to
corporations and some of that
benefi tted people other than
the wealthiest, but two-thirds
of that is $2 trillion. If you
divide that by the number of
people in America, men, wom-
en and children, it’s $6,000
for every single person in this
country being redirected to
the wealthiest,” Merkley said.
“Health, education and jobs
are the foundations for families
to thrive and that’s the kind of
money that would have laid a
foundation for those things.”
Both men wanted to see
Congress put more resources
into preventing forest fi res and
attacking them once they are
burning.
When asked whether Presi-
dent Trump’s language when
talking about other countries
mattered, both were put off
by recent reports that Trump
called places such as Africa and
Haiti “s—tholes.”
“I think it matters in the
world perception and the
gravitas of our infl uence
whether we are working on
Iran, North Korea or inter-
national trade. The president
CITIZEN,
continued from Page A1
Keizer Fire Chief Jeff Cow-
an will emcee the festivities.
The McNary High School
jazz band and the Whiteaker
K-Town Sound choir will
provide music.
In 2017, Jim Trett was
honored as the Keizer First
Citizen, Bob Shackelford was
named Merchant of the Year,
longtime Keizer coach Lar-
ry Smith was picked for the
Service to Education Award
and Dave Walery received the
President’s Award.
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