Senator Marshall: Lowering the Cost of Living is My Biggest Priority

Senator Marshall Joins KQAM, The Voice of Reason with Andy Hooser Washington – U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined Andy Hooser on KQAM to discuss the Farm Bill, year-round E15, lowering the cost of fertilizers, regenerative agriculture, President Trump’s negotiations with China, and helping young Kansans achieve the American dream. Click here to download the full video. On passing the Farm Bill in the Senate: “Well, as you can imagine, the Senate moves a little bit slower than the House does. Remind your listeners that we took care of crop insurance and reference prices in the Working Family Tax Cuts bill. We put another $65 billion into those programs, we doubled the death tax exemption, and we gave some farmers some great tax business benefits as well. So there’s not much of a Farm Bill left to do, but we’re very willing to do it. But here’s the holdup. The hold up is over food stamps and work requirements — that’s what the hold up is. In our Working Family Tax Cuts bill, we said that if you’re a working-age, healthy adult — you don’t have children at home — we would like for you to get a job. 20 hours a week, and if you can’t get a job, volunteer for 20 hours a week or do work training. So the Democrats over here are refusing to do a farm bill until we remove those work requirements. And personally, I just think most Kansans think that a job is a good thing to have. So we’ll see if the Democrats will come off to that end of it and let us get this passed. Because remember, we will need 60 votes over here, we can’t do it just with the simple majority.” On year-round E15: “Yeah, no, it’s a 90/10 issue. I think that 90% of Americans think having a job brings purpose and meaning to life. If you know, if you have an addiction or mental health problem, all those things, a job brings purpose to your life. Again, I think it’s a good thing. But more important than a farm bill is E15, Andy, that’s what I’m watching today. E15 would be like doubling our export market. If we export, let’s say, 2 billion bushels of corn a year—if we go to year-round E15, it’d be like increasing that by 50 or 100%. It gives us a constant market, so we’re not sitting there worrying about ‘Is China in? Is China out this year?’ as well. So we are keeping tabs to see if they pass the year-round E15 bill over in the House today — that’s what I got my eye on for the agriculture.” On President Trump’s relationship with China: “Well, of course, everyone needs to realize, and we do, that China is our strategic adversary, whether it’s economic or military or ideological — they’re an adversary. Their goal is to become a world power, and the President is going there with eyes wide open. You know the old saying, ‘Keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer.’ So I hate to call them an enemy—I’m not that guy—but certainly I’m disgusted with them. They steal from us, they steal intellectual property, they hoard certain rare earth minerals, this, that, and the other. And we brought this upon ourselves, right? So hopefully the President will bring, you know, keep moving forward, and he’ll use this tariff leverage as he has in the past. Once he left office — after Trump 45 — China stopped buying stuff because they didn’t have a hammer over their head. So he’s going to remind them that if they want to sell us stuff, they need to buy stuff from us as well. That’s what we call good business.” On lowering the costs of ag inputs and fertilizers: “Yeah, let’s talk about nitrogen fertilizers — nitrogen fertilizers are made from natural gas. Guess what we have an abundance of in America? Natural gas. But instead, we’re letting people over in the Middle East process the natural gas and then ship over the nitrogen fertilizer. So, you know, basically there’s a theme here in America right now — because of over-regulation, two or three companies will dominate 90% of an industry. So that’s true of fertilizers, of the seed industry, chemicals that my farmers buy as well, it’s true in the credit card business, it’s true in the pharmacy benefit manager business, and hospitals — you know, one or two hospitals dominate an entire market. So your listeners get that theme. So number one is we need to try to break up the monopolies, and number two, we need to try to bring in some smaller producers of fertilizers, which is what our bill does. And the other thing I’m really excited about, our bio-fertilizers. Rather than using these harsh chemicals, we got a company in Pratt, Kansas — Andy, I know you know where Pratt, Kansas is — they’re taking manure from the feed lots and processing that, heating it up, adding this and that. And it’s a healthy fertilizer that brings more microorganisms back into the soil, which leads to healthier food, more nutrient-rich food as well.” On the cost savings of regenerative agriculture: “It’s a great move. So regenerative agriculture is growing more with less, and more my farmers are doing this. So rather than plowing a field, they’re planting seeds right back into that field. So the soil is one of the three big carbon anchors in the world. You know, the other carbon anchors are, of course, the ocean and trees. So when you don’t turn that soil over, you leave more carbon in it, and then when you use less fertilizer and use these other, more modern techniques, then the food is healthier, and there’s less leakage — fertilizers and chemicals — from that field. And of course, well, that’s also a cost factor. If you can use less fertilizer, of course, that’s going to save the American farmer money as well. So proud of my American farmers practicing regenerative agriculture, and all this leads to healthier food that. There are nutrients in the soil that we don’t even know exist yet, and when some of these fertilizers and chemicals kill those natural nutrients, that’s why our food tastes so bland these days. Andy, I remember growing up, you know, when the strawberries were ripe, my brother and I and my sister would run out to the strawberry field on our family farm and just gorge ourselves on these strawberries. They tasted like candy, and the same with cantaloupe. So the foods have lost their taste because of the lack of nutrients in the soil.” On passing another reconciliation bill to lower the cost of living: “Yeah, so the first reconciliation bill we’re going to pass next week is to fund the Border Patrol and ICE officers. Only Republicans are willing to support funding ICE and Border Patrol. So we got to get that one done next week, and that leaves us an opportunity for Reconciliation 3.0. In my mind, we should be addressing the cost of living, Andy, and we should have five buckets. One of them is the cost of healthcare, and that would be my specialty — happy to dive into that one — then the cost of housing, the cost of childcare, the cost of property insurance, and then just the cost of gas and groceries, that type of thing as well. So, I think the whole focus here should be on bringing down the cost of living, and we know ways to do that. Our Price Tag bill in the healthcare sector would force every healthcare provider to show you the price up front. Look, if your doctor orders an MRI, you could do it in his office for 600 bucks, or go over to the hospital and do it for $6,000. Customers need to know that there’s a huge difference in the price. And I think once we make them shoppers again with today’s technology, we will bring down the cost of healthcare — I’m not kidding you — $1,000 to $2,000 a month per family.” On cost of living in Kansas: “Well, it’s the cost of living, that’s what folks want to talk about. It’s interesting, though, every business I visit is exploding, and they can’t keep up with the sales, they need more workforce, and this and that. And I think a lot of it is because of the tariffs on foreign stuff; people want to buy American-made goods. A window company out in Fort Scott, you know, comes to mind, and all the different people that make farm implements. So, everywhere I go, they tell me business is really good. The tax structures that we changed in the working family tax cuts to help small businesses out — you know, letting them do bonus depreciation and interest deductibility — it’s all coming to fruition. But there’s a group of people out there that are struggling, they’re typically under the age of 40. They’re folks that hadn’t bought their first home yet, their credit cards are maxed out, they have a big college loan, and they’re paying a lot for childcare. Those are the people who are struggling right now. And that’s my priority: how do we help these people, these working families, that are out there? We gave them some good tax breaks. People are getting, you know, the largest tax refund in American history right now as we speak. Those tax refund checks are coming back home, and that’s the help, but we got to give them relief on the home front, and it starts right there, at the kitchen table and at the gas pump.” ### Contact: Payton Fuller