LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The passage of the tax and spending bill in the House could hinge on getting the most fiscally conservative wing of the Republican Party fully on board, the Freedom Caucus. That was co-founded by Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio and he joins us now. Good morning, and welcome to the program.
JIM JORDAN: Thanks for having me.
FADEL: I want to start with what we just heard there. Is this bill a political risk for the Republicans? Are you on board, and do you plan to vote for it?
JORDAN: I do plan to vote for it. I think it is good legislation. I've said many times, you know it's a good bill because the left hates it, and the left hates it because it actually empowers people, empowers families, doesn't empower government. And Mara Liasson was just talking about how, you know, she thought it would hurt working families.
I think it helps working families 'cause it lets them keep more of their money. It says that we're also going to build into the tax code a school choice component, which is total parent empowerment, helping them decide where they can send their kid to get the best education. And then I think it also is fair to taxpayers in that it says, we're going to have a work requirement.
If you're an able-bodied adult and you're getting help from the taxpayers in one of our social welfare programs, then you're going to have to work. And that is just good common sense.
FADEL: It's not just the left, though, that has criticisms of this bill. There are Republicans who have concerns around the cuts to Medicaid, and there are also Republicans within your caucus that have real concerns about the fact that the deficit will grow over the next...
JORDAN: Yeah.
FADEL: ...Decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. I mean, do you want to see it reworked to address this? Because I know you specifically are very concerned about debt and the country's growing debt.
JORDAN: Well, I wish we were cutting more and saving more, but you have to look at the lay of the land. We got a three-seat majority in the Senate. We got a small majority in the House. In order to get the votes together to pass something, you got to give, and this is, I think, the best possible position we could get, as evidenced by the fact that you only got - it was a 50/50 tie and, of course, the vice president had to break the tie in the Senate.
FADEL: Right.
JORDAN: And two of the three who voted against it were voting against it from not because it didn't cut enough and save enough and help with the deficits in the debt, they voted against it for what, you know, people would call moderate or more liberal reasons in...
(CROSSTALK)
FADEL: Over cuts to Medicaid because there are concerns it will cut - about 12 million people are expected to lose insurance over the onerous paperwork under this bill. That was the concern there. But, you know, we heard from your colleague, Congressman Andy Harris of Maryland, on Fox News recently, and I just want to play you what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANDY HARRIS: We support the president's agenda. The president's agenda was not to raise the deficit by three-quarters of a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. The bottom line is now the House is going to have its say. This is not going to sail through the House. We're going to have to negotiate with the Senate one more time, and that's just appropriate. That's the way the legislative process works and the way it should work on a bill of this size.
FADEL: Are you having conversations with Congressman Harris about this, and do you want to see some reworking or will the House be able to pass it without that?
JORDAN: I'm hopeful that we can pass it. I have had conversations with Chairman Harris and other members of the Freedom Caucus and just members of our entire conference - Republican conference. But I think this bill's - and I look sometimes at just who voted for it. I mean, Senator Johnson, Senator Lee, Senator Lummis, Senator Scott, Senator Cruz, all kinds of conservative senators voted for this package.
It's pretty darn good. It cuts taxes for families. It has a work requirement for able-bodied adults in our welfare system. It says that we're going to make sure there are resources to keep our borders secure, and it also builds in the school choice component in our tax code. Those are fundamental Republican positions.
Any one of those positions in and of themselves, by themselves, we would vote for that legislation. But somehow, when it's put together in a big package, you have people who don't want to vote for it because it doesn't cut enough spending. As I said before, I wish we were reducing spending more.
But overall, this is a good piece of legislation that does exactly what we told the voters we were going to do when we ran for the job last November.
FADEL: Jim Jordan is a Republican member of the House from Ohio and a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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