Jeff Merkley

These programs work.

I am concerned about the pressing need to improve public safety and fund Tribal police in Indian Country.

I would appreciate your help, if we can extend that.

I really appreciate that.

Thank you for working with us.

I am available 24/7 to work with you, as I know my colleagues are.

I also am going to keep pushing in the budget for more funding for thinning our forests.

Having the 2020 date of ending that practice of viewing big fires as national disasters I think is very appropriate and helpful.

I remain concerned that CMS' deference to state agencies on this issue represents a further erosion of the principle of tribal sovereignty and an abdication of the Federal Government's trust responsibilities.

A Dear Tribal Leader letter and subsequent related statements made by HHS personnel on the issue of American Indian and Alaska Native (Al/AN) exemption from Medicaid work requirements revealed a startlingly poor understanding of the unique…

Sustainable means cutting healthcare for poor people and damaging rural America, and that's just unacceptable.

The Medicaid block grant strategy that you've laid out based on Graham-Cassidy, this would cut about $2,500 per recipient in Oregon.

This would be Medicare Part E, and it spends the money people spend on an exchange but lets them choose a better organized option that competes with the regular insurance options.

If you're really for competition, why not support a public option?

Senator Chris Murphy and I and several of my colleagues have introduced a bill that says let people choose a Medicare policy if they want, a public option.

While providing grants to go to rural areas is something that benefits my rural areas, it doesn't increase the overall numbers, and that's the core problem.

All I'm hearing from my medical community is we need to train more doctors and more nurses and more PAs, so why does it make sense to cut these programs?

So thank you very much for listening to the local voices.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

But should the United States position itself, work massively to try to have the machine-making role be something that is done here in the United States of America and exported to the world?

Absolutely. But they are very happy with the situation as it is with low tariffs to our market and high tariffs to theirs.

I think it would get their attention. I am not saying necessarily that is directly the right thing to do, but the fact that we have set up a system where we continue to give them far lower tariffs in our market than vice versa says…

So China charges us 15.5 percent tariff on our Ag products, and we charge 5.2 percent on theirs. Why should we not charge them the same tariff that they charge on us?

So we should recognize that as a competitive challenge.

That is an issue that I put on the floor of the Senate as an amendment, and we did get bipartisan support to close that loophole.