LEILA FADEL, HOST:
House Republicans barely passed a budget framework last night with instructions for committees to write bills that advance President Trump's agenda on the border, 2 trillion in spending cuts and $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. There's still a long road ahead to make these cuts a reality - even getting here was tough.
Some Republican lawmakers worry the cuts would hurt constituents specifically around proposed cuts to Medicare. Other Republican lawmakers question whether this went deep enough. After the president made a round of phone calls, the measure wound up passing by a vote of 217 to 215. Republican Representative Tim Burchett joins me now - he's from Tennessee - to talk about this. Good morning.
TIM BURCHETT: Thank you so much for having me on, ma'am.
FADEL: Thank you for being here. Congressman, there wasn't a vote to spare here, so your vote on this resolution was really important. You were a no, and after a phone call from the president, you got to yes. What changed that got you to a yes?
BURCHETT: Just the talk about what was, you know, my priorities. I favor tax cuts. I favor a closed border and reduced regulation. I think if you - if all those are combined in the perfect world, we'd be back on track. The problem is, it's Washington, ma'am, and it's not a very perfect world. It's a dishonest community at its core. And, you know, and this is the best I could get to. I've often said you're either at the table or on the menu, and I needed to be at the table. And I talked to the president at length. He listened to my concerns about my priorities as an American, as a Tennessean and where we need to go. And the one thing about Trump is...
FADEL: What are your main concerns? I mean, what are your main concerns - that this didn't go far enough in its cuts?
BURCHETT: Yes, ma'am. I'm afraid we are - we're $36 trillion in debt. And I think - I don't even look at Medicaid and Medicare. There's - we don't - that's not even in there. It's - that's a misconception that keeps getting put out. But the...
FADEL: But the proposal does include $880 billion of cuts to a committee that handles health care spending, including Medicaid.
BURCHETT: To the committee, yes, ma'am. But that committee will decide how that is done. And as years passed - I can remember when President Reagan was - and thank you for bringing that up. I can remember when President Reagan was in, and he - there was a delivery service of - it was - for every dollar that was distributed, it cost a dollar to a dollar and a half to get it to these people. And he cut that distributor - he cut that middleman, so to speak, out. And that's a lot of what we're going to do. And, of course, we're finding so much fraud, waste and abuse in these groups. And I think...
FADEL: Is there evidence of that fraud and abuse that can be shared with the public?
BURCHETT: Yes, ma'am. Yeah, well, we are getting ready to delve into it, but there is where there's overbuilding, there's phantom accounts, there's things like that. And it's just general mismanagement that you see that - you see that in business, ma'am. I mean, in private business, that they have to - I have a friend who took over a very large distributorship at another end of the state. And they went in and they had almost a third of the employees were ghost employees. And this was a very well-established and a very successful business.
FADEL: So what I'm...
BURCHETT: And they went in - yes, ma'am.
FADEL: What I think I hear you saying is that this 880 billion of proposed cuts that people believe will hit Medicaid, you're saying it won't hurt people's coverage? Because that's really important to constituents.
BURCHETT: No, ma'am. Yeah. Yeah, I believe that is exactly what I'm saying, ma'am. That is exactly what I'm saying. And in politics, the Democrats...
FADEL: But that's a lot of money for it not to hit the actual health care coverage.
BURCHETT: Ma'am, well, when you find $3 trillion that there's no paper trail - in government, that is not a whole lot of money. It is a whole lot of money to a Tennessean, to the average American. Yes, it is. It's a whole heck of a lot of money, but we're finding that over and over and over again that there is waste, fraud and abuse, and that's just the bottom line. And people don't like to admit to it, but it's the truth. And it's both parties. You know, we've had this thing...
FADEL: Now, this is...
BURCHETT: Go ahead.
FADEL: I just wanted to ask. This is just a framework, so it's really just a start, including writing the actual bill is still to come. And we've already heard from some of your Senate Republican colleagues that they're concerned around deep cuts to Medicaid.
BURCHETT: Sure.
FADEL: I mean, will you be able to persuade them to get behind these measures?
BURCHETT: I don't know. I don't know. I don't - I can't speak for them, but honestly, I think America is tired of the waste, and they've seen it in so many departments. And they're just tired of the way this thing's going. And if we can take the money out of the bureaucrats' hands and from some fraud or waste and put it back in the pockets of Americans, I think that's a very good thing. And I think we can do that in an efficient manner and not hurt anyone.
FADEL: That's Republican Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee. Thank you so much for your time.
BURCHETT: Thank you, ma'am. It's been an honor. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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