Oregon’s lone Republican congressman, Cliff Bentz, voted to pass the bill Thursday, while the state’s Democrats called it ‘a betrayal’

By Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle

Oregon leaders expressed anger, devastation and disappointment with the passage of a nearly 900-page tax and spending cut bill by Congressional Republicans expected to take health insurance and food assistance away from millions of Americans while sending tax cuts worth tens of thousands of dollars to the nation’s highest earners.

Oregon’s lone Republican congressman, Cliff Bentz of the state’s 2nd Congressional District, voted to pass the bill Thursday, while the state’s two Democratic senators and five Democratic House Representatives voted against it when it came up for votes in each chamber this week.

Bentz did not offer any explanation, interview or statement Thursday following the final bill’s narrow, party-line passage on a 218-214 vote in the U.S. House.

“Thank you for reaching out. I will pass along your request to our team,” his spokesperson Alexia Spentzas said in an email Thursday afternoon. (Bentz on Friday expressed support for the bill.)

Bentz in a June interview with the Capital Chronicle defended the bill, including its near $1 trillion cuts to Medicaid over the next decade, and took pride in playing a key role in drafting those cuts.

About one in three Oregonians relies on Medicaid for their health insurance. But in the 20 counties in Bentz’s district, the numbers are even higher. In Malheur, Klamath and Josephine counties, more than 40% of residents rely on Medicaid, according to the Oregon Health Authority. In Jefferson County, where Bentz is from, half of all residents are covered by Medicaid.

Bentz consulted for months with former Democratic Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, a doctor, on the Medicaid portions of the bill, but incorporated nothing from those conversations into the bill, according to Kitzhaber.

“He is well aware of the implications of this bill. I spent several months explaining it to him. Nothing in this bill is good for his district,” Kitzhaber told the Capital Chronicle on Thursday. “He’s decided to play to an audience inside the Beltway, not the people who sent him to Congress in the first place.”

Kitzhaber described it as a “sad day for CD-2, Oregon and the nation.”

Anger over cuts to health care, SNAP

Cuts to Medicaid and health care are by far the biggest concern among Oregon’s congressional Democrats. Rep. Maxine Dexter, a doctor and Democrat representing the state’s 3rd Congressional District said in a news release the bill is “a betrayal.”

“People will be forced to choose between buying groceries or filling a prescription, between paying rent or a copay, between keeping the lights on or getting preventive care,” she said.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, representing Oregon’s 1st Congressional District, said the federal funding cuts to Planned Parenthood will impede life-saving sexual and reproductive health care. More than 75% of the services Planned Parenthood provides each year are for testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections and providing contraceptives for birth control.

“Republicans are also defunding Planned Parenthood, which provides necessary family planning services and reproductive health care. No other provider network has the capacity, expertise, or reach to replace Planned Parenthood’s essential care, particularly in underserved communities. When women can’t access comprehensive health care services, they are more likely to die.”

She said the bill will have “devastating consequences for Oregonians and Americans.”

Gov. Tina Kotek, wrote in a news release Thursday that rural Oregonians like those in Bentz’s district will suffer the most from health care and Medicaid cuts.

She said she has directed state agencies to immediately evaluate impacts of the budget bill to Oregon, and called its passage a “moral failure” that was “inked in greed, not human dignity.”

“One thing is certain: this budget takes our federal tax dollars and hands a giant tax break to billionaires at the expense of children, families, and communities,” she said. “Every single year Oregonians pay federal taxes, and those dollars come back to our state through vital services like health care, food assistance, and more. That is how the system should work. The Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress have broken that system.”

Oregon Rep. Andrea Salinas, representing Oregon’s 6th Congressional District, directed her ire at the bill’s cuts to federal food assistance that roughly 42 million low-income people rely on nationwide, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Currently, the federal government covers 100% of the cost of the SNAP program. The Republican bill cuts federal spending on the program by $230 billion over 10 years and limits eligibility for SNAP, requiring parents with children aged 6 and older to meet new work requirements they were previously exempted from.

“The cuts would make this the single largest rollback of food aid in American history and would hurt Oregonians who rely on SNAP as well as local farmers and grocers,” she said in a news release Thursday. “The cuts would extend beyond SNAP to threaten food assistance programs like Meals on Wheels. This is cruel, plain, and simple.”

Alex Baumhardt has been a national radio producer focusing on education for American Public Media since 2017. She has reported from the Arctic to the Antarctic for national and international media, and from Minnesota and Oregon for The Washington Post. This story first appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.