Congressman Bill Huizenga on the Big Beautiful Bill

Congressman Bill Huizenga of Michigan's 4th District joined us this morning with his reaction to the big budget bill passed over the weekend. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, as you may have guessed, depending on where you
stand on party lines, is sort of how you think
about what happened with this budget bill. This is West
Michigan's Morning News, Steve Kelly and Brett Mekita. And from
my perspective, the deadline got sometimes more headlines than what's
in it. So what's in it? Let's talk to Congressman

(00:20):
Bill Heisinger or Michigan's fourth district this morning. Congressman, thanks
for doing this today.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, it's good to be with you. And you know,
Steve Sadley, I think you're right. I would maybe modify
your declarative there a little bit. Frankly, I think who
it was involved with also influenced people's views of it.
So even when there was good things in it, there

(00:46):
were some who could not accept that because of who
the president is, and they literally were drawing lines in
the sand because of whose signature was going to go
on the bill, not what the bill did. But nonetheless,
this is going to bring some certainty to small businesses
and large businesses, frankly, and as well as families. That's

(01:08):
the big thing I think is probably the biggest win
in all of this is making sure that the per
child tax credit stays in place, that would have affected
forty million families. We know that there's going to be
able to be a new savings account that's going to
that parents are going to be able to start for
their kids. There's a lot of good things in there

(01:30):
for working class families that thirty to eighty thousand dollars
range that would have seen a huge tax increase if
we had not gotten this done. And so that's a win.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
So Democrats are focusing on breaks for the one percent, right,
we're hearing about the richest Americans getting some tax breaks.
Talk to us more about families and what specifically it
could mean or will mean for them.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, well, again, this would have been had we not
done an extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
from twenty seventeen. This would have been a massive, massive
increase for that thirty to eighty thousand dollars range income
And the only people back in twenty seventeen that saw
a tax increase with those making over four hundred thousand

(02:17):
dollars a year, and that is preserved. I mean, there
is This is going to be really aimed at those
working families. I mean, no tax on tips for example,
there's a lot of folks that are out there that
are dependent on that same thing with overtime, and there's
qualifications in there. But at the end of the day,

(02:39):
this is going to put more money into people's pockets
and that should be a win in everybody's book, but
not everybody's willing to view it that way.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Talk to us about you're a money guy. Auto loan borrowers.
I'm reading there'll be a temporary deduction for qualified passenger
vehicle loan in beginning in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah. This is one of those few areas where we
people buy and put in significant investment into into a
car and they are not able to deduct the interest
where the interest that they pay on that much like
many people who have got a mortgage, you deduct the
interest that you pay for your house. So I had

(03:21):
a bill that would have done that this It got
slightly modified it with somebody else's version, but we had
a piece of that in this bill. And this is
very very good for American automakers. These are these aren't
for imported cars. These are for cars that are made
here in the US. It doesn't necessarily mean, you know,

(03:43):
it's going to say four Jeep or GM on it.
But those cars that are made in the United States
are going to be qualifying. So that again encourages that
reshoring of so much of that manufacturing that had left
the United States. It's trying to get it back here
into our borders and make sure that our workers are

(04:06):
reaping those benefits.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Congressman, in the final thirty to forty five seconds that
we have, can you address also, I know you spoke
on this about medicaid and what it does.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, you know, the Medicaid needs that we have have
been just exponentially growing. Now part of that is because
as we had under Obama care, this massive expansion of medicaid,
and what the problem is is that it's started to
eat into the safety net of those that really truly

(04:36):
do not have the ability to work for themselves. They
may have a physical or a mental disability, or they
are in charge of either miners or their parents that
their dependents and they have to take care of them
full time. And what the idea is here, Brett, is
to make sure that those people that are off the

(04:56):
sidelines on the are on the sidelines and off the
playing field when it comes to work, especially males who
have the ability to go out there and get an education,
do volunteer work, or actually get a job. We want
them on that payroll and off the couch, and this
is going to do that. It's not going to affect
anybody that is currently on medicaid, that has a dependent child,

(05:21):
or that they cannot work for some reason. It is
really getting after those folks that need to be more
productive for not just their sake, but for society's sake.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Congressman Bill Heising a pleasure as always, thank you.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Good to be with you guys. Talk to you soon.