KSMU's Michele Skalicky sat down for an interview with Republican Congressman Eric Burlison on a variety of topics.
Let's start with what you feel has been accomplished since President (Donald) Trump took office earlier this year for a second term. What are things you've supported that you're most proud of?
Burlison: I think that, you know, he campaigned on fixing the border. And I, and I don't think that anybody, myself, I don't even think the president thought that he would be so successful in securing the southern border. It demonstrates that we didn't really need to pass any further legislation. The laws were already on the books. They just were not being enforced, which is often what we see in government. But we had, by having an executive who was determined, and we're seeing tremendous results. I mean, there's been some months where there have been no crossings across the southern border, which is hasn't happened in decades and decades so I think that's a huge success. I also think that extending the Trump tax cuts in the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' has been also a tremendous success. We've got, you know, the American people are suffering through inflation, inflation that has been driven by government overspending. Government deficit spending is by definition inflationary spending. And so reining in that is really the ultimate answer, but until that point, I think providing some relief on the American people is needed. And so the extension of the Trump tax cuts in the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' is, was the number one priority because the American people, we could not let the American people face a massive tax increase, which is what they would have experienced. And then, and this is truly a bill that, and a tax policy that benefits the middle-class workers in the United States, which is which is you know, which is the community that greatly needs the most help. And so I think that, along with adding no taxes on tips, no tax on overtime, and providing some further relief for retired individuals, makes this an amazing, amazing bill that was passed. And I'm proud to have had some hand in that.
And I wanted to talk about those tax priorities. You recently released a video explaining federal government spending and the deficit. And you said then, as you said now, you support the tax priorities. But those tax priorities, if implemented, will increase the deficit. According to your video, the lowest cost estimate of those cuts is $5 trillion. The highest is $11.2 trillion. So how can we get the deficit reduced if these tax cuts are implemented?
Burlison: Yeah, that's a good question, and for me, this was a key fundamental part of — during this 'One Big Beautiful Bill' discussion, knowing that we're going to have one bite at the apple when it came to doing a reconciliation bill. I fought to make sure that we were fiscally responsible, that we found reciprocating savings, that — for the tax cuts that we were making because it will have an economic, it will have an impact on the deficit. The good thing is that a good 50% of costs are covered by economic growth, and that's by a conservative measure. So you're getting some gain on the federal level of growing the economy by cutting these taxes. They don't pay for themselves completely. So we, based on, you know, talking to some think tanks, we believe that the bill that left the House was basically deficit neutral. When it got over to the Senate, the Senate put loopholes in the bill, particularly when it came to the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, green new energy tax credits that had a massive fiscal impact, potentially, which caused me to not want to support the Senate bill. But having conversations with the White House and having not only an understanding of what, what they could do to close the loopholes that were created, but their commitment to do those was what gave me an assurance that it was ultimately going to be a deficit neutral bill. And shortly after, I mean, within one week, the White House issued executive orders to do just that.
Health care experts are saying that reduced federal revenue due to Medicaid changes in the bill could lead to rural hospitals closing, which would impact people's ability to access care. Are you concerned about that?
Burlison: I am always concerned about access to care. I think often we chase the wrong thing. I think that there's policy that we can implement and that I pursue to try to give more access to people and take away all of the barriers. I mean, look, even people that have all the means in the world right now have a hard time getting an appointment with a doctor. I think right now, the wait time is at least six months for just a family doctor in this area, sometimes a year. That's unacceptable. And you're not going to fix it by throwing more money at it, right? We have a supply problem, which is why we've got to get more, we've got to, I believe, loosen the restrictions on what existing medical professions can do. Let them — let nurses, for example, practice to the full extent of their education. Let mid-level providers across the board do more and not create this massive scheme of gatekeeping that keeps people from having access to the health care that they need. We can do a lot in that regard. The other thing that I'm looking at doing is trying to get more people to go to medical school, and you can do that very simply by increasing the number of seats in the medical schools. But you can also do a great deal by changing the laws related to providers whenever they go to a residency program, because right now they're very restricted. You can only have four students for every one doctor. In today's world where you can monitor activity and you can really oversee people through computers and through other things, it's, I think that we need to extend that and make it — look, if you added, made it six students for every one doctor you've just added, you just grown the residency programs by 50%. So I think that there's a lot of things that we can do without throwing money at the situation that can improve people's access and affordability for health care.
And you said, you know, you're proud of being able to support the bill. Although there were some changes in the Senate you didn't like, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill approved by Congress, will increase the federal debt by $3.4 trillion. Is that a concern to you and how will that be offset?
Burlison: It was a concern until we had meetings with the White House and had discussions about how, when the rubber meets the road, how that language would be implemented and that, the Congressional Budget Office, they were, I think, correctly and conservatively, assuming that some of those loopholes would not be closed. But again, by the White House not only making a commitment to me and others and then following through on those commitments, I think gives me a lot more comfort in that. And I think that the economy is going to grow faster than what we anticipated. So while we conservatively said that this is a deficit neutral bill, I think if the economy does better than what we anticipated, we will see deficit reduction.
President Trump's tariffs are set to take effect this week. Do you support the tariffs and why or why not?
Burlison: I don't like the idea of creating a tax, you know a new tax. If you're asking me the question of do I support a consumption tax which is a tariff, in this case it's a consumption tax on foreign goods. If you're asking me, do I prefer that over a tax on people's income, absolutely. I think that, you know, a lot of economists agree that when you tax productivity, you reduce productivity. And when you tax consumption, you're reducing consumption. It's not a bad thing for the American people to be spending less dollars on foreign goods and keeping more of their dollars. But at the same time, if you were just to say, you know, all things being equal, let's just raise tariffs. I wouldn't support that. But I think that in a broader perspective on just a tax policy shift I absolutely do support shifting tax burdens from people's income to a consumption.
The Yale Budget Lab this week estimated that the tariffs could cost the average American family $2,400 this year alone. What have you heard about how the tariffs will affect what the average family in the U.S. pays for imported goods?
Burlison: Yeah, it could have, it could have an impact, but it could also have no impact whatsoever because you've got fungibility within the marketplace. People will find replacement goods from, whether it's from the United States or otherwise, people are not locked in to have to pay. If the price of a particular commodity goes up, no one's required to pay for it because there's, because there's so many options in the market. Because of that, and the navigability of people to be able to, as a consumer, decide where they're going to spend their money, it softens any kind of impact.
It just seems like there's so much that we, when we go to the grocery store that comes from other countries.
Yeah. And that's not exactly the, the — what we've seen over the, over the long, in the last few decades is this outsourcing of our productivity to other countries. And because the United States dollar is still so strong and these other currencies are not, it has this is a reoccurrence throughout history. So in Europe, long before the United States was the world reserve currency, you had France at one point in time was the world reserve currency for debt. And as they, as they outsourced their economic productivity mostly to, to Great Britain, France eventually turned that authority over to Great Britain. Great Britain became an industrial powerhouse and was the world reserve currency until the United States took it over about World War 1. And the United States has been the world reserve currency for the past — since then. But as a result, because things are cheaper outside of the United States, because the currency, businesses outsource their productivity overseas. And if we don't do something, the United States is going to hit a, we're going to hit a wall. We're going to hit an economic wall. And it will be — we will lose the world reserve currency to the most productive nation that exists today, which is China. During World War two, for example, we didn't have the greatest military. We didn't have the strongest military. We didn't have the biggest military. We didn't really — we weren't creating a lot of ships or tanks, but what we what we were doing, because we had such a massive manufacturing powerhouse, we were able to out-manufacture Germany and Japan in World War II. And but because we were at that point in time, about, about 60% of the world's GDP in production. Today, we're 11% of the world's GDP in production. China is at 40%. So you can see where this trend is going. I'm not, I think that this is a harbinger of where things are going to happen. And I don't want to see that happen in the United States, which is why I think we have to, and I think President Trump is correct, we have to change policy that encourages businesses to produce back here in the United States, which will employ more people, and hopefully people will have more money in their pockets.
So it sounds like you're really hopeful that we can get to that point where we can see more manufacturing done locally. Do you think we'll have the workforce for that?
Burlison: I do, I think that manufacturing is changing, and being in the role that I'm at, I'm the subcommittee chairman for energy, economic growth and regulatory reform over the oversight committee. That has given me an opportunity to go visit some of the most exciting frontiers in in the world when it comes to things like small modular nuclear reactors. I've toured facilities that are, that are manufacturing these or building their first version, their pilot version, for approval. For that, for micro nuclear, which is a clean, all of these are clean, abundant, safe ways to power the electricity of the future and that these manufacturing companies need. I've also toured cutting edge advanced manufacturing facilities that are, that are doing things that China, that will really leapfrog what China is able to do. And I think that that we're not going to beat China by having cheaper labor. We're going to beat China by having American workers be able to out produce Chinese workers, if that makes sense. And so, if we have technology and the machinery to be able to out produce the Chinese and one American worker can produce more through the technology and the affordable electricity that we will have, I think that we can, we can beat China.
And now you've talked about how you are a proponent for using more nuclear energy. Explain a little bit more about that.
Burlison: Yeah, I think that I mean, we're the nation that invented this technology. But we, because of because of events that have happened, there has been this fear and hysteria. And oftentimes you have anecdotal events that cause policies and regulations that that sweep with a broad brush, right? Paint with a broad brush. And what we, what we've ended up with is that in the United States, we ended up with about a 50 year period where we didn't produce one single nuclear facility, nuclear power plant, while we watched other countries around the world ramp up. And and then we are, we've been starving our nation of electricity production over the last few decades in this search for this net neutral, this carbon neutral source of electricity when the answer has been nuclear this entire time. And so what's great and what people, what I've learned, and I hope that people look into this more, is that the nuclear power plant of tomorrow is not the same thing whatsoever as the ones from before. We're talking about material that cannot be weaponized, period. You're talking about material that is incapable of melting down, right? So the fears of what happened in Chernobyl or Three Mile Island are not physically possible with these type, with the fuel that's being used in these types of micro reactors. And so these are, instead of taking up large swaths of land and having to have high security, you're talking about something that would fit in a cargo container, nuclear reactors that fit within a cargo container, that can power 1,000 homes. That's the future. And so, and I think that, there's some really, really innovative things that are happening around that space. So one of them is there's a company, for example, called Valor Atomics that's experimenting with carbon capture. So they would place a micro , their micro reactor near a, let's say, a coal fired power plant. And then they would, they would pull off every ounce of carbon that's being released and then use that carbon in the in their process. And I'm not I'm not a nuclear physicist, but the out, the product that that it would produce not only is electricity but jet fuel, which is just mind blowing that you would be releasing, that you would be pulling carbon from the air releasing oxygen into the air and your byproduct is jet fuel and electricity — that's amazing stuff.
I want to move on to something else now. I think this is something that's on the mind of our listeners right now. President Trump recently fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics — that's the agency that produces the monthly job figures — after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported. He alleged that Erika McEntarfer had manipulated the figures for political reasons, but he didn't provide any proof of that. McEntarfer was confirmed on a bipartisan vote. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told Fox News the president's firing of the BLS commissioner was due to politics. How do you think the president's actions look to your constituents?
Burlison: Well, I think that the fact that he campaigned during his campaign before he was even president, he was very critical of this individual and the numbers that they were releasing, and he has. he has been consistent on this. He has, he does not have faith in, he did not have faith in that individual and the agency. And at the end of the day, he is the executive. He should have people that — in a role that he is confident in that we're not. I don't, that does not mean that that he is using political maneuvering to get an outcome or data result that, that, that he wants. He's been critical of the, and I think that he's been rightly critical because of the number of corrections and the scale of corrections that this labor secretary was producing is not acceptable. And so the, I think that the question is the where does the buck stop, right? If you're, if you're producing these bad outcomes consistently this bad, this erroneous data that you have to correct month after month after month, at some point the buck stops somewhere. And I think the president sees himself in that role that he, he's got to take responsibility. And his only way to do that is change the head of that organization. And hopefully the new head of that organization will change the culture and maybe the process so that it's more accurate.
Can you assure your constituents that Trump won't replace McEntarfer with someone who might manipulate numbers to make him look good, but not show what's actually happening in the job market? Just because, again, on the surface, it looks like, you know, he fired Erica McEntarfer because he didn't like the numbers.
Burlison: Yeah, I think that just look at the people that he's put around him. He's put some intelligent people, people that are not exactly of his political party, for example, Robert Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard. He seeks the most competent people that he can find. And that comes from, you know, decades and decades of executive experience. And so if you're, anybody who is a good leader will seek people that are smarter than themselves in the areas that they're, that they are trying to handle. And I think that the president has that attitude.
Missouri Republicans are being pressured by President Trump to redraw Missouri's U.S. House map. What have you heard about the reasons behind it, and what do you think should be done?
Burlison: Yeah, I think that there — whenever I spoke with the White House, they were, they have a high level of concern that there are Democratic states that are already in the process of redistricting, California being one of them. They also recognize that the, the census and the, and the drive to bring in illegal immigrants into communities that are mostly blue communities, blue cities, so that you can pad the numbers and add more members of Congress in cities like Los Angeles, in California cities, right? In New York. That's taken into effect. And so it's had an impact on the United States. I think that, so the administration wants to correct that. They see opportunities to redraw districts in Texas, Missouri, I believe Ohio. And so I'm agnostic. At the end of the day, I love the area that I represent. I hope that my district doesn't change because I love every square inch of it from Joplin and Neosho down southwest Missouri all the way. You know, to Seymour. I love every square inch of this area. This is where I grew up, and I hope that it doesn't change.
And I have to ask. I know you've come out in support of the Epstein files being released. What do you think should happen with those?
Burlison: Yeah, I think that James Comer today issued the subpoena to release the Epstein — for the Department of Justice to release the Epstein list and the files. And I'm fully supportive of this. I think that, look, there are hundreds if not thousands of potential victims here. Young women who I hope that that, you know, we need to demonstrate to them that that this government is not going to cover up these actions. And if there were people that were involved outside of Jeffrey Epstein, they should face the full extent of the law. And so, to me, this government belongs to the people, not the other way around. And that's why this government owes it to the American people and to these victims to be transparent.
I know we don't have very much time, but I want to hear — what kinds of things are you hearing from your constituents? Republicans, Democrats, libertarians and others? What are their main concerns? What are their — what are they saying that you've done well that they support?
Burlison: Yeah, I, I think that the people are happy about the tax reductions. A lot of people are excited about that. I think people are excited to see, to see a lot of the manufacturing come back. I have a friend who is a local manufacturer that is, that was very involved in these discussions on tariffs because he has a manufacturing facility in China. And I think that while, to give you an idea, while on one hand he certainly has to, you know, he's got to move the cheese, right? He's got to change. On the other hand, to talk with him and understand the potential and the impact of the tax policies for a manufacturer like him to potentially bring this back home and to have favorable tax policies to do that. When you talk to these manufacturers, these local business owners, they want to do that. They want they absolutely want to build and create in this country and employ in this country. And so to me, that's kind of exciting. And that's what when it comes from the, from the business community, that's what I'm hearing.
And one more quick question. What will your main priorities be going forward?
Burlison: Transparency is, and providing oversight, is one of my top priorities. I'm also, if you look at the bevy of laws that I file as bills, they relate to finding very sometimes simplistic ways of reducing regulations that don't really have an impact on people's safety or health. Really trying to reduce, for example, the burdens on our supply chain and try to bring, bring the overall costs of things down by reducing the regulatory burdens. And so we've filed a number of bills that people can look at on my website that, and by and large may seem boring to some, but they do have, you know, they do have impact on the things that you buy off the shelf.
All right. Well thank you Congressman Burleson for coming by to talk to us today.
Burlison: It's great to be here. Thank you.
