Conversations with Senator Deb Fischer

Tuesday, August 7, 2018
U.S. Senator Deb Fischer visited with the Gazette on Saturday during her week-long recess from duties in Washington, D.C. Fisher also visited with officials at Community Hospital and area owners of lake cabins in Southwest Nebraska.
Shary Skiles

U. S. Senator Deb Fischer (Republican) came to the Gazette Saturday during a one-week recess and discussed a variety of topics. Sen. Fischer is finishing her first six-year term as United States Senator representing Nebraska and is running for re-election. Her opponent is Democrat Jane Raybold of Lincoln.

Earlier in the morning, Sen. Fischer toured Community Hospital and discussed health care and reimbursement challenges in the medical field.

She also visited with a group of constituents who have cabins or trailers on federal land around area lakes. Many of those property owners have been told that they must remove their trailers as their leases would not be renewed. Sen. Fischer is gathering information from the trailer owners. She said that she has a number of action items that she will be pursuing to come up with a solution.

The Gazette asked Sen. Fischer about other issues important to area residents:

Farm bill - has passed in both the House and Senate. As a member of the Agriculture Committee, Sen. Fischer said that she wanted the farm bill to focus on three things. First she wanted to be sure that crop insurance was in place to provide a safety net for ag producers. Secondly, she wanted to be sure that priority was given to broadband deployment. A third accomplishment of the new farm bill was to condense four trade promotion programs into one. “I think that’s going to offer more efficiency and also better promote opportunities for trade.”

Tariffs - Sen. Fischer would like to see quicker movement from the administration in their dealings with Mexico and Canada and changes to NAFTA. She has had several face-to-face meetings with President Trump, as well as Secretary of Commerce Wilber Ross and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Purdue. “I was hoping we would have a resolution by now, so I”m a little disappointed we haven’t seen that yet,” Fisher said. “We need to make sure we secure our markets and develop new market opportunities.”

Agriculture Bailout - Concerning President Trumps suggestion that ag producers receive government assistance to lessen the economic impact of the trade challenges, Sen. Fischer said, “I’m pleased the president recognized that we are facing a lot of challenges now, but farmers I talk to don't necessarily want a handout. We want to make sure that we have our open markets. I want to make sure that I have markets for my beef. It doesn't just affect us in agriculture as ag producers, it affects everyone in the state. This state depends on agriculture for our economic engine. If we aren't able to market our products, we're going to see negative effects around the state. It's going to affect state budget, it’s going to affect jobs - 1 in 4 jobs are dependent on production agriculture. We need to get the trade situation right.”

Affordable Care Act - A recent news release stated that Medica would have a modest premium rate increase, around 2.7 percent. Sen. Fisher admitted that that was good news, considering the previous two years of premium increases were around 53 percent and 31 percent. But she also stated that Nebraska only has about 5,000 people on the ACA exchanges. “It’s a very small number and look at the upheaval for everyone in Nebraska.” Sen. Fisher said that over 40,000 people don’t take insurance in Nebraska.

She said that health care is an issue that Congress has been unable to resolve, but that the nation couldn’t continue on the road it’s on. She said that insurance costs have gone up considerably for people in the age group between 50-64, citing examples of people paying $30,000 annually for insurance and $12,000 for deductibles.

“I see a solution in people being able to pick the insurance that they need. Why should an older person pay for maternity insurance? Why can't we carry insurance across state lines and have portability. Why are we locked in with one insurer. Why can't we come together and form health care associations. If you work for the government, or are a teacher, or work for big business, they get better deals on their policies because they have big numbers. Why can't self-employed people, people in agriculture, be able to come together to do that. There's a number of things we've been talking about for years, but haven't been able to get the support in Congress to make changes.”

Tax Reform - Sen. Fischer said that tax reform has been a positive thing for Nebraska businesses. “Businesses are hopeful. They are seeing opportunities to expand and offer more jobs.” She also said that individuals are seeing more in their take-home pay. According to Sen. Fischer, the full effect of the tax reform may not be evident until people file their taxes for 2018 by April 15, 2019.

Paid family leave - Sen. Fischer is very happy about an historic pilot program that was part of the tax reform bill. The program offers a 25 percent tax credit to businesses that offer paid family leave. The bill is targeted to benefit hourly employees making less than $75,000 per year. They would be able to take time off, not just for maternity or paternity leave, but also for doctor appointments or to care for an aging parent.

Rather than be a government mandate, the program is voluntary. It is a pilot program, which will give Congress time to gather data to see how many businesses take advantage and what employees are benefitting. They are currently waiting for the Treasury Department to finalize the rules on the bill. It is currently a 2-year program, but Sen. Fischer would like to see a 5-year program to “give us time to gather data.”

Russia Investigation - “Most people would agree that the Russians were active in the last election. They were trying to influence the election. I think their main purpose was to sow discord in this country. If that was their main goal, they certainly accomplished it, because we are very polarized as a country, and that's not healthy for us.”

However, Sen. Fischer also stated that our election system in the United States if very strong, partly because each individual state runs its own election. Because it’s not all connected through one big system, there are better checks on the system. “They did not, as far as I know, change any votes. They did not get into the election systems within states.”

Sen. Fischer admitted that addressing the problems of meddling, while still maintaining free speech rights was a challenge. Most, if not all, of the Russian activity in the last election happened through social media.

Sen. Fischer will spend the rest of this week traveling across Nebraska before returning to Washington D.C. next week.

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