Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Arkansas Times, and Little Rock Public Radio.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Donna Terrell.

President Trump's domestic policy agenda is now in the hands of the Senate after passing two weeks ago in the House.

But the bill is facing challenges from many within his own party because of the cost.

It could have significant changes by the time it gets back to the house.

So joining me from Washington is U.S. Representative Steve Womack, a Republican of Arkansas third congressional district.

Congressman Womack, thank you so much for joining us for this discussion.

Yeah, Donna, it's great to be with you.

Always enjoy being on Arkansas Week.

And again, look forward to the conversation.

Likewise.

Let's start off with what's happening in the Senate with many Republicans who are not viewing this as a big, beautiful bill.

Some saying it will add trillions to the federal deficit.

What do you say to that?

Well, we certainly hope when it comes back it's not one big beautiful bust.

But look, the house has acted as everyone knows.

We have passed H.R.

one, the big, beautiful bill, as we call it, and we've sent it over to the Senate.

And the Senate will have an opportunity to adjust that bill to whatever, whatever extent they deem necessary.

There are some sticky points in the discussion, and these haven't changed over time.

Maybe the degree to which we're dealing with these issues changes a little bit, but the issues are the issues Medicaid.

How much to cut on Medicaid, how to cut Medicaid?

It's the first real opportunity that we've had in a couple of generations or more to be able to deal with the significant drivers of the deficit and the debt that we face today.

And that's on the mandatory side that we're spending leisure.

So Medicaid is in play.

The food stamp, the Snap program is also going to face some cuts and some readjustment, some reprograming and pushing a little bit more of that responsibility down to our states.

And then there's a significant challenge going on right now with the state and local tax deduction.

As you know, in 2017, when we passed the initial round of cuts, we limited the state and local tax deduction to $10,000.

And in the more recent negotiations, primarily based on influence from members of our conference who hail from high tax states, namely New York, new Jersey, California, we've moved that state and local tax deduction up to $40,000.

And that does not sit very well with some of our GOP senators, because I don't think there is a senator.

In in the US Senate today that comes from what I would call a high tax state.

And so therefore, subsidizing high tax states with bigger tax relief is certainly not something that they are anxious to do.

So so Donna, this is the bottom line.

We passed the bill in the House.

215 in favor, 214 opposed, including a member of our Republican conference.

And then there was one Republican that voted present.

So 215 to 14 to one.

So you can see there mathematically, the margin is not really significant in the House.

We had two members that failed to vote.

One allegedly was asleep at the time.

This vote was taking place in the wee hours of the morning.

And then another one came in late and didn't get his vote counted.

So even if they voted yes, you're still looking at about a three seat spread there.

So if you make a significant change to any of the topics that I just mentioned and notice I haven't even discussed the green energy credits and some of the other, things that are in the bill that could cause some concern, even if, they make changes over there in the Senate and send it back to the House, there's no guarantee there's going to pass the House.

And then on top of all of that, Donna, as you know, as we do this interview 24 hours ago, Elon Musk came out and basically trashed the bill.

And basically in a text or in a tweet said, kill the bill.

So what influence does that have on the members when this bill comes back to us from the Senate, in whatever form?

And what some of these outside external influences might have on its outcome still up in the air.

Too early to speculate.

You know, it's very interesting because you just covered like five of the questions that I had for you on this.

Well, I've talked with them before, so I kind of know where this conversation is going.

You certainly do.

So I'm going to back up just a little bit here and talk about Medicaid and food stamps, Snap and all of the above when you're talking about that.

Yeah.

You have a lot of senators who are concerned and they don't want to touch, you know, something that is so highly valuable to a segment of our society and many, many Arkansans who rely on this.

So where was it when you were voting yes for this bill?

What was it that made you think that you could say yes to something that could affect so many people who rely on Medicaid?

Well, the answer to the question is, I didn't come to Washington to impose a massive tax increase on the people that I represent.

And if we don't pass this bill and if we don't have an answer to the expiring tax cuts that were passed in 2017, which I voted for, if we don't pass this bill, then everybody that I represent in the third district of Arkansas is going to suffer a major tax increase at the end of this year.

And quite frankly, I, I, I'm just opposed to increasing the tax burden on everyday Americans in the third district of Arkansas.

I do also believe that there are changes, structural changes that need to be made to our social safety net system because it accounts for over 70% of all federal spending, and it's on autopilot.

And, Donna, we're $37 trillion in debt.

And the debt service payment this year on that $37 trillion.

And for those of you watching at home, that would be that category of minimum payment due if you got a credit card bill.

That amount is going to be roughly $1 trillion this year.

This is not a sustainable path that we're on.

And tough choices have to be made.

So so I think it begins with eliminating waste, fraud and abuse.

And there's a bunch of that going on across the spectrum of federal spending.

And we have to ask our states to probably pick up a bigger share of that burden, which is exactly what we're doing.

And then we can't do silly things like allowing illegal immigrants in our country to be able to tap into some of these programs.

So I'm answering your question by saying it.

It's not an easy vote because these are difficult decisions, right?

But something has to be done.

And I'm willing to stand in the breach and help put America back on a better fiscal trajectory.

And I'm trying to be careful, Congressman, not to not to cut you off in the middle of your of your sentences.

We have about seven minutes.

So we've used up a lot of time already.

But help me then understand why then are people complaining?

I mean, you talk about, you know, the 70% of our budget and all of this, but people view this bill.

Some Republican senators view this bill as adding to the federal deficit.

And and cutting an area, for people who have so little.

Well, I have a heart for people who are very vulnerable, particularly the elderly, particularly, disabled veterans and those that are handicapped and in suffer from medical disabilities that are beyond their control.

And quite frankly, the reason we're not able to better take care of these vulnerable populations is because we're spending a lot of money for people that don't necessarily fit into some of those categories.

But look, and I think that I think a lot of people will agree with you on that.

The Democrats, Republicans, independents will agree that there are some people who are taking advantage of the system.

And ridding those folks is is what everybody wants to do.

You just want to make sure that that you're not hurting some of the people who who rely on this and have no other, no other means.

But let me just jump to Elon Musk because you talked about him just a moment ago.

How much influence do you think he has because he's been at the forefront for quite a while with the Doge, and now he's, you know, using his bullhorn, social media to get the word out that this bill needs to go back to the drawing board.

What do you say to that?

Well, remember what Elon is concerned about.

And and what he's tweeting about is the fact that it adds so much to the deficit that it doesn't cut enough.

So we can go back to the previous question.

And if left to Elon Musk, there would be a lot more people that would be left out on the street as a result of the cuts that I think that he would champion.

And and look, I'm an appropriator, as you well know.

And so my job is to look after the discretionary budget of the US government.

And, so, sometimes I'm a bit at odds with some of the effort that the Doge people are, trying to accomplish because they go in, you know, Elon stood up with a chainsaw in a convention.

And it's not like the problems that we have with federal spending, rest only on the discretionary side of the US government.

It's about a third of government spending, and you can wipe out every dollar we spend on discretionary spending to include national security.

And you're still going to have a half $1 trillion hole in your fiscal balance sheet.

So, I think we have to do this thing much more carefully.

We got to ensure that the people who are most vulnerable in our society are not left behind.

But at the same time, we don't need to be, propounding a big tax increase on everyday Americans, particularly our middle class.

At the end of this year, when those 2017 tax cuts expire, we probably have about two more minutes left.

You talk about not adding taxes, and certainly Arkansans will jump for joy when we hear that, no one wants more taxes.

But let's talk about the agriculture industry.

What specifically does this bill do to help?

Our farmers?

Well, it depends on who you would ask in terms of the impact it would have on the on the, on the agricultural, production of particularly with regard to snap.

But look, I think on AG, you got to look more to what Senator Bozeman is doing with GT Thompson.

My counterpart or my colleague in the House on writing the next farm bill.

And that farm bill is currently being written.

And and I would defer a discussion about the impact on production agriculture based on what is contained in, in the farm bill, access to markets and and, risk management and those kinds of things.

And that's all something that Senator Bozeman and GT Thompson are working on in.

My colleague Greg Crawford from Arkansas, obviously sits on the ad committee and has a big voice in in that discussion as well.

Well, overall, though, I think we have to be concerned about the cuts to discretionary budget that will indeed come down and harm, production, agriculture, farmers and ranchers in my district and across our state.

We have one minute left.

I'm going to ask you this.

And I was going to ask sooner, but, you know, I mean, when you talk about a bill that's this large, there are always pros and cons, even when you say, yes, I'm going to vote for this because it has enough stuff in here that I agree with.

Is there anything in the bill in its present form that you would disagree with or want to change or think twice about?

Well, one thing that's in the bill that you're going to hear a little bit more about in the coming days, is the fact that it extends to debt ceiling by several trillion dollars, and that is not something that a lot of, very, you know, conservative people.

And I consider myself to be one of those, that that likes to swallow, in, in a big bill like this, it is in there, and it is not something that I would use to vote against the bill.

But at the end of the day, there are some people, some of my colleagues, who are not going to like that, and I think some have already expressed as much, as much sentiment, that, that that could cause them to, look in a different direction on final passage, but, look, 37 trillion in debt, trillion dollar debt service payment, $1 trillion a year that we would be able to use for other things.

But now going to our creditors is just not a sustainable path.

And we have to do something about it.

And they're going to require some tough choices.

And I'm willing to make some of those tough choices and even against the backdrop of some pushback.

But, that's what we're here to do.

Congressman Steve Womack, thank you so much for joining us.

Great conversation.

Nice talking with you.

Thank you, Donna, for the opportunity.

All right.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back everyone.

Work is formally underway to build a new state of the art crime lab.

As technology has evolved so too has the need for a state of the art facility.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Friday in North Little Rock.

And Doctor Ted Brown is the director of the state crime lab.

And he joins me now.

How exciting to get a new state crime lab.

Donna, we're absolutely thrilled.

As I say to our team, our stakeholders throughout Arkansas, this is not just a new chapter in forensic science.

This is a an epic legacy in the making.

What makes it so epic?

Why it's so important, why it's epic is because of the work that we will do for Arkansans, for decades to come.

We started this process back in 2021 with a feasibility study that really took a deep dive into our current crime lab and through that feasibility study.

We learned that the current facility to include ventilation structural capabilities were just inadequate, and we needed to do something bold and transformational to ensure that our team is best positioned to serve Arkansas.

And so this new crime lab that we are just now starting to build over the next two years will be transformational in that it's intent built for a forensic like for a forensic science laboratory, where previously our current laboratory that we're in right now was not built for a laboratory.

We've been, in a way, retrofitting it to make it work for us the best that we can.

But now we are building a laboratory specifically for forensic science.

As a person who works in in television news, you know, we're always talking about bodies being sent to the, to the state crime lab.

And in some cases, you know, you get cold cases and, and you guys have to send the body or samples elsewhere to get information.

Will this change some of that?

And you'll now be able to do the work in-house as opposed to paying for someone else to do it?

100%.

We are.

This building will allow us to increase our capacity, and all the while, ensure that Arkansans are receiving timely, accurate and reliable forensic science work.

Okay, so help me understand.

Let's let's just talk about and I kind of almost hate to, to bring this up, but this is what you guys deal with a homicide.

Yes.

And the body has to be sent to the state crime lab.

We tell our viewers that all the time, and sometimes it takes weeks.

Sometimes police will tell us, oh, it's going to take months.

How does this shorten the time?

Or will it?

It will on a couple of different ways.

One, by having a larger medical examiner office within our Arkansas State Crime Laboratory that we're building, will have more autopsy tables so that more autopsies can be performed every day.

Right now, the efficiency of our morgue is not optimal.

And so we are saying, how many can you do in one day?

So it varies.

It varies based on the complexity of the death.

And so but we are limited in the space that we currently have.

And how many autopsies we can be performing at one time.

The the addition the other big impact that we anticipate this historic investment in forensic science will bring is that it will improve our ability to attract, recruit and retain additional forensic pathologists, forensic scientists, forensic technicians that have a building and are provided the tools inside of this building to perform excellent forensic science work.

And I was going to ask you about that.

This is going to attract people who might not otherwise come here because they could go elsewhere, where there's state of the art, that you have a program, the forensic Pathology Fellowship program.

Explain that how that incorporates with this and how you attract others as well.

Yes.

This is incredibly exciting time here in Arkansas, here at the crime lab.

And their part of that reason is we have founded a new forensic pathology fellowship program.

What this is and this is a a relationship that we have built with UAMs, that we will have physicians that will come train with us for one year.

These are physicians who have completed medical school, have completed four years of pathology residency, and have decided that they want to become a board certified forensic pathologist.

And so the last step of that process is to complete a one year forensic pathology fellowship program, which starting this July, we will be one of 49 forensic pathology programs throughout throughout the country.

And the hope is Donna, that when the fellow, when our fellows come train with us, they'll have they'll receive an excellent education, providing outstanding forensic services to our Kansans.

And let's face it, during the worst day of their life.

Right.

We perform autopsies on our Kansans.

When the circumstances are such that it's sudden, it's unexpected, it's unexplained.

It's suspicious and or violent.

And with that work, there's a great responsibility to one serve our patient.

Our patient happens to be dead.

But around our patient, Donna, as we all know, there are families, there are friends, there are communities that are having the worst day of their life.

And so the opportunity for us and our fellow to provide that service is it's the best part of our jobs.

It's it's a wonderful responsibility to be able to serve our Kansans in this capacity.

And so as our fellow learns the way that we and how we serve our Kansans, the hope is that our fellows will want to stay here and practice.

And so we hope that our forensic pathology fellowship program will be a pipeline of physicians serving our Kansans for years and decades to come.

You know, you it's interesting because you you mentioned your clients and, you know, the patients and their deceased when, when, when they come to you.

I think we should also clarify that it's not always a violent death.

I mean, sometimes it could be a situation where they were in the hospital and, and something caused them to die.

And families say, well, I want an autopsy because I want to know exactly how my family member passed.

So you deal with that as well?

Very much so.

And I appreciate you pointing that out, Donna, because yes, we at the Forensic Arkansas State Crime Laboratory, we don't just do violent deaths.

Yeah.

With the our umbrella includes sudden, unexpected and unexplained deaths that very well may be natural deaths.

We also perform a lot of autopsies that involve drug related deaths.

And we have team members at the crime lab beyond the medical examiner section to include our toxicology section.

Our toxicology section is working with the Arkansas drug director, our team, we're committed to go live very soon with an Arkansas drug overdose dashboard.

Donna, we hope that this dashboard allows us to disseminate information, specifically what drugs are and what counties in Arkansas.

Oh, wow.

Quickly, so that our stakeholders, our community champions, know what drugs, whether they're new or emerging drugs or a drug that has been reintroduced into a community so that our boots on the ground, folks, whether that's law enforcement, EMS, have that knowledge.

So that way they can appropriately respond and hopefully prevent future deaths.

That's amazing.

Being that this is going to be state of the art, and with all the new technology and I'm imagining that as technology evolves, you will be able to evolve with it.

Do you suspect that other states will come to you and say, well, you have a better lab than we do?

Could you do this job for us?

We we certainly are open to that.

And I hope that we we set the bar.

We set the bar, that this is where all forensic laboratories should be, and that we invite folks to come to Arkansas so that we can share our knowledge and importantly, data.

While, yes, we're getting this state of the art modern facility, I can't emphasize enough.

It's about the people.

It's about the people in the crime lab that are doing the work.

And Donna, I can't tell you enough how proud I am of the crime lab champion that we have that care so deeply and passionately about the work that they do, because they understand that the work that they are doing impacts real people, real families, and real communities here in Arkansas.

So all of this obviously, I mean, you'll hire more pathologists, but there will be other, I'm sure, ancillary type jobs or support staff that you will need.

So, will there be a big hiring?

Of other people to come in and staff?

We certainly hope so over the years.

Right now, we feel that we have a good a good number of forensic pathologists, forensic scientists, forensic technicians throughout our lab.

But as we continue to see our caseload increase, we anticipate that at some point in the future, we will be advertising for more positions.

Of course, working with our governor, with our legislature to ensure that we are being appropriate stewards of taxpayers money, the land itself, for $1 million.

How much is it costing to build this facility?

So our total budget is $200 million.

Wow.

Yes.

Okay.

It's taxpayer dollars.

Yes.

And so with that as a strong responsibility on us to make sure that everything that we do, all the decisions that we make as we are bringing to life our new crime lab, is that it has Arkansans in mind.

How is this addition going to positively impact Arkansans?

And I know you and I, we have a minute left.

You and I, we were talking, before we started broadcasting this, but you seem to have a strong passion for what you do when the fact that you're here and you're in this leadership position, I do thank you, Donna.

And and why?

Part of the one of the biggest passions I have is that I get to surround myself with champions that really believe in the work that they're doing.

I'll give one example.

I want to highlight our DNA and, and, and, our forensic, other forensic specialists, our DNA team and our physical evidence team members who have over the past years, have reduced our turnaround time for sexual assault kit testing from 8 to 9 months to less than two months.

Wow.

And so that's one example of the passion that they give me that gives me the drive and the work that we get to do.

So you have many more examples.

I want to thank you so much for being with us, Doctor Brown.

Thank you Donna.

All right.

And that's going to do it for us.

Thank you so much for joining us for Arkansas Week.

I'm Donna Terrell.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Arkansas Times and Little Rock publications.

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