Rep. Crawford says OB3 act good ‘for everybody’; expects Senate to conform

U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Jonesboro, thinks the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” passed by the House this week will have a broad positive impact on his constituents, and he believes the measures drawing the most criticism – Medicaid and SNAP reforms – will result in better solvency for the programs.

“I think it’s a good bill for everybody. I mean, it’s good for America from the standpoint of extending those tax cuts that were part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act back in 2017 that helped everybody out so much,” he said.

“There’s a laundry list of really good things that are going to, I think, accelerate our economy and really do some good things just for people’s, not only for the macro economy, but people’s own personal economy. The more money that they can keep in their pocket, what they bring home at the end of the week, at the end of the month, whatever, those kinds of things have a little more control over some things at home, keep your expenses down. Real income should go up and things like that. So I think it’s a win for everybody involved,” added Crawford, a guest on this week’s D.C. Edition podcast.

Congressional members are calling the bill “OB3” and Crawford said he expects the Senate to not tinker too much with what the House passed, although some Republican senators are already pushing back.

“Anytime we’re sending something over to the Senate – and even if they drafted the bill themselves – we could pass it out of the House and send it back over and then they’d go, ‘Oh yeah, we left something out’ or ‘we’re going to fix this.’ That’s just the nature of it, and that’s fine, but I don’t think they’re going to stray too far from this because they obviously know that not only do we have thin margins, so do they,” he said.

The House passed the bill by a one-vote margin, 215-214, so any changes in the Senate could complicate a conference bill that will inevitably have to pass the House again.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the House measure would add roughly $3.8 trillion to the nation’s $36 trillion debt over the next decade. Crawford disagrees with the assessment and thinks their debt calculation is too speculative.

“I’m not going to try and get into an argument with CBO, although CBO rarely gets it right. I mean, they’ve got a function that tries to keep their scoring system as we’re doing legislation that has a cost to it,” said Crawford. “They’re the analysts who will put a figure to it. And in many cases, I don’t even know that there’s a way that they can even quantify some of the economic impact that is associated with some of the legislation that comes out from a tax perspective from the out years. I mean they have formulas, but it’s all speculation. Occasionally they get it right, but just as often they get it wrong.”

Crawford answered critics of OB3 who claim the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) will negatively impact many Congressional districts, including his. Most analyses indicate as many as 200,000 Arkansans could lose health care and nutrition benefits, and the state could lose close to $1 billion in federal funds over the next 10 years. The First District Congressman said the reforms in the House-passed bill will help curtail waste and fraud in the system.

“It gives me confidence is the fact that Arkansas is doing it right. And Arkansas could be a model for the rest of the country, quite frankly. They’re doing a really good job of managing what is a state-federal partnership and they’re treating it like a partnership. They’re being better stewards with those federal resources. They’re ponying up their share of it. They’re doing a good job administering the program and it’s the same thing on the nutrition side,” he said.

Listen to Crawford’s full interview at this link.