WASHINGTON, D.C. – Just over a week after Congress passed a roughly 900-page tax and spending bill, called the “Big Beautiful Bill,” Idaho U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher fielded questions about it from constituents at a telephone town hall Tuesday evening.
Fulcher touted the legislation, driven by President Donald Trump’s policy priorities, as achieving the president’s major goals including increasing funding for border security and immigration enforcement, extending tax cuts passed during the president’s first term, boosting domestic oil and gas while rolling back incentives for wind and solar production, and making major changes to Medicaid.
“I think it’s really important to point out that we were able to bend the spending trajectory down, that was really important,” Fulcher said during the town hall. “The overall spending is not down, but the rate of growth is.”
The Idaho callers also asked questions about immigration, federal land ownership and more.
Idaho constituent asks Fulcher about health care access
A Coeur d’Alene man asked the congressman what he would do to improve access and affordability of health care.
“I’m a cancer survivor,” the caller said. “I am the widow of a cancer fighter. I’ve lost parents that have needed lots of health care. … It’s so incredibly difficult to understand the cost of health care, to shop it, to try and find lower costs.”
He said his son-in-law works as a social worker for Idaho Youth Ranch and cannot afford insurance for his wife and baby, and his wife has had to obtain their coverage through the state marketplace established through the Affordable Care Act.
Fulcher, who acknowledged that he also survived cancer, said that health care control should shift more to the consumer.
“The government has gotten involved in our health care so much that what we’ve learned that the last thing you want is the collective me, as in we, making your health care decisions,” Fulcher said.
He also highlighted the new work requirement for Medicaid added in part of the budget bill as a step toward keeping that program “solvent for the people it was targeted for.”
Idaho health care advocates have argued the work requirement when implemented in other states tends to drop eligible participants through burdensome paperwork and reporting requirements rather than improving employment outcomes.
Fulcher said his office was open to recommendations on improving access from constituents.
Another caller suggested allowing health care plans to be purchased across state lines.
“If I want to buy from a Florida company, why am I forced to buy one from Idaho? So we can compete and get prices down,” he said.
Fulcher responded that he believes that change would need to be addressed locally.
Fulcher says he supports state management of federal lands
Benewah County Commissioner Bob Short asked if there were any proposals to compensate counties with large swathes of Native American reservation land — which do not generate property tax revenue for those counties.
Fulcher noted that this is an issue local jurisdictions across Idaho face, because nearly two-thirds of the state’s land mass is owned by the federal government. However, some jurisdictions receive payment in lieu of taxes and money from the Secure Rural Schools program to provide districts with payments to offset lost property tax revenue.
There is no equivalent program for counties that encompass reservations; the federal government holds the title for most of these lands, but the beneficial interest remains with the tribe, according to the U.S. Department of Interior.
Fulcher said that any of these programs to offset costs are “becoming more and more difficult to get support for in Congress.”
“And the reason why is, it technically is a subsidy from other states into Idaho,” Fulcher said. “And the states that don’t have all that federal land, and members of Congress that are from those states don’t want to subsidize us any more, so we’ve got a real challenge on our hands.”
Fulcher went on to say he supported states taking over management of federal lands, such as those controlled by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. He said the agencies tasked with managing those parcels, which in Idaho totals more than 34 million acres, are “overwhelmed.”
“We’ve got to somehow get more local stakeholder control, not necessarily transferring ownership, I’m not advocating for that,” he said. “Public lands need to stay public, but it needs to be controlled locally.”
Fulcher, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, voted in favor of an amendment to the large budget bill that would have sold off thousands of acres of federal lands in Nevada and Utah, the Idaho Press reported. The proposal was later removed from the final bill.
A fellow member of Idaho’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, proposed an amendment to block the sale; Fulcher voted against the amendment and was the only member of the delegation to not receive a thank you letter from Idaho Republican lawmakers for protecting public lands, the Sun reported.
Valley County commissioner advocates for legal immigration reform
Fulcher highlighted that the budget bill supported tackling illegal immigration, but Valley County Commissioner Sherry Maupin asked the congressman what was going to be done to improve pathways for legal immigration.
“Idaho does need workers,” Maupin said. “The illegal immigration issue has been so large for the last four years that we need to reform legal immigration.”
Fulcher cited the past Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would have provided a legal pathway for agricultural workers to receive temporary status with the option to eventually become a permanent resident. The bill passed the House in 2021, with Fulcher voting against it.
He said Tuesday the bill stalled because the “border was opened up” under the policies of former President Joe Biden. Fulcher said the bill, which has been re-introduced this year with the support of Simpson, would be a likely starting point for potential reforms.
This story first appeared on Idaho Capital Sun.
