The Problem Solvers Caucus is a bipartisan group that hopes to wake stimulus negotiations. The proposal includes another round of stimulus checks, boosted unemployment insurance, and needed aid to cities and states. South Dakota's US Representative Dusty Johnson is part of that group and joins SDPB's Lori Walsh with a look into what this is and the role he plays inside of it.
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Lori Walsh: The Problem Solvers Caucus is a bipartisan group that hopes to wake stimulus negotiations in Congress. The proposal includes another round of stimulus checks, boosted unemployment insurance, and needed aid to cities and states. South Dakota's US representative Dusty Johnson is part of the Problem Solvers Caucus, and he's joining us now with a look into what's happening in Washington now and what we might expect by the end of the year. Welcome, Congressman Johnson. Thanks for being here.
Dusty Johnson: Thanks for having me.
Lori Walsh: So we're all waiting for an announcement. Of course, as we've been told negotiations are going well, but I want to start before we get to that point with you. I want to go back a little bit over the Thanksgiving recess and your first attempts with the Problem Solvers Caucus for COVID relief in September. Give us a little background on how this progress is going with the relief framework that this caucus has put forward.
Dusty Johnson: Yeah, and I was part of a very small number of people, depending on how you count. I guess, four of us who were the architects of the proposal we rolled out in September. And Lori, we had all the momentum in the world behind us, the White House had endorsed it and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and conservative and liberal leaders in the Senate, and then Justice Ginsberg died. And all of the bi-partisan feeling in DC disappeared.
It took us a lot of time to build back that momentum to the point where two weeks ago, almost all of the experts who write for the publications on the Hill said that a deal was impossible. They gave it a 0% chance. And then two Tuesdays ago, eight senators and eight members of the House, including myself, unveiled our revised package. And since then, all the momentum has been in the right way.
We took a lot of heat from leadership. They didn't like rank and file members telling them what to do, but they have adopted our framework, almost lock, stock, and barrel. They're using our numbers, they're using our provisions. And I think there's a 90% chance that we're going to get past it this week. The only substantial changes that leadership at this point has made to our plan is taking out state and local funding, as well as liability protection for businesses. Those are just a bridge too far for one side, and then the other.
Lori Walsh: Tell us a little bit about some of the things that you think need to be part of that plan. And I'm specifically wondering about the extension of deadlines for unused CARES Act money from before. Start there, and then add other things that you think are just really essential that need to be included, in your opinion, in this group's opinion. Really.
Dusty Johnson: Yeah. And if I needed to make a list of 10 things that I thought were most important, that I fought hardest for in these negotiations, absolutely extending the deadlines for tribes and state government, local governments, to be able to better use their CARES Act dollars. That's got to be toward the top of the list. And we did get that in the package, provided things don't fall apart. That's going to provide much needed flexibility for governments that are trying to act responsibly with these dollars. If we make them spend them all in the next two weeks, there's going to be a lot more waste than we want there to be. That's for sure.
And as far as some of the other things that I think are important, Lori, we're still not doing testing in this country like we need to. We need to be doing three million tests a day. We're not. Also vaccine deployment. I know because we are seeing footage and we are hearing stories of people getting the vaccine, there can be a sense that we're at the end. We are not. It is going to be months and months and months before most Americans have that vaccine. We need to invest in the deployment of that vaccine. And we need to make sure that between now and then, we're still being responsible. We're still being kind to one another. And we're getting tested when we need to.
Lori Walsh: I want to go back to something that you said a few minutes ago, which is momentum being stalled and then momentum being moved forward. Is there a sense of what changed? Were there effective things, was it the public unveiling of the relief framework from the Problem Solvers Caucus, and what some thought was a problematic demand from the rank and file? Was it the election? What did you see that you thought maybe shifted that momentum?
Dusty Johnson: Well, it was two pieces. One was persistence. Those of us on the [TIGER 00:04:47] Team that was working most closely with us, we never gave up. We continued to be annoying. We continued to bring this issue to the fore. But then that persistence really unlocked the most critically important piece of the puzzle, Lori, and that is United States senators. House members, we may think we're important, but ultimately what changed the conversation was when we got eight US senators to stand with us and say, this was the right proposal. It did change the narrative. And these were not only moderates or centrists. These were people like Bill Cassidy from Louisiana who has a very conservative record. And I think when Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi saw that we were building momentum, they realized we couldn't be ignored. And frankly, they knew something had to be done as well.
Lori Walsh: What happens in January when a new Congress is seated? Tell us a little bit about the makeup of the Problem Solvers Caucus and your hopes that that kind of bipartisanship and compromise could continue.
Dusty Johnson: The mantra of the Problem Solvers Caucus is a willingness to put country over party. We're proud Democrats and we're proud Republicans, but we're willing to do and say some things that are not popular because we think they're for the good of the country. By definition, Lori, that means that we're going to lose a fair number of races in any given election. And two years ago, a lot of Republican Problem Solvers lost their seats, so the Problem Solvers needed to rebuild. And in November, a lot of Democrat Problem Solvers lost their seats. These wave elections have a tendency to wipe out not only the cobwebs that need to be cleaned out, but sometimes they clean out some valuable implements in the home as well.
We, I think are going to do a little bit of rebuilding, but I also get the sense from the 70 new freshmen coming in that to a degree that we have not seen before, they want to be Problem Solvers. They see the way we have changed the narrative. This is the group that helped to end the longest ever government shutdown last year. This was the group that broke the log jam that was holding up humanitarian aid going to the border. This is the group that ultimately got COVID-19 done. None of us aspire to be Speaker of the House, none of us aspire to have the biggest office or the best title in the Hill. We just want our government to work. And that is a message that I think is going to have even more currency next year than it has had in the last two.
Lori Walsh: I want to talk about a couple other issues that I know that are important to you, and are important to South Dakotans. And one of those is Ben Reifel, and your efforts to have him recognized in Congress is one of those things that flies under the radar during a year of pandemic and electoral politics. Tell us a little bit about your early awareness of Ben Reifel, and what your efforts have been in Congress to see him recognized and acknowledged.
Dusty Johnson: He's an idol of mine, Lori, and I know that our country has a long ways to go in race, and we have lots of things in our history to not be proud of, but I don't think we should allow that focus on improvement to distract us entirely from the successes of the past. Ben Reifel was a brilliant and focused person. He also happened to be Native American. Grew up in abject poverty, no indoor plumbing on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, or I'm sorry, the Rosebud Indian Reservation, and just a remarkable person. And for much of the 1960s, I think he could have laid claim to being our nation's most influential Native American. And he had my office. He had the seat representing South Dakota for 10 years, throughout the entirety of the 1960s. He was also then later the administrator of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This is a real leader for America.
And I think because he had an understated way of doing business, he didn't talk like his hair was on fire, he wasn't scandal ridden, he just did his job. He was a workhorse, not a show horse. And as a result, I think at times, maybe South Dakota hasn't appreciated his contributions. And I think particularly for South Dakotans who grew up poor, I didn't have means, and Reifel didn't have means. And I think for other children growing up in South Dakota, particularly in Indian country, for them to be able to see his name on federal buildings in Rosebud, I think will remind them that the sky is the limit. No matter what your family looks like, no matter where they live, you have an opportunity to contribute.
Lori Walsh: You mentioned the history in America of racism. And I wanted to bring your attention, if you haven't already seen, to some death threats that were issued against one of our South Dakota reporters at Rapid City Journal. A reporter named Arielle Zionts, who is Jewish, received a death threat and hate mail that was very anti-semitic. And you've spoken out about how we talk about journalists in this country and the consequences of that. And I just wanted to give you an opportunity to address that kind of threat of violence against a South Dakota reporter and a South Dakota newsroom from this person. FBI is involved, in case you didn't know. They are taking the, the, the threat very seriously. But I wanted to give you an opportunity to address that, the words of violence used against journalists in this nation and coming home to South Dakota in a new way.
Dusty Johnson: Arielle is a hardworking journalist, and I have reached out to her and offered my apologies. I think all decent people should be disgusted by those words. They are hard to comprehend that somebody could think them, much less put them down into writing and send them to another person. That's terrible.
I had coffee yesterday with Rabbi Mendel Alperowitz, who's a rabbi in Sioux Falls, the only rabbi in South Dakota. And he and I did not know at the time about those threats against Arielle, but I of course talked, as we not infrequently do, about the importance of just trying to care for one another, and be decent to one another. Ultimately the person who sent that to Arielle, he lives among us. And I think we need to reach out to everybody in our sphere of influence who are aligned on that this is a time, as much as ever, where we need to try to find common ground and build by making one another stronger, not by making one another weaker.
Lori Walsh: You had a virtual town hall the other day. I want to make sure I clarify that we do not know at this point where the threat came from, if this is a person from South Dakota or in a different state. That is uncertain at this point, in case listeners have not been following that story.
Congressman Johnson, you had a town hall meeting, and I'm wondering if voters still think this election was stolen in South Dakota. What did you learn from that town hall meeting about what voters think about the presidential election, now that electoral college has met? And how do you want to address instilling confidence in American democracy for South Dakotans at this point?
Dusty Johnson: One of the things that I'm most interested in doing in these town halls is asking the participant survey questions, and they can use their keypad to vote, and then I'll announce the results. And I would never say that this is a poll, right? You wouldn't want to assume that the kind of people who would engage in a 40 or a 60 minute town hall meeting over the phone are typical South Dakotans or Americans, right? So don't view this as scientific, but I think it's illustrative when I ask those on the phone if they felt that the election was rigged, I think was the question that was used, 52% said yes. That's a big number. And I think it's disheartening.
We have confidence in our elections, and of course there were irregularities. I know there are some people who want to act like the election was perfect. It wasn't. There were some profound irregularities, but I also think it's important to note that in the 46 court cases that there have been a final judgment in, the Trump campaign is O for 46. 46 times there have been dismissals or withdrawals. And I think it's also important to acknowledge that. Many of these judges were Trump appointees, and Trump's attorney general Bill Barr said there isn't evidence of widespread fraud. And we have Trump's appointed head of election security at the Department of Homeland Security that didn't see any evidence of widespread fraud. And I'm not saying that there wasn't fraud, Lori. What I'm saying is in this country, we prove things in courts of law. And in many of these legal filings in the courts, the Trump legal team stipulated, agreed to facts saying that there was not widespread fraud alleged in that particular legal filing.
I think the frustration that so many South Dakotans have is the substantial gap between what the legal team may say on Twitter, or when the cameras are rolling, and how drastically different that rhetoric is from the actual meat in the legal filings they're making. Many of the legal filings, I think are much thinner than most South Dakotans probably realize. And I just try to shine some light onto that. We have a lot of things we have to fix about elections in this country, Lori, I'm not denying that. There are serious irregularities, and there are some provisions in law, I think, that can be changed to make our elections better. But that is altogether different from widespread fraud.
Lori Walsh: Do you think there were serious or profound irregularities that altered the result of the election? Is that what you're saying?
Dusty Johnson: There is no evidence of that. And they can be frustrating. I've got two friends that are mired in a House race that still has not been called. Former member Claudia Tenney in New York, and then her opponent, current Congressman Brindisi, and it's 12 votes separating them. And last week, 12 votes were found in a desk drawer. And that, I think, should irritate everybody. It is rank incompetence, if there isn't something more nefarious at play. But widespread votes that would change the outcomes of a presidential election, there is not evidence of that on the record in any court.
Lori Walsh: Do you think the hesitation of some Republican leaders to acknowledge President-Elect Joe Biden as the winner until after the electoral college met on Monday, do you think that lent a sheen of legitimacy that is contributing to people's thoughts that the election was stolen?
Dusty Johnson: I don't know, Lori. But I don't think so. Because I have just seen, I mean, there have been some states where a large number of Republican leaders have spoken out, and it didn't seem to have any measurable impact on what Republican primary voters thought about the process. When Fred Upton from Michigan says, there's nothing here, I've looked at the filings, we need to move on, it didn't change in any kind of measurable way what the people in Michigan thought. Ultimately Donald Trump is a tremendous influencer of thought, particularly for people on the right in this country, and his rhetoric, his views, his opinions dominate that landscape to a degree that I don't think we've ever seen.
Lori Walsh: Before I let you go, Congressman Johnson, I did want to circle back to COVID-19 relief potential that we're hoping to hear from really by Friday. Any things that need to be dealt with from a tax perspective? Was there anything in the proposal that you feel is impactful when it comes to taxes for South Dakotans that we should be aware of? Deductions from taxes for PPP, and things like that.
Dusty Johnson: Yes, exactly. And you nailed it, Lori, was one of my top 10, for sure. I think these businesses were grateful to have the paycheck protection dollars so they could pay their employees. And of course, we didn't want those people to hit unemployment and be in economic despair. But the IRS had ruled kind of surprisingly that you were not able to deduct those business expenses paid for by PPP from your income, which meant in essence, that income became taxable. And it really reduced the value of the PPP. At this point, we have fought for and won a change of that tax treatment, in this package. It was a major priority of the Problem Solvers, and unless something goes sideways in the next 48 hours, we're going to deliver that relief for small businesses.
Lori Walsh: For people who say that it is a benefit for wealthier Americans and not those who are less wealthy, what would your response to that challenge be?
Dusty Johnson: Well, I would say the numbers tell a different story. In South Dakota, 22,000 small businesses got these loans. The average loans were $74,000. And the provisions of the loans said that a huge proportion had to be spent on payroll. And so that's $74,000. Again, this is not a massive loan for businesses that were not able to function normally. That's $74,000 went to their employees, much of it. To try to claw that back via higher taxes, I think would be incredibly detrimental to the South Dakota economy right now.
Lori Walsh: Congressman Dusty Johnson, thank you as always for the amount of time you're willing to give us here. We appreciate it.
Dusty Johnson: Always, Lori. Thank you.